A U.S. senator has introduced legislation that would amount to a ban on Internet pornography in the United States. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) last week introduced what’s known as the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.
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The bill would “establish a national definition of obscenity that would apply to obscene content transmitted via interstate or foreign communications,” according to Lee’s website.
A “one-pager” describing the legislation argues that First Amendment law when it comes to obscenity is murky, and therefore the bill is meant to clarify it.
In what’s known as the Miller Test, as described by Vice, “content is obscene if it hits certain conditions, including that the content in question depicts sexual conduct ‘in a patently offensive way.’ But definitions can be controversial when it comes to that sort of thing. And obscenity prosecutions are extremely rare these days, compared to, say, in Lenny Bruce’s time.
“Because the internet is a ‘channel or instrumentality’ of interstate commerce, Congress’s current obscenity prohibitions are severely diminished,” the description says. “In response, Sen. Lee is proposing the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), which would establish a national definition of obscenity that would apply to obscene content that it transmitted via interstate or foreign communications.”
On the same day, Sen. Lee introduced another piece of legislation called the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which would “direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule requiring all commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure children cannot access pornographic content.”
“Every day, we’re learning more about the negative psychological effects pornography has on minors,” Lee said in the announcement of the Screen Act introduction. “Given the alarming rate of teenage exposure to pornography, I believe the government must act quickly to enact protections that have a real chance of surviving First Amendment scrutiny. We require age verification at brick-and-mortar shops. Why shouldn’t we require it online?”
Introduced with less than two weeks remaining in the current Congress by a senator who is currently in the minority in the U.S. Senate, the two bills appear highly unlikely to be enacted this year. However, they could gain new life in the next Congress.
The bill also has no co-sponsors.
The Free Speech Coalition, which guards First Amendment rights on behalf of the adult film industry, acknowledged the bill’s introduction in a tweet last week but vowed to monitor the situation.
Senator Lee “has introduced a bill that would remove porn’s First Amendment protections, and effectively prohibit distribution of adult material in the US. FSC is monitoring the bill, and will continue to do so in the new Congress,” the Coalition said in the social media message, while also stating that it will address the issue at its FSC Strategy Summit next month.
Mike Stabile, the Coalition’s director of public affairs, said to Vice of Lee’s bill that “our members understand this for what it is: It’s a threat to their business, to their livelihood. It’s a threat to their community.”
Stabile went on to describe “a very reactionary cultural moment,” in which many people are getting into “a rise in panic around things like pornography and sex education in schools.” He did acknowledge, however, that Lee’s bill is highly unlikely to pass.
The bill seems to be part of a conservative effort to crack down on sexuality in the culture, one that goes back to the Moral Majority days of the 1980s, although tinged with more modern-day attempts to accuse teachers and others of “grooming.”
But beyond all that, it’s a simple fact that many, many people across the political spectrum are users of adult services on the Internet, and any crackdown on that sort of material would likely cause a significant political backlash.
Vice also noted that “Mike Lee” also happens to be the name of a popular gay male adult entertainer.
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
