Morton A. Hill
Morton A. Hill, S.J. (1917–1985) was a Catholic priest who led the fight against pornography from the 1960s through the 1980s. He helped start Morality in Media in 1962 to oppose porn. President Lyndon B. Johnson named him to the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Hill and Dr. Winfrey C. Link thought the Commission favored loosening laws, so they published the Hill–Link Minority Report, arguing against decriminalizing porn. The majority report, issued in 1970, said there was no link between porn and crime and was rejected by President Nixon and Congress. The Hill–Link Report urged keeping anti-obscenity laws and was read into the records of both the Senate and the House. The Burger Court cited it in 1973 obscenity rulings, including Miller v. California.
Hill played a key role in the Reagan era’s anti-pornography efforts. In March 1983 he led a coalition that met with President Reagan at the White House and urged appointing an anti-pornography czar to coordinate federal action. A White House Working Group on Pornography formed in June 1983, and in December Reagan called for tougher enforcement of the laws.
Hill also debated novelist Gore Vidal on the David Susskind Show on March 17, 1968, in a program called "Read Any Dirty Books Lately?" Vidal’s Myra Breckenridge had just appeared. In the sequel, Myron, Vidal used Hill’s name as a euphemism for a "dirty word" to fit the Supreme Court’s community standards in Miller v. California.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:51 (CET).