WASHINGTON – In explaining why his organization has placed the U.S. Department of Justice on its “Dirty Dozen” list for the fourth year in a row, National Center on Sexual Exploitation Chief Executive Officer Patrick Trueman said, “If you are in the business of distributing [porn], that is a violation.”

The “violation” he refers to is a violation of federal law — as the law is interpreted by Patrick Trueman, at least.

Trueman has long held the position all hardcore porn is, legally speaking, “obscene.” It’s not a particularly well-supported position in terms of the current state of American case law, but at least he has been consistent in taking the stance, which is more than one can say for Donald Trump’s position on whether or not the current federal minimum wage is too high.

By Trueman’s own logic, though, his organization’s list needs a lot more than 12 spaces. After all, if mere distribution of hardcore porn is “a violation,” clearly we need to take a hard look at how distribution of pornographic content takes place in the context of the internet.

Why let off the obscenity hook those who manufacture routers, modems, servers and other mission-critical devices that transmit data? After all, Trueman didn’t qualify his claim by saying anything about the distribution of porn having to be knowing, willful or intentional — and there’s no debating the fact these products facilitate the transmission of pornography each and every day.

On the ISP front, the NCSE singles out Verizon, asserting the company “profits from sexual exploitation by pushing porn into homes through multiple ways, including pay-per-view movies on their FIOS TV, as an internet service provider and as a wireless carrier.”

I’m not sure how any of the above differentiates Verizon from its competitors, all of which offer similar services. Why do they get a pass from the NCSE? Is it all about maintaining the (quite porn-like) alliteration of the Dirty Dozen brand name?

In explaining “the problem” with the American Library Association (ALA), the NCSE zeros in on how the ALA permits access to porn on the part of library users.

According to NCSE, the ALA “has encouraged public libraries to keep all computers unfiltered and to allow patrons, including children, access to pornography. As a result, child sexual abuse, sexual assault, exhibitionism, stalking and other lewd behavior takes place in libraries across the country.”

What’s good for the librarian goose is good for the internet gander, no? Shouldn’t everybody who wants the internet to be loosely and lightly regulated be eligible for the same listing treatment under Trueman’s standards?

App store content standards notwithstanding, every manufacturer of smartphones is a facilitator of the distribution of obscene materials under the NCSE logic. After all, these companies know full well a substantial percentage of their customers will use their on-deck web browsers to access online porn, much of which is hardcore — and therefor “obscene” in Trueman’s morally exacting worldview.

Most distressing for a God-fearing fellow like Trueman, however, is the undeniably central role the Lord plays in all of this. Starting with sitting idly by as Eve munched on the accursed apple, the Almighty has been largely apathetic on the subject of sexual debauchery, no matter how sordid it becomes.

While his followers give Him all sorts of credit for laying down the sexual morality law in His early works, what has God done for us lately with respect to reining in the tidal wave of smut bemoaned by men like Trueman?

I don’t want to hear about how God works through His followers, or any sort of Miltonian bullshit about untested virtue being hollow and empty. We’re talking about a God who has in the past shown the ability to make it rain (and not in the strip club sense) until there’s a global flood. You’re going to tell me now He can’t be bothered to direct a few bolts of retributive lightning at the San Fernando Valley from time to time?

Trueman and the NSCE are outraged at the U.S. DOJ because the department “refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against pornography despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by U.S. courts and previously enforced,” but they don’t have a spot on their list for an all-powerful deity who refuses to enforce His own divine law?

At least the DOJ can honestly say their resources are spread thin, but if God needs more resources to combat the porn scourge, He can always simply make more.

I know what you’re thinking: the Lord “works in mysterious ways.” It’s hardly “working” when sitting on your omniscient, omnipotent ass eating spiritual popcorn and watching in detached, voyeuristic fashion while the world burns in a veritable conflagration of deviant sexuality.

There are many others who deserve excoriation in the form of an NCSE list placement and/or press release, like those who manufacture fiber optic cables, satellites, televisions and paper, but if they aren’t even willing to put the grand architect of all humanity on the list, what are the chances they’re going to call out the likes of Apple, Google or the guy who lived up the street from me when I was a kid? He used to irresponsibly (and I might add, highly ineffectively) hide his porn magazines in the sand wash behind his house, where my friends and I would inevitably and totally accidentally find them over and over and over again, until finally we were no longer properly disgusted by the sight of attractive women engaged in sex acts.

Only time will tell who makes NCSE’s Dirty Dozen next year — but somehow I doubt they will have the moral courage to question their Father, who art in heaven, watching over all of us very creepily like the universal Peeping Tom He is.