Ethics & Religion
Column #1904
February 14, 2018
Trump's Enforcement of Porn Laws? None
By Mike McManus

President Trump signed a Children's Internet Safety Presidential Pledge two days before the election to enforce laws against hard core pornography. The opening sentence:

"I promise to uphold the rule of law by aggressively enforcing existing federal laws to prevent the sexual exploitation of children on line including the federal obscenity laws, child pornography laws...and the sex trafficking laws..."

Have you heard of a single action along this line by Trump's Department of Justice?

I have not. Nor have any leaders in the anti-porn movement such as Donna Rice Hughes, whose group, "Enough Is Enough," (http://enough.org) drafted the Presidential Pledge. Before the election Hillary Clinton also wrote a note of support.

Yet there has been zero action thus far - without even a person appointed to lead it.

This is in stark contrast to what happened when Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were presidents. Pat Trueman was the senior federal anti-porn prosecutor. The result? There were 126 convictions on the FBI's list of the top 70 producers of obscene material, such as Vivid Video. Among many who landed prison terms: Ferris Alexander and Reuben Sturman - the biggest pornographers.

"All major pornographers were either put out of business or put in jail," Trueman says.

The result: a dramatic reduction in available porn. "Certain sex acts could not be depicted such as group sex, incest and 'fisting,'" said Trueman in an interview. "It softened the nature of porn and dried up distribution channels in states where there were convictions."

However when Clinton became President Trueman and virtually all of his staff were fired. Democrats believe in sexual freedom.

What are the results? Consider these grim facts:

• The average age of exposure to hard core porn is 11-12 - and leads to low self-esteem.
• Most teens are sexting - sending or receiving explicit pictures of themselves.
• 83% of boys and 57% of girls have seen group sex on line.
• There was a 774% increase of child porn images from 2005-2011.
• Married users of porn are 300 times more likely to have an affair.
• The American Association of Divorce Lawyers say that 56% of all divorces involve the addiction of one spouse to pornography.

Trueman now leads the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (https://endsexualexploitation.org). He was able to set up a meeting for anti-porn activists with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in August. However Sessions has done nothing to enact Trump's Presidential Pledge, and has refused a second meeting.

Trueman launched a strategy to persuade state legislatures to declare "Pornography Is a Public Health Hazard." The first to do was Utah. In the past year, similar declarations were issued by Arkansas, South Dakota, Kansas and Tennessee. It is being given serious consideration by Florida, Maryland, Virginia and 7-8 other states.

What's the value of such declarations?

"The public needs to understand the harms of pornography to generate public support to get obscenity laws enforced," Trueman asserted. When a state legislature debates a porn resolution, "people begin talking about the harms of pornography. We win arguments when the discussion is on the harms of porn," he said confidently.

Ron DeHaas leads Covenant Eyes, which has launched an unusual anti-porn campaign. People who acknowledge they are struggling with porn (70% of men), ask for an Accountability Partner who will help them go straight. Covenant Eyes will assign a partner, and will give that person a report on how often the porn struggler has looked at obscenity on his computer each month.

Result: Their use of porn drops to 1/199th of the population." DeHaas asserts.

Some 300,000 Covenant Eyes pairings have been made in 150 countries, 250,000 of whom are in the U.S. Go to http://www.covenanteyes.com.

I have an alternative suggestion. Consider blocking all hard core porn from your computer at no cost. How? The American Family Association (https://www.afa.net) hired Steve Ensley who had helped 74,000 families by last August protect themselves.

Ron DeHaas is correct in asserting, "Churches need to take the lead. The Barna Poll reported that only 7% had any program to deal with pornography, and 93% have never done anything."

Why? One of my sources asked a group of seminarians who among them struggled with internet porn. EVERY hand went up!

Every porn user must face what is likely to happen. First, he'll suffer from erectile dysfunction, an inability to become aroused by his wife, (while being aroused by porn). Second, his marriage is likely to fail.

But if he stops porn, erectile dysfunction is reversible! That's great news.

Then he can get his church in the battle - and push government to begin enforcing obscenity laws. ___________________________________

Copyright (c) 2018 Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist. For previous columns go to  www.ethicsandreligion.org. Hit Search for any topic.