High court upholds Texas statute, influencing ongoing legal battles over similar Florida legislation aimed at protecting minors from explicit content.
The U.S. Supreme Court Friday upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for access to websites with pornographic content, a decision with significant implications for a similar Florida statute. In a 6-3 ruling, the court determined the Texas law does not violate First Amendment rights, asserting states’ authority to protect minors from sexually explicit material.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, stated that age-verification laws fall within states’ traditional power to prevent minors from accessing obscene content. “No person — adult or child — has a First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting proof of age,” the opinion read.
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The ruling comes as Florida faces its own legal challenges regarding HB 3, a 2024 bill that includes age-verification requirements for websites with “material harmful to minors” and aims to prevent children under 16 from opening social media accounts. Tallahassee-based U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who had stayed a lawsuit challenging the pornography-related part of Florida’s law, swiftly lifted the stay following the Supreme Court’s decision, signaling renewed legal action.
Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the age-verification requirement would unduly burden the First Amendment rights of adults seeking to view such content.
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While the Supreme Court’s decision bolsters the age-verification aspect of Florida’s HB 3, the social media portion of the bill faces a separate constitutional challenge, with Judge Walker recently issuing a preliminary injunction blocking it on First Amendment grounds.
The Florida lawsuit challenging the pornography-related age verification, filed by the Free Speech Coalition and other plaintiffs, contends the law infringes on due process rights, the Commerce Clause, and the Supremacy Clause, issues not addressed in the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas law.
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