The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that states can require age verification to view online pornography.
The 6-3 decision came in the case of a Texas law which was challenged by a porn industry group.
6-3?
Retired newspaper editor Eugene Curtin posted on social media:
Lots of Supreme Court decisions coming down today, most being resolved 6-3 with the three lefty judges voting in the minority. One ruling, though, was obviously going to be 9-0 — to approve laws adopted now by 19 states that require pornography sites to ensure that children do not access their content by requiring age verification. But, no. That, too, was 6-3, the same three "justices" voting to kill age-verification laws. Huh?
The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, states:
"Texas, like many States, prohibits the distribution of sexually explicit content to children. Tex. Penal Code Ann. §43.24(b) (West 2016). But, although that prohibition may be effective against brick-and-mortar stores, it has proved challenging to enforce against online content. In an effort to address this problem, Texas enacted H. B. 1181, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. §129B.001 et seq. (West Cum. Supp. 2024), which requires certain commercial websites that publish sexually explicit content to verify the ages of their visitors.
"This requirement furthers the lawful end of preventing children from accessing sexually explicit content. But, it also burdens adult visitors of these websites, who all agree have a First Amendment right to access at least some of the content that the websites publish. We granted certiorari to decide whether these burdens likely render H. B. 1181 unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. We hold that they do not.
"The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content. H.B. 1181 is a constitutionally permissible exercise of that authority."
H.B. 1181 requires that all pornographic sites check the ID of a user in order to confirm that they are an adult.
Porn industry giant PornHub argued that adults should not have to disclose their ID and personal information to watch pornography. A group of adult content companies, under the name "Free Speech Coalition", filed an injunction in state courts, but lost.
On appeal, the porn group filed to the Supreme Court, and their lawsuit claimed that Texas violated their free speech.
The porn group’s lawyer argued that requiring age verification to view porn chills speech and the "court should begin by confirming that strict scrutiny continues to apply to any such content-based burden on websites and their adult users."
He also argued, “You’re creating a permanent record on the Internet when you provide this information. It is a target for hackers,” and that providing an ID—as one does with many other online services — places an “undue burden” on adults wanting to watch porn.
SCOTUS: Maryland parents can pull kids from public school lessons using LGBTQ books
The Supreme Court on Friday also ruled that parents of Maryland public school students who have religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using LGBTQ storybooks.
The justices reversed lower-court rulings in favor of the Montgomery County school system. The court ruled that the schools likely could not require elementary school children to sit through lessons involving the books if parents expressed religious objections to the material.
The decision was not a final ruling in the case, but the justices strongly suggested that the parents will win in the end.
Parents initially had been allowed to opt their children out of the lessons for religious and other reasons, but the school board reversed course a year later, prompting protests and eventually a lawsuit.
At arguments in April, a lawyer for the school district told the justices that the "opt outs" had become disruptive.
Free Press International
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