This is sure to result in a rather heated debate:

Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter. “Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16. His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material” on military bases.

National Review’s Katherine Jean Lopez defends the action:

...I like the idea of the american military having nothing official to do with porn. We train our servicemen to protect and defend, in situations in which they often have to face perilous choices as who to protect and defend. Pornography is a grave indignity and degradation of the human person. If a soldier wants to view pornography, it’s his right, but the U.S. military need not provide it to him.

She continues in another post:

I honestly don’t know that a congressional action is appropriate (I naturally hesitate), but I do know that I don’t think that a congressman is a clown to broach the subject and offer a solution. Porn is a problem. Is Playboy less of one than the world wide web of hardcore porn we all have access to right now? Yes. But it’s all dehumanizing. And we should talk about it. It’s not just something people look at privately. It has consequences for honor and integrity.

I think Lopez is making a mistake common to those who wish to push their morality onto others.  There is no doubt that all laws have a basis in morals, but some morals are more universally accepted than others.  For instance, we have laws against rape, theft and murder because so many members of our society have decided that those things are immoral (and that we have certain rights pertaining to life, liberty and property) that we have decided to make them illegal.  No such universal majority exists in the instance of porn, however.

Some feel as Lopez does.  That porn is degrading and dehumanizing.  Others feel that most mainstream porn, while certainly seedy (whether or not it’s inherently seedy or seedy because it’s driven underground by overzealous moralists is a topic for another thread), is little more than entertainment which appeals to basic and perfectly natural human urges.

Given that divide, in a free society choices about porn should be left up to the individual.  Meaning, in this instance, that US soldiers are certainly capable of deciding for themselves whether or not porn is just entertainment or “dehumanizing.” Our troops no more need the government to decide what magazines are appropriate for them to peruse than they need the government to tell them what sorts of foods they can and cannot eat.

As for the assertion that the US military is providing it to them, it’s worth remembering that military BX/PX stores are there as a service and convenience to the soldiers and thus should contain all of the legal items soldiers want to purchase.  Or at least those items which are reasonable to keep in inventory, and Playboy certain falls into that category.