Social conservatives organized under a coalition called ”War on Pornography” are asking Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute hardcore adult pornography cases.
“The Justice Department ought to be enforcing the laws,” said Patrick Trueman, who was chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the DOJ’s Criminal Division during the George H.W. Bush administration and now runs an advocacy group called Morality in Media.
The fundamentalist Southern Baptist Convention, the world’s largest Baptist organization, is part of the “War on Pornography” coalition, which Trueman said has a million members. The coalition wants the Justice Department to “vigorously prosecute all obscene pornography distributors,” Trueman said in an interview with Main Justice.
Trueman said the Barack Obama administration isn’t prosecuting enough pornography cases. A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice didn’t have an immediate comment.
An anti-porn poster.
Trueman argued that pornography is a federal matter because of laws against interstate commerce of obscenity. He said that even companies like Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. are violating the law with pay-per-view pornography.
Reps. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) and Randy Forbes (R-Va.) wrote to Holder on Feb. 9 asking him to “enforce federal obscenity laws against major commercial distributors of hardcore adult pornography.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) also has urged his constituents to write to Holder. “Research continues to show that hardcore adult pornography is increasingly harmful, addictive, available, and linked to other crimes such as domestic violence and sex trafficking,” Hatch wrote in a letter.
