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President Barack Obama talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call from the Oval Office, Monday, June 8, 2009.Pete Souza / White House

While the Obama administration is cleaning up pornography inside the Department of Defense (DOD), its unwillingness to prosecute obscenity law violators has allowed fringe elements of porn to become “mainstream,” an expert has told LifeSiteNews.

Last week, The National Center on Sexual Exploitation — formerly known as Morality in Media — released its “Dirty Dozen” list of pornographic offenders. And according to Executive Director Dawn Hawkins, the Obama administration leads the list, even as one department improves its policies.

“DOD ordered that all pornographic and explicit materials be removed from public and work spaces on military bases,” Hawkins told LifeSiteNews. “The Air Force and Army also stopped selling all pornography on base exchanges.” Because of these policy improvements, Hawkins says that her group “had DOD [in its Dirty Dozen list in] 2013, [but] removed them because of these positive changes.”

However, Hawkins stopped short of praising President Obama for the Pentagon's improvements, saying that while “Obama is in arms about the sexual assault problem in the military, he and his team refuse to admit that pornography is linked.”

“Congress issued reports and demands that something be done about the issue of pornography,” explained Hawkins. She said that her group “helped key Members of Congress and the press see that the problem of pornography in the military was also tied to the sexual assault problem,” though she credited former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for recognizing the problem and acting on a solution.

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“It was Congress and Hagel that ultimately had the impact, not Obama,” concluded Hawkins.

The administration also took fire in the Dirty Dozen report for “zero prosecutions of obscenity laws (hardcore pornography) under [Attorney General] Eric Holder and Obama,” said Hawkins. “Previous administrations aggressively enforced these laws and we saw a significant decrease in the worst types of pornography, including child-themed and rape-themed pornography. Now this is the mainstream.”

Hawkins' group has pushed for Holder's expected replacement, Loretta Lynch, to commit to enforcement of obscenity laws. More than 100 groups and individuals signed on to a letter demanding that Senators get such a commitment from Lynch, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin this week.

The report also highlighted improvements at clothing company American Apparel, which according to Hawkins “removed their President and Founder because he fostered a sexually exploitive culture in the workplace and for the company.” Thanks to this and other changes, as well as public pressure, Hawkins says that her group “expect[s] a major shift in [American Apparel's] advertising strategy to follow.” 

Likewise, Google was given credit for improvements in 2014. Hawkins said that the Internet giant “removed all sexually explicit apps from GooglePlay and also stopped all pornography and explicit ads or ads that linked to explicit websites.”

The full Dirty Dozen list can be seen here. It includes social media companies Facebook and YouTube, and the upcoming pornographic movie “Fifty Shades of Grey.”