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christian counseling today
VOL. 22 NO. 1
47
Legislative Fixes
Whether we like it or not, the courts are treating
pornography as a freedom of speech issue and
granting the industry extensive First Amendment
protections. That does not mean that there can
be no legislation that will pass muster, but courts
typically apply the highest level of protection to
pornography viewing (at least by adults). This
means the law will be overturned by a court
unless a legislature demonstrates that it: 1)
furthers a “compelling governmental interest”
(i.e., protects against a specific and provable
harm), and 2) is “narrowly tailored” to ban only
what is necessary to prevent that specific harm.
The best legislative approach is to limit or
restrict access to pornography for minors. Just
like cigarettes cannot be purchased or used by
minors, legislatures could craft laws that prevent
children from accessing porn. For instance, the
Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is able to
ban smoking by children because it is a science-
based decision, which courts have upheld.
Likewise, any statute prohibiting Web sites from
allowing children to access porn will only be
sustained by courts if it is tied to science. Courts
will reject any porn restriction tied to morality alone. The key is being able
to prove that children are actually harmed in specific ways from specific
types of exposure to porn.
Therefore, there are two factors needed to win in the legislative realm.
The first is enlisting the support of a community of counselors, psycholo-
gists, and psychiatrists. The scientific community must demonstrate that
certain types of porn viewing by children result in real, not hypothetical,
harm. Courts will not blindly accept a legislature’s word that pornography
hurts kids. It must have data to back it up. That means there needs to be
research papers and studies with findings that will survive scrutiny of not
only the porn industry, but also other professionals in the field who will
evaluate the study, protocols, and findings. We cannot simply wish this
into action—hard work must take place.
Second, the law must be carefully crafted to only address the harm
established by science. It must also be crafted in a way that can be enforced
through reasonable efforts, such as requiring a credit card to access Web
sites containing the types of science-based harmful images, even if there is
no charge for viewing, because most children do not have credit cards.
It is time for a community of counselors, psychologists, and psychia-
trists to do what Congress cannot—prove that certain types of porn actu-
ally harm children. If you can do that, we can win the legislative battle.
The Church’s Role
The other, and most important, battlefield is influencing the culture
because merely outlawing pornography will do nothing to make a person