Pornography is nothing new. Archaeologists have found evidence that the vice is nearly as old as recorded human history. But the internet has raised the stakes considerably. Long gone are the days when pornography was mostly limited to seedy theatres in red-light districts, the back room of video rental stores, and salacious magazines sold in brown paper bags. In our digital age, pornography is always just a click away.
Traditional Christians and other social conservatives have long denounced pornography as a grave moral ill that degrades individuals, destroys families, and contributes to cultural decline. Indeed, WORLD Opinions regularly publishes columns that address this topic from a variety of angles. But recent years have witnessed increased concern over the “pornification” of American society, even among non-Christians and some progressives. Those concerns are beginning to find their way into legislation.
Last year, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act. If approved, the bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to create a rule requiring certain websites to adopt age verification technology. Seventeen states have already adopted age verification laws to limit access that minors have to pornographic websites.
Progressive activists and their allies in the porn industry have challenged age verification laws, ostensibly on First Amendment grounds. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on a challenge to a 2023 age verification bill that passed in Texas. Many observers believe the Supreme Court will uphold the law and open the door for the federal SCREEN Act to be approved and more states to adopt age verification legislation.
While age verification laws are important, a new bill before Congress goes much further by calling for the outlawing of pornography completely. The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) would outlaw pornography by updating the definition of obscenity, which is not protected as free speech by the First Amendment. In 1973, the Supreme Court offered three criteria for obscenity in Miller v. California. According to the “Miller Test,” obscenity includes material that appeals to prurient interests, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
The IODA mostly echoes the Miller Test’s language about material that lacks value but proposes two new criteria that would update Miller: “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” and “depicts, describes or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse.” The IODA would also remove the “intent” requirement from the Communications Act of 1934. Currently, only porn intended to “abuse, threaten, or harass” someone is prohibited.
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at World Magazine)
