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Richard Roeper writes on www.suntimes.com – When my radio partner Roe Conn asked presidential contender Rick Santorum on Monday afternoon about recent reports of him going after the porn industry, the following exchange occurred:
Santorum: “Ha! Hold on one second, hold on one second. I wasn’t talking about the porn industry. We get questions on our web site … and we post responses …
“I didn’t even realize, candidly, that this was a posted response … and to suggest I’m running on this issue is sort of bizarre.”
Conn: “I’m not suggesting you are, but it was a bit of a firestorm…”
Santorum: “The media likes to make firestorms out of nothing. All I said in that post was, I would enforce the law. Now if that becomes big news, that the president is going to enforce the law, and that causes a firestorm, that is pretty pathetic.”
Roeper: “I think the statement that caused the media to pay attention is, ‘While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over families and children, that will change under a Santorum administration.’ ”
Santorum: “That’s right, because unlike the Bush administration, which had a very aggressive policy under their attorney general to prosecute pornography, this administration has not done so. That’s just a fact.”
Couple of things here. First of all, even in the heated rhetoric of campaign hyperbole, it’s unconscionable and shameful for a candidate to claim “Obama’s Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over families and children.” Does anybody really believe there are men and women in the halls of justice that hold that philosophy?
First, there’s a difference between child pornography laws and obscenity violations involving adults. But when Santorum’s own website says the Dept. of Justice is favoring pornographers over family and children, how can one not infer he’s NOT talking about pornography aimed at and exploiting children?
Just the facts, sir
Fact is, child porn prosecutions in the U.S. have increased more than 40 percent from 2006 (when Bush was president) to 2011 (when Obama was president).
This isn’t because one president is more concerned with the issue than the other. It’s more likely the result of Congress passing mandatory sentences, federal authorities making these cases a priority over the last decade and the development of high-tech methods that make it easier to identify and snare child pornographers.
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a 2,500 percent rate of increase for child porn arrests, according to the FBI.
This is NOT an area in which the government has been sliding back.
As for acts involving consenting adults engaging in a variety of acts that confirm America’s (And the Rest of the World) Got Talent, Santorum says the country is suffering from “a pandemic … 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. … 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.”
A War on Porn? Good luck with that.
Of course if any child is exploited, if any laws are broken during the making of a movie, if anyone is forced to do something against her will — that’s illegal, that should be prosecuted. And of course there’s much about porn that is degrading, depressing, disgusting and damaging to the soul.
But when it comes to defining pornography, “I know when I see it” is in the eye of the beholder. Is Santorum going to start with banning the works of Sasha Grey and keep going until he gets to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? And do we really want the guy in the sweater vest to decide what’s porn and what isn’t?