ARCANUM, Ohio — As XBIZ reported yesterday, an Ohio state representative has just introduced a version of religiously inspired legislation in an attempt to push her state legislature to declare pornography “a public health hazard with statewide and national public health impacts leading to a broad spectrum of individual and societal harms.”
Ohio is now on the way to becoming the 17th U.S. state in three years to pass a version of a Utah-inspired, Trump-era-GOP-backed bill absurdly declaring porn “a public health crisis.”
The 16 U.S. states that have signed up for this headline-baiting, unscientific charade are: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia, plus Texas, which has held hearings about it.
This supposed “health crisis,” as has been pointed out ad nauseam, is completely made up. There is no verifiable link between watching pornography and “addiction,” however one wants to scientifically define it, and there is no evidence for conflating the production of adult, consensual pornography with “sex trafficking.”
An observer of national U.S. politics would be mystified to understand why this ridiculous piece of Victorian legislation, with echoes of “public hygiene” and pseudo-eugenics language that has been long discredited by the scientific community, keeps reappearing, state by state, month by month since Utah passed the original version in 2016.
They would be mystified, that is, if they were unaware of the well-funded War on Porn being waged by a low-profile coalition of religious fanatics, for-profit propaganda outlets, “leadership summits” and more mainstream “conservative” politicians, oftentimes in alliance with supposedly progressive SWELs (Sex Worker Exclusionary Liberals) and SWERFs (Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists).
Which brings us to the 25-year-old (turning 26 on Christmas Day) political wunderkind who has just introduced the Ohio anti-porn bill.
Meet State Representative Jena Powell.
The Billboard Queen of Darke County
Born in 1993 in Arcanum, Ohio — in the Faulknerian Darke County — Jena Powell is what would be considered a “late millennial.” At 25, she is only a couple of years older than the arbitrary cut-off birth year that would make her a Gen-Z.
Powell was elected in November 2018 to the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican for the 80th district, in the western part of the state, bordering Indiana.
In an area of Ohio regularly described by the local and national press as “Trump Country,” Powell won by a landslide. The inexperienced, first-time candidate beat other primary contenders, including more moderate Republicans backed by then-Governor John Kasich and the state party machine, and went on to pummel the Democratic candidate with 75 percent of the vote.
Before her shocking victories in the primary and the general election, the twentysomething Powell was described as “vice president of sales and marketing at [a] family-run billboard start-up based in Greenville.”
The “billboard startup” in question is Huntington Outdoor, a company started a decade ago by Jena’s brother, Justin Powell. The company controls hundreds of highway-adjacent billboards all around Ohio and Indiana.
Justin Powell hired several of his siblings for Huntington Outdoor, right after their graduation from family alma mater Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia.
After graduating from Liberty University with a business marketing degree, Jena Powell joined the Greenville, Ohio-based Huntington Outdoor. She actively promoted the company and the concept of “outdoor marketing” to small businesses and churches in the area as preferable to more costly TV advertising.
She also contributed pieces to Billboard Insider, the industry trade publication. In March 2018, a few weeks after declaring her run for the 80th district primary, Jena Powell wrote a blog post for Billboard Insider extolling the value of inspirational travel:
Billboard advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing, but old doesn’t have to mean boring and lacking creativity. […]
How does a company stay creative when the product so often feels the same? You travel, you see the world, you visit new places, you take in new air.
So that is what I did.
Since billboard advertising is an old form of advertising I thought the best place to spark my imagination would be an old city itself. So I grabbed a flight to Europe and traveled around France, Spain and Rome.
I toured the Louvre, ate pastries and explored the city. While wandering the city, our eyes glazed with the newness of it all, I also came upon familiar sites. Billboards. Billboards everywhere. […]
Sometimes […] we need to step outside our normal routine, walk the streets of Paris, and wonder upon a city of light… and billboards.
