Outlawing pornography for the common good

Pornography is nothing new. Archaeologists have found evidence that the vice is nearly as old as recorded human history. But the internet has raised the stakes considerably. Long gone are the days when pornography was mostly limited to seedy theatres in red-light districts, the back room of video rental stores, and salacious magazines sold in brown paper bags. In our digital age, pornography is always just a click away.

Traditional Christians and other social conservatives have long denounced pornography as a grave moral ill that degrades individuals, destroys families, and contributes to cultural decline. Indeed, WORLD Opinions regularly publishes columns that address this topic from a variety of angles. But recent years have witnessed increased concern over the “pornification” of American society, even among non-Christians and some progressives. Those concerns are beginning to find their way into legislation.

Last year, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act. If approved, the bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to create a rule requiring certain websites to adopt age verification technology. Seventeen states have already adopted age verification laws to limit access that minors have to pornographic websites.

Progressive activists and their allies in the porn industry have challenged age verification laws, ostensibly on First Amendment grounds. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on a challenge to a 2023 age verification bill that passed in Texas. Many observers believe the Supreme Court will uphold the law and open the door for the federal SCREEN Act to be approved and more states to adopt age verification legislation.

While age verification laws are important, a new bill before Congress goes much further by calling for the outlawing of pornography completely. The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) would outlaw pornography by updating the definition of obscenity, which is not protected as free speech by the First Amendment. In 1973, the Supreme Court offered three criteria for obscenity in Miller v. California. According to the “Miller Test,” obscenity includes material that appeals to prurient interests, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The IODA mostly echoes the Miller Test’s language about material that lacks value but proposes two new criteria that would update Miller: “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” and “depicts, describes or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse.” The IODA would also remove the “intent” requirement from the Communications Act of 1934. Currently, only porn intended to “abuse, threaten, or harass” someone is prohibited.

The bill’s co-sponsors are Sen. Lee and U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill. In a press release, Lee argues “Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children. … Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.”

Not surprisingly, the same leftwing coalition that opposes common-sense age verification laws is horrified at the prospect that pornography might be outlawed completely. Progressives have criticized the IODA as a threat to freedom of expression, an effort to impose conservative values on a pluralistic culture, and, most insidiously, part of the effort to force Project 2025 upon the American people. Project 2025, a conservative policy plan published by the Heritage Foundation that lives rent free in the minds of many progressives, calls for the outlawing of pornography.

It is unclear at this point whether the IODA is the best legislative approach to outlaw pornography, whether it will pass Congress, and whether, if passed, it would be upheld in court. But this much is crystal clear: There is no Christian justification for supporting legalized pornography. Christians should support every legal effort to curtail the creation and distribution of pornography and limit access to it. We should be thankful there is growing societal momentum toward protecting minors from pornography, but we should also be clear that age verification laws address only one of the multitude of concerns related to pornography.

As with elective abortion and transgenderism, incremental strategies should always be in service to ultimately outlawing practices that transgress natural law, contradict biblical revelation, and undermine authentic human flourishing. As WORLD has previously reported, the Southern Baptist Convention will consider a resolution this summer supporting a government ban on pornography. Other denominations should consider doing the same. The time is ripe for Christians across the nation to speak with moral clarity. Pornography is unequivocally evil. For the sake of the common good, it should be illegal.