from www.deseretnews.com – President Barack Obama’s administration has failed to initiate a single federal obscenity prosecution, and Morality in Media president Patrick Trueman wants that trend to change in a big way.

So with an eye to the future, the former chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section is launching a campaign asking all 2012 presidential candidates to clarify their stance on enforcing federal obscenity laws against producers and distributors of hard-core pornography.

The Coalition for the War on Illegal Pornography is running the campaign under the direction of Morality in Media. By visiting this website, citizens can email Republican presidential candidates — including Mitt Romney [pictured] and Jon Huntsman Jr. — a statement supporting the enforcement of federal obscenity laws.

“We want assurances that the next president will agree to make the prosecution of illegal hardcore pornography a priority of the U.S. Department of Justice,” Trueman said via press release.

“Only then will the harm begin to subside.”

Trueman recently published an essay on the Witherspoon Institute’s Public Discourse website elucidating his position that the federal government needs to expand its rigorous enforcement of child pornography laws to additionally include the regulation of hardcore pornography that is easily accessible to children.

“Children are harmed not only by child pornographers, but also by the consumption of adult pornography,” Trueman wrote. “The average age of a child’s first exposure to pornography is 11. A total of 90 percent of children ages 8-16 have viewed pornography online. Many are becoming addicted to freely available Internet pornography. … Remarkably, it seems that no one at the top level in the Department of Justice has considered that the one effective — and constitutional — way to protect children from harm would be the vigorous prosecution of illegal, hardcore adult pornography.”