The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ view on porn is unequivocal: the Church is against pornography.
A new law in Louisiana may be a way to restrict kids’ viewing porn. The law asks for age verification, and only adults can visit porn websites. These websites are defined as having more than a third of sexual content without “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
I am against porn, but I am also against censorship, which doesn’t work in the long run. Unfortunately, the widespread viewing of porn is a sign of our times, and getting rid of porn altogether will never work until the Millennium.
But fewer kids viewing porn? Sure, we should all favor that.
The Church web site points out:
Physical intimacy is a sacred part of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness. However, the adversary tries to thwart the Lord’s plan of happiness by suggesting that physical intimacy is only for personal gratification. Pornography is a tool of the adversary and its use causes the Spirit of the Lord to withdraw from us (see Doctrine and Covenants 63:16).
Potential effects of pornography include isolation, secrecy, and deceit that damage relationships and leave one vulnerable to poor self-esteem, anxiety, and depression; unrealistic expectations and misinformation about sexual intimacy; conditioning us to see people as objects to be used and abused; and the development of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
There are unconfirmed reports that porn sites have stopped offering porn in Louisiana because of this new law, which of course is a sign that the porn promoters were indeed aiming at kids. It also might be that they have no way to verify their users’ ages and are unwilling to do so.
Will kids still be able to see porn in Louisiana? Sure. There are VPNs and other way of getting around this new law. But will fewer kids see porn? I think the answer is yes.
While I agree that porn is atrocious and kids shouldn’t look at it, this isn’t a good law, for a couple of reasons:
First, it adds compliance costs, and while it’s easy to believe all the porn sites are run by Hefner-level millionaires so “they can afford it,” that turns porn into an exercise in class warfare. That feeds into the much bigger problem: the personal lawsuit liability. It uses the shiny new government toy of “let private citizens sue distributors of stuff they don’t like,” punting away any real responsibility on the part of any real law enforcement agency.
I’d peg the latter as the reason a site might just block service to Louisiana rather than comply; it’s not about not wanting kids protected, it’s about protecting themselves from kids. There’s no compliance with this law that can effectively shield a site from liability. If Jimmy uses his Mom’s Driver License number to register on an age site and get a fake digital ID that lets him onto porn sites, that may be ultimately defensible in court, but not until hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees are spent, and even then a civil jury who believes porn sites are all run by Hefner-level millionaires may award ridiculous settlements over it anyway, because “these sites can afford it.”
This is not a win for “the good side.”
Lattertarian: It sounds like you’re saying that a law isn’t worth enacting unless it combats the problem and closes all potential loopholes at the same time. In other words, you come across, to me, as having a perfect-law-or-no-law sort of ideology. Given that we are in a fallen state, being imperfect, it naturally follows that our laws are imperfect as well. Nonetheless, we are encouraged to engage in civic duties, including the creation of laws that promote society’s welfare. Imperfect as it may be, this law takes steps to that end and is thus worth promoting (and replicating) until it is improved upon. I would prefer criminal prosecution in this matter, among other ills facing our society, but civil liability is sufficient for a stopgap.
Your concern for legal protection on the part of the smut peddler implies, to me, a belief that they have some sort of right to their chosen profession. They don’t, as rights come from God as a means for His children to do that which they should. Things that are against the laws of God may be legally permitted by men, but nobody has a *right* to such things.
Regardless of their evil, they have a right to defend themselves in a court of law. As far as the risk to their finances goes with regards to litigation, that’s a good thing. I’m not in favor of plaintiffs seeking to enrich themselves in such proceedings, but I’m all for the incentive that a potential legal battle provides to the defendants that they choose a different line of work or, at the very least, alter their business practices in a manner that shrinks their potential viewership.
Okay, now do firearms.
Lattertarian, I understand the potential problems with civil lawsuits against distributors. This was used famously against abortion in Texas, but you are correct that now California wants to shut down gun manufacturers using civil lawsuits.
I think where we part company is that I am in favor of age of consent laws in general and perhaps you are not. I don’t have a problem with civil lawsuits shutting down porn for young people. Porn sites are like all other businesses — some have tiny margins, others I am sure have huge margins. They should have done a better job preventing kids from seeing porn years ago. So, if this forces that on them, and other states and countries do the same thing, I say, Bravo!
When it comes to guns, I have no problem with age of consent laws for minors buying guns. We can quibble over whether the age should be 16 or 17 or 18 or 21, but at the end of the day, I don’t think minors should carry and I don’t think they should be allowed to walk into Wal Mart and buy guns. And I say this as somebody who defends the 2nd amendment, and I taught all of my five kids to shoot when they were 12. But none of my kids were mature enough to carry or buy guns when they were 14.
I support the premise of this law.
But a few thoughts:
1. What prevents someone from filling a lawsuit against a women’s health website that uses explicit content images?
2. Answer: nothing really, anyone can file suit.
3. Even if the suit were to be thrown out, defending oneself against the suit is punishment enough to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is a mostly good law, and it should address the concerns of how it can be costly or weaponized in other context. Similar to the Texas abortion lawsuit laws. We should not get cute with the legal system in the name of expediency to risk undermining the constitution.
Should such laws that invite lawsuits from the public against targeted individuals or companies have a clause that requires the state to pay for their defense?
That seems reasonable from a 5th amendment regulatory takings view, but unfortunately the federal and state governments have long ago pretended regulatory takings is not something to be seriously bothered with on account of it making regulations on private citizens/companies for the public good costly for the public (which is what the constitution intended).
Other commentators may have genuine issues with the specifics of the law that may be fair, but in general I find it a step in the right direction. The USA does a lot to fight child porn; fighting other types of porn (while respecting the free speech rights of images/videos created for artistic and other reasons besides than pure sexual pleasure) seems great.