Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended a critical law at the Supreme Court of the United States yesterday this past week to protect children by requiring online pornography sites to implement reasonable age verification measures. Multiple states across the country are finally stepping up and enacting legislation to protect young people from harmful exposure to pornography.
A similar law introduced by Rep. Sarah Vance out of Homer last legislative session, HB 254, passed with a strong bi-partisan majority out of the Alaska House but was unable to get any traction in the State Senate. Some legislators voiced concerns regarding privacy issues. They were concerned that adults who legally can access “adult entertainment” should not have to provide their personal information to companies which might be hacked or used for villainous purposes.
But this train seems to be picking up steam. In fact, the California Assembly, of all places, UNANIMOUSLY passed age verification with 60 Democrats voting for it. It died in the Senate, not on matters related to the topic, but on concerns about the fiscal note of enforcing the law. I spoke with someone recently in their Legislature, though, who thinks they likely have resolved that issue, and it will move forward this session.
Alaska Family Council is deeply committed to this issue, and has begun working with policy makers on both sides of the aisle to advance legislation to fulfill the minimum responsibility of government to protect vulnerable, young Alaskans. Certainly, parents have a role, just as they do with alcohol, guns, drugs and any number of things that should not be available to young people, but we live in a world that is completely taken over by technology. It is ubiquitous in the lives of young people today.
Protecting those who watch porn legally from possibly having their identity exposed, although that issue is being more and more decreased through better technology, is simply not on the same scale of what many have been calling a “public health crisis” and the “new drug” for many years.
It’s only getting worse and it’s past time to act.
On a very positive note, Brad Littlejohn of the Ethics and Public Policy Center X’d recently ( we don’t say Tweeted anymore right ? ) about the key takeaways from the Paxton oral arguments. We look to be on a good path.
— Not a single justice questions that youth porn exposure is a public health crisis requiring urgent government action.
— Not a single justice seems interested in the porn lobby’s argument that “content filtering”/parental controls can get the job done just fine.
— Many justices openly acknowledged that rapid technological change calls for reconsideration of precedent.
— Therefore, all the justices seemed to think that something like Texas’ AV law (and those of 18 other states) should be able to survive constitutional scrutiny.
— The only question in the room was, “How do we fit this into the rather conflicted precedent on this issue?” On that, Justices Jackson and Sotomayor definitely seemed concerned to uphold the strict scrutiny standard, Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett less clear, and the other five justices open to applying a looser standard.
— Either way, there seemed to be a clear majority in favor of states’ rights to impose age verification on porn sites. It’s just a question of whether they will go ahead and green-light the law now, or let it go through another round in the Circuit Court. Also, just how much freedom will states have on this going forward? Will it be a narrow path or a wide boulevard?
All in all, we had a potentially game-changing day in the history of the internet. Praise God!
Let’s move forward and protect our children.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
