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In Meetings With Anti-Pornography Group, Romney Campaign Promised To Prosecute Porn

WASHINGTON, DC — Mitt Romney’s campaign told a leading anti-pornography group that the Republican nominee will pursue and prosecute pornography if elected president.

Three months ago, well after Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee, his campaign held multiple meetings with Morality in Media, a group which describes itself as the “leading national organization opposing pornography and indecency,” according to executive director Dawn Hawkins. She told ThinkProgress that they had met with Alex Wong, Romney’s political director and legal policy adviser, to discuss the issue of pornography and what he would do about it if elected president.

During that meeting, Wong allegedly told Morality in Media that the campaign “would pursue prosecutions” of pornography and that the issue is “important to them.” The Romney campaign met with the organization “a number of times” in the past three months, Hawkins said.

The isn’t the first time that pornography became an issue in the campaign. Romney signed Morality in Media’s pledge during the Republican primaries, promising “strict enforcement for our nation’s obscenity laws,” calling the matter “imperative.” In addition, the national GOP platform calls for “vigorously” enforcing anti-pornography laws. The effort is a throwback to the Bush administration, when Attorney General John Ashcroft spent “millions to file charges across the country” in an attempt to target “just about everything on the Internet and almost everything in the video stores and everything in the adult bookstores.”

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Though the Republican nominee may not discuss the issue on the stump, anti-pornography activists are excited about the prospect of a Romney presidency.