Response to the case of "Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton"

On Friday, June 27, at the very end of its 2024-2025 term, the U.S Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in the case of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. We at The Matthew XVIII Group are very thankful for this favorable ruling that upheld the constitutionality of Texas’s 2023 online age verification law, H. B. 1181. This law was enacted to protect children from viewing online pornography. Despite strong opposition from the porn industry group that filed the suit challenging the law, the Supreme Court summarily rejected its arguments. The Free Speech Coalition had asserted that this law violates free speech rights of adults by requiring them to provide verification of age online. The Court majority, in a 6-3 ruling, disagreed and held that H. B. 1181 does not violate 1^st Amendment speech rights of adults and that it accords with states’ traditional power to prevent minors from accessing obscene speech.

This Texas law was passed with widespread backing from a large group of proponents. The statute requires online purveyors of pornography to verify the ages of their users, so that minors will not have access to material that is obviously so dangerous for them to view.

Immediately after its passage, the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association of the adult entertainment industry, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law, contending that it violates 1^st Amendment free speech rights of adults. This group claimed that the law’s age identification provisions are unconstitutional because they burden adult access to porn online and because they require adult viewers to provide personal information that they said could violate privacy rights. The federal trial court unfortunately agreed with these challengers and enjoined the law from going into effect, after which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling and upheld the law’s constitutionality. The Supreme Court then agreed to take up the case, with oral arguments taking place this past January, resulting in June’s written ruling.

In its decision, the Court applied an intermediate level of review to the case, stating that the higher level of review, referred to as strict scrutiny, was not the proper level to use. The Court then held that the Texas law is indeed constitutional. This age verification statute will now remain in effect in Texas and will work to protect children from access to online porn. The Court wrote that, “H. B. 1181 furthers Texas’s important interest in shielding children from sexual content and is adequately tailored to that interest.” And it also concluded that “adults have no 1^st Amendment right to avoid age verification.” Only 3 justices dissented from the majority opinion, opining that strict scrutiny should be the correct legal standard in this case. Interestingly, this minority of the Court even admitted that H. B. 1181 could perhaps survive a court’s strict scrutiny review because of the need to protect children from online danger.

The Matthew XVIII Group applauds the Court majority for upholding the constitutional right of the state of Texas to require age verification in order to access to pornography online. In doing so, the Court allows the law to do its job of protecting children from this very harmful material. This is the first time that any legal restriction has been placed on the pornography industry in this way, and we hope there will be many more instances to come.

The amicus brief written by the Matthew XVIII Group was one of 37 such briefs submitted in this case to the Supreme Court and was the only one that detailed the history of the sexualization of children in America. We would like to thank Mary McAlister for her contributions to the brief and for submitting it on behalf of this organization, and we are forever indebted as well to the late Dr. Judith A. Reisman, a tireless crusader who worked to protect women and children from sexual exploitation.