GOP Sen. Mike Lee Introduces Bill To Criminalize Pornography

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has introduced a new bill aimed at criminalizing pornography, arguing it will minimize the psychological harm porn causes to adolescents.

The bill, dubbed the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), strives to obstruct the production and distribution of pornographic material and to redefine “obscenity” as a broader category.

Lee and Rep. Mary Miller (R-Illinois), who authored the draft legislation, define content as obscene if it is “taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion” or if it “depicts, describes or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person” and if it “taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

This bill is worded similarly to the Miller Test, a legal standard imposed by the 1973 Supreme Court Case defining obscene content in the First Amendment Protection. The test is currently practiced in most obscenity-related judicial cases.

The Miller Test defines content as obscene if it meets all three criteria, as Lee and Miller similarly list in their bill. However, the new bill seeks to define content as obscene if it meets even one of the listed criteria.

Redrawing boundaries of First Amendment protection would dramatically change the availability of sexually related content in media.

Republican lawmakers have increasingly supported outright censorship of pornography.

Miller and Lee’s bill mirrors The Heritage Foundation’s policy agenda, Project 2025.

The foundation’s “Mandate of Leadership” claims pornography as “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children,” as well as associates anyone who indulges in it as being “child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”

It describes pornography as “as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime.”

President Donald Trump‘s second-term agenda has been strongly influenced by the goals outlined in Project 2025. During the campaign, Trump claimed he knew “nothing about” Project 2025.

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Article by Amanda Morley