Santorum: Obama Justice Dept. Favors Pornographers Over Children, Families
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum responded Sunday to a post on his campaign website accusing President Barack Obama of favoring pornographers over children and families. The Obama administration has not been prosecuting purveyors of pornography, Santorum argued.
"The proof is in the prosecution," Santorum said on CNN's "State of the Union." "In the Bush administration, pornographers were prosecuted much more rigorously than they are ... under the Obama administration. ... They have not put a priority on prosecuting these cases and in doing so they are exposing children to a tremendous amount of harm, and ... putting children at risk as a result of that."
Santorum was responding to a question about a posting on his campaign website that reads, "America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography. A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences. Addiction to pornography is now common for adults and even for some children. The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11. Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking. ...
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"The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration."
Santorum gave a similar response to the same question Sunday on ABC's "This Week," where he added that the post was a response to a question sent to his campaign.
"We do something rather unusual in our campaign. When people write into our campaign and ask for our opinions on issues, we actually respond to them and post them up on the website and that's what happened here," Santorum said.
Republicans have previously criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for closing a special task force developed under the George W. Bush administration to prosecute pornographers. Holder said, though, that those duties can best be served by the U.S. Attorney's offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
The Department of Justice announced its National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction in August of 2010. That document specifically mentioned prosecutions for possession of child pornography, but did not mention the adult "hard core" pornography to which Santorum was referring.
A search of the Department of Justice's website over just the last month found many examples of prosecutions for child pornography, but none of prosecutions for adult pornography.
A March 1 press release by the Justice Department says that it successfully prosecuted a California youth counselor who was sentenced to 29 years in prison for producing child pornography, and a March 9 press release says that the department successfully prosecuted three individuals for participating in an international child pornography ring.
