Federal Judge Strikes Law Protecting Virginia Children

Charlottesville ““ Despite a national movement to restrict access of children to pornographic materials online, a U.S. district judge in Charlottesville last week barred the state of Virginia from enforcing a law aimed at protecting children from harmful material on the Internet.

According to an AP wire story, U.S. District Judge James H. Michael, Jr. said the law, which makes it a crime to use the Internet to sell, rent or lend sexually-explicit pictures or written narratives to minors that could be harmful to them, violates the First Amendment rights of online users.

A representative of Family Policy Network opposed the decision, saying it leaves the door open to pornographers to destroy young lives and further erode the foundation of the family in the Commonwealth.

FPN President Joe Glover said, “Research clearly demonstrates that exposure to pornography harms children. They develop distorted perceptions about sexuality and an appetite for more deviant and destructive forms of sexual behavior. They find monogamy less valuable and they come to view people as objects of their own selfish, fleshly desires.”

During the Reagan administration, the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography reported that nearly a third of all high school boys and more than one in five girls act out at least some of what they see in sexually-explicit materials within a few days after exposure.

Obscenity, as a category of speech, is not protected speech. The modern definitions established in Miller vs. California (U.S. Supreme Court, 1973) make it clear that there are overriding societal interests in making sure that material that can be destructive is not made available, particularly to minors.

Judge Michael said Internet businesses would have “no practical way of preventing minors” from viewing material online “except to eliminate the materials altogether.”

Glover denied the logic of Michael’s concern, saying, “Before the Internet provision was added to this law, it was used successfully for years to prohibit minors from receiving harmful print materials. This is nothing more than an attempt to liberalize decency standards in Virginia.”

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