By David French
The porn industry just got what it deserved at the Supreme Court.
On the last day of its term, by a 6-to-3 vote, the court delivered a decisive ruling against one of the worst industries in America. It upheld a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to 鈥渦se reasonable age verification methods鈥 to make sure that their customers are at least 18 years old. The court split on ideological lines, with the six Republican appointees voting to uphold the law and the three Democratic appointees in dissent.
When you see what appears to be a sharp ideological divide on the court, it鈥檚 easy to jump to conclusions, to label, for example, the liberals on the court pro-porn compared with the conservatives, but that鈥檚 fundamentally wrong. In this case, the most important words from the court came not from Justice Clarence Thomas鈥檚 majority opinion but from Justice Elena Kagan鈥檚 dissent.
鈥淣o one doubts that the distribution of sexually explicit speech to children, of the sort involved here, can cause great harm,鈥 Kagan wrote. 鈥淥r to say the same thing in legal terms, no one doubts that states have a compelling interest in shielding children from speech of that kind. What is more, children have no constitutional right to view it.鈥
There, in plain English, is a powerful declaration 鈥 one that should echo in American law and American culture. From left to right, all nine justices agree that pornography can cause great harm to children. All nine agree not merely that children have no constitutional right to view it but also that the state has a compelling interest in blocking their access.