WASHINGTON — Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Tuesday reintroduced his proposal for a federal age-verification law that would expand Utah’s anti-porn legislation, promoted by religious conservatives, to the entire United States.
Lee titled his proposal the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act.
Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) is sponsoring the companion bill in the House of Representatives.
Lee’s office called the SCREEN Act “a step toward safeguarding minors from the pervasive threat of online pornographic content.”
The text of the bill explicitly mentions the failure of previous attempts to censor adult content, which repeatedly failed on free speech constitutional grounds at the Supreme Court level.
“Advancements in technology since the Supreme Court last addressed this matter reveal a stark reality: traditional methods like blocking and filtering software have fallen short, leaving an alarming 80% of teenagers exposed to online pornography,” a statement from Lee’s office declared. The statement also claims that exposure to adult content contributes to “a spectrum of psychological issues, unhealthy sexual behaviors, and broader societal harms.”
The proposed new law, the statement continues, “mandates commercial pornographic websites to implement robust age verification technologies, providing a pragmatic and narrowly tailored solution to a complex problem.”
Lee added, “It is time for our laws to catch up with technology. We must ensure that as the internet grows and changes, the safety of children is not left behind. The SCREEN Act addresses the urgent need to protect minors from exposure to online pornography and stop those who profit from stealing the innocence of America’s youth.”
The statement from Lee’s office notes support from pro-censorship groups like NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media), former academic and anti-porn entrepreneur Gail Dines’ Culture Reframed and the National Decency Coalition.
Utah Standards of Obscenity for the Entire Nation
As XBIZ has been reporting, leading conservative anti-porn crusaders have admitted that the state-by-state age verification laws they have been sponsoring throughout the country are merely a steppingstone in an organized effort to ban all adult content online and revive obscenity prosecutions.
Last December, Sen. Lee introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), a bill that nominally aims to “establish a national definition of obscenity” but which would, in effect, outlaw all online sexual content nationwide.
The United States does not currently have a national definition of obscenity. Jurisprudence has established the Miller Test, which has been a legal standard in federal courts for a half-century. According to a statement from Lee’s office, however, the Utah senator believes that it is time to revisit those standards, set in 1973, under which the production and distribution of sexual content have been legal in the United States.
According to Lee, “The Supreme Court has struggled to define obscenity, and its current definition under the ‘Miller Test’ runs into serious challenges when applied to the internet.”
Echoing the language of fellow Utahn and Mormon Republican activist Dawn Hawkins, CEO of NCOSE, Lee’s bill “would define ‘obscenity’ within the Communications Act of 1934. Additionally, it would also strengthen the existing prohibition on obscenity by removing the ‘intent’ requirement,” which only prohibits the transmission of obscenity to abuse, threaten or harass someone.
At the time, Lee’s office posted a one-page summary of the IODA, stating, “Obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment and is prohibited from interstate or foreign transmission under U.S. law,” calling obscenity “difficult to define (let alone prosecute) under the current Supreme Court test for obscenity: the ‘Miller Test’” and promising that the IODA will “establish a national definition of obscenity that would apply to obscene content that is transmitted via interstate or foreign communications.”
Lee is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which, as XBIZ reported, sees sexual content as a ploy by Satan to destroy Mormon households by tempting Mormon men.