So how broad is this?
Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?
replies(3):
> Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?
Most states have laws in place that regulate the sale and distribution of pornography and other "obscene" materials. This has been true for a long, long time. So yes, states have had the ability to require you to show ID to get a "newspaper" they don't like, assuming that newspaper is actually just pornography/obscenity. I don't think most people would argue Pornhub are news sites though.
The published plan from the heritage foundation includes a few more steps: (1) redefine obscenity to include pornography, effectively banning it via interstate commerce laws (2) extend this to anything that could “be harmful to minors”, which will certainly include information about groups they don’t like, starting with LGBTQ+.
Seems annoying but not impossible to do.
Edit: I am happy to build a cat pic to porn ratio audit company if anyone is interested. I want to participate in the funniest regulatory process this will create
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
. Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Clearly the whole of Wikipedia is not trying to appeal to purient interests of the average person. I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way, and I'd argue it has serious political and scientific value.
(Never mind the fact that other recent anti-LGBTQ rulings and policies have heavily implied as much, but I don't think they've been quite so explicit. Yet.)
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5430355/scotus-opt-out-...
A more limited context of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_v._United_States_Post_Of...
> The addressee of postal mail has unreviewable discretion to decide whether to receive further material from a particular sender, and a vendor does not have a constitutional right to send unwanted material to an unreceptive addressee.
It's not necessarily that the receiver has the sole right to determine if the material is pornographic or whatever, its that the receiver of mail has the right to decide to no longer receive material and that the sender doesn't have a right to force its delivery through the mail.
The form to prevent someone from sending you mail you don't want is a PS Form 1500. This form starts off saying:
> If you are receiving unwanted sexually oriented advertisements coming through the mail to your home or business
But, you can still just file it against say a roofer sending you unwanted advertising or whatever. The USPS isn't allowed to challenge your personal determination that you're receiving unwated sexually oriented advertisements. Maybe you personally find roofers sexy and are trying to avoid being around roofers and having their services offered at your home. USPS isn't allowed to judge.
> Transgender people will see their existence denied and their rights stripped away under Project 2025. The authors equate ‘transgender ideology’ to pornography, calling for it to be outlawed. While the far-right policy agenda cannot directly ban transgenderism, it aims to do so indirectly by labeling it as pornography, and then outlawing pornography itself – effectively erasing transgender identity from the U.S.
https://doctorsoftheworld.org/blog/project-2025-lgbtq-rights...
No. That alone is highly unlikely to prevent performative lawsuits from state attorney generals. Especially (but not limited to) AGs who are intent on satisfying their culture war kink.
"Contemporary community standards" and "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" are so vague as to be useless. Whose community? Which standards? How many people have to be offended by something? How many people have to find value in it for it to be serious?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscenity
> In 1957, two associates of acclaimed poet Allen Ginsberg were arrested and jailed for selling his book "Howl and Other Poems" to undercover police officers at a beatnik bookstore in San Francisco. Eventually the California Supreme Court declared the literature to be of "redeeming social value" and therefore not classifiable as "obscene". Because the poem "Howl" contains pornographic slang and overt references to drugs and homosexuality, the poem was (and is) frequently censored and confiscated; however, it remains a landmark case.
The Simpsons was considered concerningly off-color in the 1990s; I remember quite a bit of pearl clutching about it, to the point of them getting into a bit of a feud with George and Barbara Bush. Now it's positive family values TV of "serious artistic value".
Most of what's on Pornhub is considered pornography but not obscenity currently, but that could change on a dime.
[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf
Texas certainly could've written the law more narrowly, and chose not to. Small government for me, big brother for thee.
You don't just need "someone". You'll find "someone" say anything, including that the Earth is flat, its 40,000 years old, and we're controlled by lizard people. The standard isn't "someone". You'll find someone who claims a table of ICD codes or a stop sign appeals to their prurient interest and is sexual in nature.
You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. Not just any person applying any standard.
No, you just need the court to agree, you don't need to actually get the (non-existent, fictional abstraction) of “the average person” to say anything, you just need a judge to believe that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person
And other similar "vague" concepts arise elsewhere in the law, like someone "skilled in the art".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_having_ordinary_skill_i...
Even then, it wasn't like the average person was arguing for it to be banned by obscenity rules. The spat between H.W. Bush and the Simpsons was a comment he made, saying "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons." It's not like Bush was actively pushing for The Simpsons to be taken off the air or anything along those lines.
Honestly, I think it makes more sense to have some kind of standard like a reasonable person/common person/contemporary community standard when trying to define something like "obscenity". Not making an argument of what kind of law to pass with that, just stating I don't think having some etched in stone standard would ultimately be good in the end for any kind of law related to such content. Ultimately its the same to me in terms of laws that would otherwise try and regulate certain kinds of commerce or whatever, with extremely rigid definitions that can't keep up with changes to the marketplace. That we might find something like The Simpsons potentially detestable in the 90s but otherwise fine today is an example for such a standard with flexibility, not against it IMO. We wouldn't want the law to be bound to whatever people specifically thought was "obscenity" in 1850 to still hold legal weight today.