I'm a Texan, a Christian, and a conservative; maybe I can help? Your impressions of Texas are all true, in my experience (though keep in mind that it's a big place and Austin is barely distinguishable from a California city). You're right that the dominant values come into conflict sometimes, with libertarians wanting to protect porn and social conservatives wanting to ban it. The reasons for wanting to ban porn go something like this:
1. Unmarried men will consume it in lieu of putting their sexual frustration to good use by looking for a wife -- or if necessary, working on self-improvement until they're worthy of the kind of wife they want.
2. Married men will consume it while depriving their wives of sexual contact. If necessary, those men should be confronting whatever marital problems are preventing sex from happening often enough to satisfy them.
3. A huge amount of porn production is downstream of major personal and societal tragedies; the actors being threatened in some way is eerily common (just ask Andrew Tate), and even the "consenting" ones often have histories of sexual abuse and unresolved trauma that are tainting their "consent." A hypothetical society where every daughter grows up in a two-parent household, is known and loved by her father, and is never raped, is going to have a major shortage of porn stars.
Jordan Peterson has talked a lot about the downsides of porn, you can find plenty of snippets on YouTube. I'd recommend this if you want to know more about why conservatives oppose it.
We have to keep in mind that half the population has below-average conscientiousness, and will find it very difficult to resist temptations (such as porn) that are daily put in front of them. Christian societies have generally believed that it's good to work together and structure things to minimize the number of such stumbling blocks (to the extent that it's feasible). Banning porn is considered a step towards that goal.
BUT, you're also right that personal liberty is important and might cut against this. My guess is, this bill was framed in terms of age verification to try and work around this; the authors of it are clearly anti-porn, but if anyone asks, they could say "we're not banning porn, just preventing minors from accessing it."
I've noticed some other commenters claiming things like "conservatives are lying about believing X, it's really an excuse to do Y" so let me address that: all of the viewpoints I've described here are very sincerely held, as I know well from many different conversations with people in the community.
1. Unmarried men will consume it in lieu of putting their sexual frustration to good use by looking for a wife -- or if necessary, working on self-improvement until they're worthy of the kind of wife they want.
2. Married men will consume it while depriving their wives of sexual contact. If necessary, those men should be confronting whatever marital problems are preventing sex from happening often enough to satisfy them.
3. A huge amount of porn production is downstream of major personal and societal tragedies; the actors being threatened in some way is eerily common (just ask Andrew Tate), and even the "consenting" ones often have histories of sexual abuse and unresolved trauma that are tainting their "consent." A hypothetical society where every daughter grows up in a two-parent household, is known and loved by her father, and is never raped, is going to have a major shortage of porn stars.
Jordan Peterson has talked a lot about the downsides of porn, you can find plenty of snippets on YouTube. I'd recommend this if you want to know more about why conservatives oppose it.
We have to keep in mind that half the population has below-average conscientiousness, and will find it very difficult to resist temptations (such as porn) that are daily put in front of them. Christian societies have generally believed that it's good to work together and structure things to minimize the number of such stumbling blocks (to the extent that it's feasible). Banning porn is considered a step towards that goal.
BUT, you're also right that personal liberty is important and might cut against this. My guess is, this bill was framed in terms of age verification to try and work around this; the authors of it are clearly anti-porn, but if anyone asks, they could say "we're not banning porn, just preventing minors from accessing it."
I've noticed some other commenters claiming things like "conservatives are lying about believing X, it's really an excuse to do Y" so let me address that: all of the viewpoints I've described here are very sincerely held, as I know well from many different conversations with people in the community.