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Trump Attorney General Pick Said He’d Prosecute Porn. Trump’s Been In Three Of Them

Trump Attorney General Pick Said He’d Prosecute Porn. Trump’s Been In Three Of Them

Future president Donald Trump’s transition to government has encountered a beautiful irony: Trump’s controversial nomination for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is not only a racist, he is an anti-porn crusader, while Trump himself has made cameo appearances in several soft core porn films by Playboy.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) threw a softball question to Sessions during his confirmation hearing today, asking him whether national obscenity laws should be “vigorously enhanced.” Sessions assured Hatch that he will probably revive the Justice Department’s Bush era Prosecution Task Force that was dedicated to prosecuting cases of adult pornography.

President Obama closed down the Task Force; he thought it was more important to devote the government’s efforts to ending child pornography – child abuse and rape caught on film – instead of the wildly popular multibillion dollar industry (especially in Republican states!) of sex videos filmed by consenting adults.

Technically obscene materials are not covered by the First Amendment and can be outlawed by the government. Recently anti-porn obscenity cases have targeted violent and extreme fetish pornography, but some conservatives, including Hatch, are pushing for prosecutions to be expanded to mainstream, nonviolent porn. The far right is simultaneously scheming to throttle access to sexual content that offends their personal values, and championing the Republican Party’s own porn star.

If Republicans really think that pornography is a morally bankrupt pursuit that has created a massive public health crisis (see the official party platform, page 40), one would think that they would not allow a man who is so at ease with porn that he appeared in it to run the country. The irony and hypocrisy is mind blowing. Republicans have made a sport of championing ‘family values’ to keep down anyone who opposes them, and throwing family values to the wind when it suits their agenda.

Pornography is not a public health crisis, and appearances in porn are not among the hundreds of things that should disqualify Trump from the presidency, but the right’s tolerance of Trump is a vivid illustration of their moral bankruptcy and corruption. The next four years will be governed by conservative family values coming from the mouth of a literal Playboy.

Marisa Manfredo
Marisa completed her undergraduate degree in 2013 at the University of Wisconsin with a double major in creative writing and media studies. She is an advocate of progressive policies and focuses her interests on gender equality and preventing sexual and domestic violence.

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