LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Republican legislator behind the state’s copycat version of the age verification legislation being sponsored around the country by anti-porn religious conservative activists asserted Wednesday that his bill aims not only to shield minors from adult content but also to “protect women.”
Before a Nebraska legislative committee, State Sen. Dave Murman stated that his goal with age verification bill LB 1092 is to protect what he called “our most vulnerable women and children,” the Nebraska Examiner reported.
Murman also confirmed that LB 1092 is explicitly modeled after similar legislation passed in Utah, Louisiana and Arkansas, which he called “successful.”
“We’re not trying to do something new here,” Murman confirmed. “We’re trying to do what’s been done in other states.”
Unlike Murman, however, none of the religious conservative sponsors of those bills have linked those efforts specifically to “protecting women.” Since it seems highly improbable that Murman’s comment referred to preventing women from viewing adult content, and since the bill contains no such “gender verification” provision, it appears that Murman was simply using standard anti-porn rhetoric to gain support for his bill.
Murman has explicitly admitted that he would prefer to institute a total ban on adult websites, but that “he couldn’t do that for constitutional reasons,” the Examiner reported.
Murman noted that “Pornhub saw its traffic drop 80% in Louisiana after that state passed a similar age verification bill. Pornhub shut off access to its site in Arkansas after an ID verification bill passed there.”
He added that he “would be OK if the same happened in Nebraska.”
Democratic Sen. Carol Blood asked Murman, “If we’re going to violate people’s civil liberties, and it’s about safety, why are we legitimizing a surveillance regime?”
Murman — who was as a farmer before entering politics — appeared to admit that the bill did not address such issues. However, he then offered to add an amendment clarifying that the bill would not require creating a new form of digital ID, and that he said would also address “privacy concerns,” the Nebraska Examiner reported.
Jane Seu of ACLU of Nebraska called LB 1092 “an unconstitutionally broad burden on all internet users that would force people to share identifying information to access content online.”
“Internet safety should not come at the cost of personal rights,” Seu added.
Murman was supported at the hearing by religious activists, including Marion Miner of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, who offered that “Catholic teachings would implore lawmakers to act on the bill” and that they “had a duty to protect the young from outside influences that could lead them astray.”
Main Image: Still from "The Handmaid's Tale" series (main), Nebraska State Sen. Dave Murman (R)