If this sounds more like the musings of an average 24-year-old enjoying a post-collegiate vacation than the thoughts of someone about to be projected to national prominence with the backing of powerful religious/conservative lobbies (months after the “city of light... and billboards” post, Jena Powell would be named one of Forbes’ 2019 “30 Under 30” for Law & Policy), it is because there’s something very rushed about the sudden rise of this anti-porn crusader.
This is the bio that Forbes provided: “Jena Powell sold her first company before turning 20 in order to start [a] billboard company, with her brother. Although the company owned over 450 billboards in Ohio and Indiana, Powell was frustrated with local zoning policies. This inspired the young Republican to run for office for the first time in 2018. As the youngest state representative in Ohio, she promises to reduce regulation, cut taxes, enact pro-life legislation and defend Second Amendment rights.”
Incidentally, it is unclear what sort of “first company” she sold to “start a billboard company” before she turned 20 in 2013. Her brother started Huntington Outdoor in 2008, when Jena was 15.
There are shades of a fundamentalist Christian version of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes in Jena Powell’s suspiciously Junior-GOP-ready, vertiginous origin story.
Called to Speak Forth Truth
In February 2018, when the 24-year-old announced her challenge to the Ohio GOP establishment, she told a journalist she was running for office “because government rules and regulations are strangling opportunity and eroding local control of our schools, our communities and our country” and because “establishment politicians in Columbus are more interested in protecting the status quo than listening to us.”
When the reporter asked Powell if there was “one issue in particular which she hopes to address if elected,” the same woman now trying to drum up a phony public health crisis against sexual expression said, “Government overreach. Government overreach effects [sic] each and every one of us, whether we realize it or not. It stifles innovation and competition. An oversized government doesn’t lift its people up, it suppresses them. My number-one priority, if elected, will be to turn the tide of government overreach and return the power and freedom back to the people.”
Once elected, though, Jena Powell’s priorities became more specific. According to a PR-approved “article” circulated in religious-right circles, she explained that "like many of her constituents, she had become frustrated with the Statehouse 'establishment' despite its Republican credentials, especially during former Gov. John Kasich's second term."
She blamed Kasich, specifically for not being anti-abortion enough (i.e., vetoing "heartbeat" legislation) and for expanding Medicaid ("It's making it extremely expensive for people with private health insurance," the allegedly Christian legislator told a reporter).
Powell then cited “her Christian faith as the primary driver behind her approach to public service, including her position on abortion.”
"We're called to speak forth truth into culture. That does inform my outlook on what I do," she stated. "As a legislator, it's my job to fight for those who don't have a voice. This is a huge deal to Ohio and very fundamental to where we stand as Republicans."
She advocated defunding Planned Parenthood and giving the money to religiously inspired “crisis pregnancy centers,” or, better yet, lowering taxes because “those dollars would do even more good in the generous pockets of everyday Ohioans.”
Although there is no evidence whatsoever that Darke County has a porn-related public health crisis, even a cursory look at the police activity in the area reveals that there is a massive public crisis related to the manufacture, sale and consumption of Oxycontin, heroin and fentanyl.
Jena Powell’s take is that this “drug epidemic” is linked to “illegal immigration,” one of many areas in which she echoes the Trump administration. "I do support the president's agenda,” she told the reporter, before explaining that she meant opposing Ohio sanctuary cities like Columbus, Dayton, Lima and others.
As for HB180, her bill to “declare pornography a public health hazard,” she said that it “addresses the market for risky sexual encounters spurred by lurid online images lacking any controls.”
"Ohio is the fourth worst state for sex trafficking, and the U.S. has the number-one demand for sex trafficking in the world," she added.
Pajama Media
Less than a year before she announced her primary run, a 23-year-old Jena Powell blogged about her social notions for PJ Media, aka Pajama Media, a platform started by right-wing activists and GOP political operators during the George W. Bush presidency to spread conservative, libertarian and religious talking points.
