Scottish lawyer makes submissions to SCOTUS in porn law case

Mary Sharpe

Texas law HB 1181, signed into law last year, imposes strict age verification requirements on websites containing “sexual material harmful to minors”.

The law is being challenged by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), an adult entertainment industry trade association, with the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Supreme Court will next month hear oral arguments in the case, which has attracted interventions from a wide range of groups, including Christian organisations.

Ms Sharpe’s charity, The Reward Foundation, was invited by the Ethics and Public Policy Center – a US think tank which promotes “the Judeo-Christian moral tradition” – to make a submission to the court, The Times reports.

The Reward Foundation argues that pornography has a negative impact on the brain comparable to cocaine or heroin use.

Ms Sharpe said: “The porn industry is terrified porn will be seen as a health risk like smoking. This is a harder argument than smoking because you can’t immediately see the impact of porn on the brain unless you have an MRI scanner.

“The porn industry would say porn is not like taking drugs, thalidomide, or smoking. To them it’s an issue of freedom of speech.

“We are saying this is a health issue, so Texas is perfectly entitled to legislate on this, and it’s not a matter for the Supreme Court.”