A bill that would require warning labels on porn sites passed the Utah House on Tuesday, with a few interesting “no” votes.
Politically speaking, Rep. Brady Brammer’s HB243 was going to pass no matter what, for it attempts to restrict minors from seeing porn sites online — and leaders of the LDS Church have spoken often about the dangers of pornography to minors, adults and families.
More than 80 percent of the Legislature are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they are just not going to ignore church leaders’ desires on moral issues. The bill passed 60-12 Tuesday morning and now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to pass and move on to GOP Gov. Gary Herbert.
Both Republicans and Democrats voted against and for the bill.
As reported earlier by UtahPolicy.com, Brammer’s warning label bill is a unique attempt to keep kids from viewing porn — if they only see a warning label on their screens before they can get into some hard-core stuff, maybe they won’t proceed to view materials harmful to them.
The bill does not carry a constitutional note, meaning legislative attorneys don’t believe it violates either the Utah or U.S. Constitutions’ free speech rights.
Still, House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake, an attorney himself, said Utah shouldn’t be jumping is as the first state in trying this approach in the “delicate” issue of 1st Amendment rights.
“We are moving into uncharted territories,” warned King, a faithful member of the LDS Church himself.
Of course, the Utah Legislature wants to protect minors from harmful materials and obscene content, said King. However, what some may declare obscene others may say has value, even to the extent of bringing up other free speech issues. “I fear,” Brammer’s porn warning label bill, “may have a chilling effect” on public free speech issues, said King.
Brammer, R-Highland, an attorney, has worked professionally on California’s toxic warning cases. And his porn bill warning uses the same legal track as labels on toxic containers in that liberal state.
And he said he hopes his bill will bring “public interest lawsuits” that will cause producers/distributors of porn on the Internet to take notice.
With civil fines of $2,500 “per incident,” meaning individual views, as part of the civil fines, such porn producers would just put the warning listed in Brammer’s bill rather than risk large financial exposure.
The label on a porn site must read:
STATE OF UTAH WARNING
Exposing minors to pornography is known to the state of Utah to cause negative impacts to brain development, emotional development, and the ability to maintain intimate relationships.
Such exposure may lead to harmful and addictive sexual behavior, low self-esteem, and the improper objectification of and sexual violence towards others, among numerous other harms.
While it’s likely most porn websites are outside Utah, even outside of the United States, it is possible to reach them with substantial fines if they don’t adopt the warning labels, said Brammer.
And rather than risk any large fines, he hopes many porn sites will just put the Utah warning label on their product — and thus reach children all over the world, and not just here.
