WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 15, 2025—Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, offered comments on today’s U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments for the case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, where he urges the court to uphold a Texas law requiring adult websites to verify the age of their users, a helpful tool to protect children from the harmful material found on these sites.
“When Justice Kagan is critical of the gross material you are trying to defend, you know it’s a bad moment for your cause,” said Leatherwood. “That’s the kind of day it was for the porn industry before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The porn industry’s attorney seemed to envision a world where hardcore websites are somehow beyond the government’s compelling interest to protect children from harm. A majority of justices were having none of it.
“Meanwhile, Texas proved its law easily passes constitutional muster. Asking adults who want to view this indecent and destructive material to verify their age is not only an appropriate request in a digital age, it’s the bare minimum we should expect in a nation that cares about children. The court should uphold this law, and lawmakers should be developing further restrictions on this harmful material to keep it away from our children and our families.”
The ERLC filed an amicus brief in conjunction with the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention and the Baptist General Convention of Texas on Nov. 22, 2024, explaining that the state has a compelling interest to protect children from the harmful, life-altering effects of pornography.
“The legislation at issue in this case—Texas H.B. 1181—is precisely this kind of public policy,” reads the brief. “It was enacted with the purpose and effect of shielding minors from the well-documented developmental harms of pornography. The amici believe it is an abundantly good law. But more importantly for the purposes of this case, it is also abundantly constitutional.”
Upholding the Texas law would protect children from stumbling across pornography unbeknownst to their parents, even on social media. Additionally, upholding this law ensures other states can implement similar safeguards to protect children.
Southern Baptists affirmed in the 2024 resolution “On the God-Given Rights and Responsibilities of Parents” that they “encourage the state to partner with, rather than act contrary to, the family unit, enacting legislation that protects and upholds parental rights, ensuring that parents have the freedom to make decisions regarding the upbringing, education, and healthcare of their children without undue interference, recognizing that parents are the primary arbiters of a child’s moral and spiritual formation.” By ensuring children do not have unhindered access to pornography, the state can affirm parental rights to protect their children from encountering sexual content online.
In 2001, Southern Baptist resolved in the resolution “On The Plague Of Internet Pornography” to “call on all government agencies to enact and to enforce laws that protect our homes and communities from the transmission of pornographic material over the Internet.”
