Viewpoint: Convoluted SCOTUS decision upholds Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages, but confusions abound

The Supreme Court upheld a Texas anti-pornography law…that is nearly identical to a federal law it struck down more than two decades ago.

Rather than overruling the previous case — Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004) — Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion spends at least a dozen pages making an unconvincing argument that Friday’s decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is consistent with the Court’s previous decisions.

In Ashcroft, the Court struck down a federal law that basically required pornographic websites to screen users to determine if they are over the age of 18. 

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Accordingly, in Ashcroft, the Court ruled that the federal age-gating law must survive the toughest test that courts can apply in constitutional cases, known as “strict scrutiny…” and the law at issue in Ashcroft did not.

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The Court’s ruling in Free Speech Coalition, however, changes the rules governing laws that seek to block minors’ access to pornography, but which also may prevent adults from seeing that material. 

…[The] new rule announced in Free Speech Coalition gives states broader leeway to restrict access to pornography.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here