SCOTUS hears case on Texas law protecting kids from online porn

CV NEWS FEED // The Supreme Court Wednesday heard oral arguments in the case of Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, which could decide the fate of a Texas law protecting children from explicit online content. According to sources, the arguments lasted just over two hours.

The bipartisan age-verification law, H.B. 1181, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2023, had passed the Texas legislature in a near-unanimous vote, with only one lawmaker, a Democrat, in opposition.

The law, similar to those passed in a growing number of other states, requires that users seeking to access pornography online in the state verify that they are at least 18 years of age.

Also, like in many of the other states with such laws, the legislation prompted leading “adult” industry website PornHub to altogether block access to their site in Texas rather than comply with the new verification requirement.

In the current case in front of the Supreme Court, pro-pornography interest group the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) sued Texas, alleging that the child protection law violates First Amendment rights.

On its website, FSC describes itself as a “trade association for the adult industry,” and its mission is “to protect the rights and freedoms of” the industry. 

>> MARCH 2024: LEADING PORN SITE LEAVES TEXAS DUE TO NEW LAW <<

CNN reported Wednesday afternoon that the court “appeared to signal” that “Texas may be permitted to require some form of age verification for porn sites.”

However, the Court also “left open the possibility that the deeper First Amendment questions raised by the case may not be immediately resolved,” CNN’s report added. 

The New York Times noted: “The court’s ruling, expected by early July, will be quite consequential, as 18 states have enacted laws in recent years similar to the one in Texas.”

During the arguments, Derek Shaffer, a lawyer representing the pornography industry, argued that laws protecting children from accessing explicit content online is incompatible with the idea of internet “freedom.”

“The tradition on the internet is to say that it will be free and that it is incumbent upon parents to screen out content that is inappropriate for their kids,” Shaffer said, per CNN. 

Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a Catholic, fired back at the lawyer’s assertion.

“Do you know a lot of parents who are more tech savvy than their 15-year-old children?” he asked Shaffer, as reported in the Times. “There’s a huge volume of evidence that filtering doesn’t work.”

>> LAST MONTH: PORN GIANT FLEES FLORIDA CITING AGE-VERIFICATION LAW <<

Fellow Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, also a Catholic, noted that “kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers,” and “content filtering for all those different devices … is difficult to keep up with.” Barrett is a mother of seven and cited her experience as a parent in her remarks.

EWTN’s Mark Irons posted to X (formerly Twitter) a video showing a large crowd gathered in front of the Supreme Court Building Wednesday morning in support of the Texas law.

Irons wrote in his post accompanying the video: “Rally crowd calls for basic age verification to enter porn websites to protect minors.”

Meanwhile, Clare Morell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, commented on Irons’ post: “Big P*rn conspicuously absent from rally outside SCOTUS this morning. Where are they?”

“Who are the parties arguing kids SHOULDN’T be protected from online p*rn?” Morell asked. “Age verification is common sense.”

As CatholicVote reported last month, an RMG Research poll “conducted in August 2023 found that 83% of a sample of American voters said they favored a hypothetical federal law requiring age verification to access online pornography.”  

“Age-verification laws have also garnered significant support among elected Democrats at the state level – putting the measures in a unique position relative to other social policies,” CatholicVote’s report added.