Hill Country Chronicle

On Friday, Representative Chip Roy of Texas and Senator Mike Lee of Utah submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton. The case challenges Texas law H.B. 1181, which mandates age verification for accessing pornography.

The brief backs Texas' stance that both federal and state legislatures have a responsibility to shield children from online pornography by urging the Supreme Court to uphold its established rule permitting the government to restrict children's access to pornography through age-access limitations on distributors.

Representative Roy stated, "The government has an obvious and unquestionable duty in keeping children off porn sites; decades of relatively unfettered access to obscene online content under insufficient policies have done tremendous damage to our country. Texas' law does this by simply requiring adults to prove their age, as should be the case with age-restricted items. That's why I expect Attorney General Paxton's case to succeed at the Supreme Court and am proud to join Mike Lee in defense of it."

Senator Lee commented, "Companies are profiting from exposing children to adult content, and it must stop. This initiative by Texas reflects the age-verification measures I am fighting for at the federal level with the SCREEN Act, and American families everywhere should be cheering these efforts to protect kids online."

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