Powell was listed as a PJ Media “columnist” and this was her 2017 bio:
“Jena Powell is co-founder of Blue Ash Media, a digital advertising company in Southwest Florida and VP of sales at Huntington Outdoor Advertising, a Midwest-based outdoor billboard company. She stays up-to-date in the political world through her involvement with Forge Leadership Network. She has a passion for small business, marketing, the Gospel and politics.”
Florida-based Blue Ash Media is also listed as one of Justin Powell’s companies, but it is generally de-emphasized in their communications in favor of Huntington Outdoor.
The Forge Leadership Network is a right-wing political action, training and recruiting organization co-founded by Justin Powell.
One of the articles Jena Powell wrote for PJ Media was a peculiar pseudo-obituary for Hugh Hefner entitled “Hugh Hefner Won the Sexual Revolution, But It Doesn't Have to Stay That Way,” published in September 2017.
The piece is important given her current anti-porn crusade because it paints a strange picture of contemporary moral values:
“Overnight, the news erupted with the death of American icon and Playboy founder Hugh M. Hefner,” Powell wrote. “Hefner changed how culture views individuals, bringing into America the ‘Playboy philosophy.’ His sexual revolution changed the world for both men and women, the bar for what both genders ought to be suddenly and frantically changed. Hefner threw honor and dignity out the window, in return for wealth and women.
“The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953 with a nude pinup shot of Marilyn Monroe, and since that day, things have never been the same. Pornography has become commonplace, and it is tearing apart the very foundation of a thriving society, the family.”
According to Powell, Hefner “started a culture war and sadly, both the Left and the Right lost. The Playboy Mansion is no longer an anomaly — it’s the norm. Homes are falling apart, men are unfaithful, churches have lost vision on what Truth is. We’ve watered down the gospel in all areas of life and society is groaning under the weight of sin.”
The young woman who in less than six months would launch a meteoric political career wrote that out of the ashes of Hugh M. Hefner a new Christian world could rise like some Messianic phoenix of chastity.
“The death of the ‘Playboy philosophy’ can be here and it can be now,” Powell declared. “Christians know what ‘success’ is and where freedom can be found. Today is the day followers of Jesus die to themselves and to the current philosophy of Hugh Hefners’ [sic] ‘success and freedom.’”
A Disproportionate Stake in the Landscape
To find where Jena Powell’s apocalyptic, ahistorical (Hugh Hefner invented cheating?) notions originate, one need only take a look at her less high-profile brother, Huntington Outdoor’s CEO, Justin Powell.
His company boasts of owning 600 billboards around the state, specializing in smaller structures that usually hold two small-business signs. Needless to say, these signs can be easily weaponized for political campaigns or religious propaganda during electoral periods.
Powell has told the story of analyzing what kind of new businesses he could start after graduating from Liberty University and almost randomly settling on billboard advertising. This story seems doubtful given that the billboard market, in the Midwest and the South in particular, is a coveted battleground for political and religious messaging, something that the Christian activist Powell siblings would have been more than aware of.
Since 2003, when anti-porn billboards were loudly set up to disrupt sex stores in Missouri's Pulaski County, this grassroots medium has mushroomed. In Ohio, billboards are so central to the political-religious conversation that its most famous sign, reminding motorists between Cincinnati and Columbus that "HELL IS REAL," has its own Google Maps landmark, and has generated many journalistic stories and memes.
"According to reports from some of the country’s most prolific religious and atheistic billboard advertisers," a Fader article explained in 2016, "thousands of billboards about God and religion have appeared along America’s roadways every year since the turn of the 21st century — and the numbers appear to be growing."
The overwhelming majority, the article added, "carry an evangelical Christian message" with "one of the biggest groups evangelizing via billboards today" being an Amish-Mennonite non-profit organization called Christian Aid Ministries (CAM), based in Berlin, Ohio. As the writer pointed out, "the sheer number of evangelical billboards claim a disproportionate stake of the landscape."
In 2007, an Ohio trucker told Reuters he took comfort from the billboards. “I believe in Jesus, I believe in free speech,” he said. “These Liberals are trying to get religion out of everything. To me, the more religion is broadcast the better.”
