SALT LAKE CITY — Brady Brammer, the Utah legislator who is sponsoring the current bill that would force all "obscene material" distributed in the state, including via the internet, to attach an unnecessary and unconstitutional warning that the material "may damage or negatively impact minors," authored a 2006 essay arguing for the equivalence of gay rights speech and religiously inspired homophobic speech, and asking for the latter to be protected.
In his 2006 Brigham Young University Law Review paper "Religious Groups and the Gay Rights Movement: Recognizing Common Ground" (.pdf attached below), Brammer concluded that "in the wake of unrestrained equality-based claims, the nation could potentially reach a time when religious groups could not take a moral stance of conscience against homosexuality. The question then becomes whether that should happen. In the interest of both groups and future groups to come, the answer is a resounding 'no.'"
Throughout 39 pages filled with clunky analogies and references to literary works, Brammer makes the perverse argument that "religious groups" — which he narrows down to mean those religious groups or individuals with vocal policies against gay rights or homosexuality in general — and "the gay rights movement" both have equal standing in terms of free speech.
In his paper, Brammer deliberately ignores that one group is actively campaigning to prevent numerous LGBTQ Americans, whether they are an active part of his "gay rights movement" group or not, from obtaining full rights under the constitution.
A Misleading Title
The title of the essay is a misleading attempt to create a sense of amity between religiously inspired homophobes and those people fighting for the rights that the homophobes seek to deny. Brammer wanted the legal establishment to recognize that there's "common ground" between anti-gay activists and gay right advocates — essentially, free speech.
This is in marked contrast to Brammer's current-day attempt to impose an onerous and unconstitutional mandate on all sexual expression worldwide if any material he considers "obscene" happens to be distributed in his home state of Utah.
According to adult industry trade group Free Speech Coalition (FSC), Brammer's bill, HB243, which has easily cleared the Utah House and Senate and is on its way to the governor's desk, would make anyone who does not comply liable to be sued by the Attorney General of Utah, for a penalty of $2,500 per violation. This would presumably include not only studios around the world but also cam performers and individual clip artists.
As the FSC pointed out, HB243 "remains a land mine of First Amendment issues. Affixing a state-mandated warning to an adult film, which enjoys First Amendment protections, is fundamentally different from doing the same to a food product, which does not."
Brammer, according to the FSC, says that "the labeling law will only apply to 'obscene' content. However, there is no established legal definition for obscenity — each case would have to be worked out through a lengthy and expensive legal process. However, the chilling effect on legal speech would be substantial."
Brammer, a Republican representative and successful lawyer in Utah, often flaunts his connection to Brigham Young University, its Law School and the Law Review where, in 2006, he passionately pled for free speech protections for homophobic activists.
After considering "tensions between the gay rights movement and religious speech condemning homosexuality" — this was the era of the fight for the recognition of gay marriage — Brammer drew two conclusions: "First, it is possible for the gay rights movement to advance their goals through the legal suppression of religious speech opposing homosexuality. Second, such a strategy would injure religious groups and gay rights activists by eroding fundamental freedoms of conscience that both groups rely upon."
In 2016, Utah became the first state to adopt a resolution endorsing a "public health crisis" around porn. Over 15 other state legislatures have since adopted similar copycat measures, with language provided by religiously inspired lobbies and copied from state to state. These bills are usually sponsored by religious legislators, often fundamentalist evangelicals, with various appeals to War On Porn propaganda scares around "sex trafficking" and the debunked notion of "porn addiction."
Brady Brammer's 2006 Law Review Essay Arguing for the Free Speech of Religious Homophobes
