"Selling hard core pornography on the Internet is a violation of federal obscenity law, so the Bush administration is right to oppose the '.xxx' domain," said Patrick Trueman, senior legal counsel of the Family Research Council.
Trueman, who previously served as chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, added that the Bush administration "should not, in any way, be seen to facilitate the porn industry, which has been a plague on our society since the establishment of the Internet.
"The '.xxx' domain proposal is an effort to pander to the porn industry and offers nothing but false hope to an American public which wants illegal pornographers prosecuted, not rewarded," he said.
Trueman noted that the U.S. Commerce Department has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails expressing concern regarding the impact of pornography on families and children and objecting the setting aside of a domain suffix for it.
As a result, Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the department, this week called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to delay approving the proposal to "ensure the best interests of the Internet community as a whole are fully considered."
The volume of correspondence opposed to the idea is "unprecedented,'' Gallagher wrote to Vinton Cerf, ICANN's chairman.
"The White House is responding to the call of people all across America to stop this ridiculous idea of an '.xxx' domain, a special place on the Internet for pornographers," Trueman added.
Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action, agreed with Trueman. "There are nearly 260 million porn web pages already," he said. "An '.xxx' domain would only make matters worse."
Weiss stated that once the new domain is officially established, there would inevitably be a feeling that pornography is normal and be given an unofficial stamp of approval.
"The '.xxx' domain was never intended to force the porn industry to leave the '.com' domain, which has been a cash cow for pornographers," Trueman said. "Indeed, any law attempting to force pornographers to relocate to '.xxx' would be constitutionally suspect and not likely to be effective.
"Instead, if the '.xxx' domain were established, pornographers would keep their lucrative '.com' commercial sites and expand to even more sites, thus becoming even more of a menace to society," he stated.
Trueman added that "pornography violates the dignity of the women and men involved, destroys marital bonds and pollutes the minds of child and adult consumers."
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Trueman charged last June that creating a virtual red light district "cloaks the porn industry with legitimacy."
Instead of initiating a plan that could double the number of porn sites on the World Wide Web, the Family Research Council supports Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' new prosecution initiative against the porn industry, which was announced in May. "We are confident of his determination and of his ultimate success," Trueman said.
"The pornographers, instead of expanding their presence on the Internet, would be well advised to get out of business all together right now before they are called to court to answer for their crimes," he added.
See Earlier Story:
New Internet Domain for Pornographers 'Would Do More Harm Than Good,' Group Says (June 3, 2005)
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