A Time to Go on the Offense
Justin Powell’s resume describes him as founder and CEO of Huntington Outdoor, Blue Ash Media and the Aurora Marketing Group. It is much harder to find information about his involvement in Blue Ash and Aurora, but they both appear to be communications companies.
Like his sister Jena, Justin attended Liberty University, where he graduated with a Business Management degree. He serves on the board of Ohio Christian University and leads Crossing, a youth ministry.
Before starting his billboard business, Justin Powell served as the director of social media for the Family Research Council. In 2012, he co-founded Ohio Conservative Review, which he describes as “a platform for conservative beliefs to be expressed, debated and promoted in Ohio.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “the Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as ‘the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,’ but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians.”
The FRC website regularly features proclamations like “Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed. It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.”
As for the “Forge Leadership Network” mentioned in Jena Powell's PJ media bio, Justin Powell is listed as co-founder and Chairman of this organization targeted to young people and devoted to “creating the next generation of conservative leaders.”
Justin’s sister Jena Powell appears to be the most prominent product of the Forge Leadership Network.
In January 2018 Justin Powell spoke at the “Different, But Not Divided” Bill of Rights Conference at Missouri’s religious College of the Ozarks, where talks included “It’s Time to Go on the Offense: Christian Civil Rights.” Powell’s talk was titled “Activism and the Use of Social Media to Protect Christian Values in America.”
Bringing America Back to Life
Among the Midwestern gatherings that Justin Powell frequents in his role as western Ohio’s conservative wheeler and dealer, an annual event called Bringing America Back to Life stands out.
Bringing America Back to Life is a massive convention described by a co-sponsor as “the premier educational platform for Ohio’s pro-life community.” Justin Powell is listed on the conference’s website as a speaker.
The aim of the conference is “to cultivate a community of individuals and organizations committed to paving the way to restore the purity of life at all stages.”
Bringing America Back to Life is promoted by the Church Militant website — a for-profit, Michigan-based “traditionalist Catholic” propaganda site that has been explicitly condemned by the Archbishop of Detroit. The Detroit Free Press describes Church Militant’s owners as “a fringe group claiming to be Catholic but denounced by the church, [that] broadcasts pro-life, anti-gay, anti-feminist, Islam-fearing content on its website.”
The overlap between extreme-right groups within the Catholic community (which do not adhere to current Vatican teachings) and the evangelical community is part of the ideological stew where anti-porn messaging originates.
The Powell siblings are evangelical Christians and Jena has described herself as "an active member of the Greenville Grace Brethren Church."
The Grace Church credo, posted on their charmingly minimalist website, includes the following terror-inducing lines:
“We acknowledge that we are sinners, we have violated God’s perfect standards. These violations deserve eternal punishment, but God, in His matchless grace, offered His Son as that Sacrifice.”
We Just Need One Legislator
In a moment of rare candor, Todd Weiler, a Republican state senator in Utah, told a reporter how, even though he was fully aware that trying to legislate sexual expression out of existence was a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, he ended up bowing down to the pressure and deceptive tactics of the War on Porn lobby.
First, a “noisy constituent” — described only as “a local dentist” but more likely a well-trained religious activist — contacted Weiler, wanting to know “what he was going to do about pornography.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Weiler says he told her. “I understand the First Amendment, so I was telling her a lot of, ‘We can’t do that, we can’t do that.’”
Weiler said he “changed his tune when the National Center on Sexual Exploitation [NCOSE] approached him with the idea.”
“They told me,” he recalled, “‘If you can pass this, we can get this passed in 15 more states. We just need one legislator to stick his neck out.’”
Weiler managed to get the Utah resolution passed in 2016. By June of this year, the incredibly well funded NCOSE had delivered the promised 15 extra states. The region-by-region erosion of the First Amendment protection of sexual expression, effected via a phony “health crisis,” is well under way.
And now, led by an anti-government, religiously sponsored young activist named Jena Powell, they’re coming for Ohio.
