Supreme Court rejects request to block Texas porn site age verification law
The United States Supreme Court has rejected a request to block enforcement of a Texas law that requires porn sites to include age verification for users.
In a one-sentence miscellaneous order released Tuesday that included no dissents, the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay in the case of Free Speech Coalition, et al v. Paxton.
This allows a ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit earlier this year that upheld the age verification law to remain in effect.
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The Free Speech Coalition, a group supporting the adult entertainment industry who are the plaintiffs in the case, released a statement vowing to continue their challenge to the Texas law.
“While the Supreme Court has denied our application to stay the Fifth Circuit’s decision upholding age verification requirements in Texas, our petition for full merits review before the Supreme Court remains pending,” stated the Coalition.
“The ruling by the Fifth Circuit remains in direct opposition to decades of Supreme Court precedent, and we remain hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant our petition for certiorari and reaffirm its lengthy line of cases applying strict scrutiny to content-based restrictions on speech like those in the Texas statute we’ve challenged.”
Last June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1181, which requires porn sites to verify a user's age, with any company found violating the requirement facing a fine of as much as $10,000 per day.
Additionally, another fine of up to $10,000 per day can be meted out if a site illegally keeps identifying information and $250,000 if a minor sees explicit content because their age was not properly verified.
In response to the law, Pornhub announced that it was suspending access to the site in Texas, while litigation by porn companies against the new law was launched.
In March, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of the age verification law, overturning a lower court decision that had blocked enforcement of the measure.
“Applying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” wrote Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, a Reagan appointee, for the majority.
“The record is replete with examples of the sort of damage that access to pornography does to children … That is far more than what is necessary to demonstrate that the legislature did not act irrationally.”
Circuit Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham authored an opinion in which he concurred in part and dissented in part, arguing that "the text does not support the argument that H.B. 1181 regulates only obscene speech."
"H.B. 1181 regulates all material harmful to minors, which necessarily encompasses non-obscene, sexually expressive—and constitutionally protected—speech for adults," wrote Higginbotham.
"Thus, H.B. 1181 limits access to constitutionally protected speech, regardless of whether the viewer is a minor. Such action 'is to burn the house to roast the pig.'"
