Morton A. Hill

Who was Morton A. Hill?

Father Morton A. Hill, S.J. was a leader of the campaign against pornography in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was one of the founders of Morality in Media, which was created in 1962 to fight pornography. So prominent was the Jesuit priest on the issue, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Father Hill to the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.

Believing that the Commission was stacked with supporters of loosening laws on pornography, Father Hill and another clergyman on the Commission, Dr. Winfrey C. Link, issued the Hill-Link Minority Report rebutting the conclusions of the majority report, which held that pornography should be decriminalized as there were no links between it and criminal behavior.

Issued in 1970, the majority report was rejected by both President Richard Nixon and the United States Congress. The Hill-Link Report, which recommended maintaining anti-obscenity statutes, was read into the record of both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It was cited by the Burger Court in its 1973 obscenity decisions, including Miller v. California.

According to the Morality in Media site, Father Hill was influential in the Reagan Administration's efforts against pornography. In March 1983, he headed a coalition of groups spearheading the anti-pornography movement that met with President Reagan at the White House.