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McCain promises to fight 'evil' if president

Sen. John McCain vowed Wednesday to fight religious persecution, human trafficking, child pornography and other "evil" if he becomes president.

The speech at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, was part of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's efforts to reach out to conservatives within his party.

The speech emphasized many issues social conservatives have championed.

McCain railed against "a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man's inhumanity to man, to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree."

McCain singled out China, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia for restricting religious freedom and said he would make religious freedom "a subject of great importance" in his foreign policy if he became president.

McCain also said he would crack down on human trafficking by creating a inter-agency task force to strengthen cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement.

McCain said he would to work to change the economic incentives underpinning trafficking as well as doing more to aid the victims of "this evil form of 21st-century slavery."

He hinted that he would try to end the practice of genital mutilation, saying "the United States are predicated on a shared respect for the basic right of women and children not to suffer atrocities to their physical and emotional health to protect traditions that should have been ended long ago."