Texas pornography age verification law blocked by judge for being unconstitutional.
A Victory for Pornographic Websites: Texas Age Verification Law Blocked
A United States district judge has delivered a blow to the wave of state laws aimed at restricting access to pornographic content. U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra granted a preliminary injunction blocking Texas’s newly passed age verification law, H.B. 1181, just a day before it was set to take effect.
Leading adult website Pornhub, along with other pornography sites and the Free Speech Coalition, filed a lawsuit against Texas on Aug. 11, arguing that the law violated several constitutional rights, including those protected by the First Amendment.
“The state has a legitimate goal in protecting children from sexually explicit material online,” Ezra acknowledged. However, he emphasized that it was the court’s responsibility to ensure that the laws passed align with established First Amendment doctrine.
Ezra also agreed with the Free Speech Coalition’s suggestion that Texas could achieve its goal of limiting child access to pornography through alternative means, such as implementing “parental filters.”
For now, the state will have to wait until the lawsuit is properly litigated before it can begin enforcing the age verification law.
H.B. 1181 would have empowered the Texas attorney general to sue adult content-hosting websites for over $3 million annually if they failed to verify user ages using a government-issued ID. The law also mandated that adult websites prominently display a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” in 14-point font, while requiring users to verify their age. This warning highlights the potential biological addiction of pornography, its detrimental effects on brain development, and its impact on brain function.
It is worth noting that Texas is not the first state to adopt age verification requirements. Louisiana implemented similar restrictions earlier this year, demanding users to provide a copy of a government-issued ID before gaining access to pornographic websites. Several other states, including Virginia, Mississippi, Utah, Arkansas, and Montana, have also passed similar bills.
The Texas attorney general’s office declined to comment when approached by the Washington Examiner.
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