RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina religious conservative group backing just-passed age verification legislation, which a Republican state senator snuck into an unrelated bill last week, has admitted the copycat amendment is in fact an “anti-pornography provision.”
As XBIZ reported, last Thursday the North Carolina Senate voted unanimously to mandate age verification on adult websites, after Sen. Amy Galey (R-Alamance) inserted language inspired by other states’ laws into House Bill 8, which previously only proposed adding a computer science class to the state's high school graduation requirements.
On Friday, the amendment was ratified by the House and sent to Gov. Roy Cooper (D) to be signed into law.
Galey claimed last week that her amendment aimed to “protect our children," but also disclosed a wider goal, pointing out with satisfaction that overall traffic to adult websites in Louisiana dropped 80% after that state’s age verification law passed.
As XBIZ has been reporting, leading conservative anti-porn crusaders have admitted that the state-by-state age verification laws are merely a stepping stone in an organized effort to ban all adult content online and revive obscenity prosecutions.
On Monday, local news site The Center Square North Carolina published statements by religious conservative group the NC Values Coalition, which strongly endorsed the copycat age verification measure.
The group’s political director, Laura Macklem, told The Center Square, “This is an important issue for NC Values, and we applaud Senator Galey for taking leadership with this amendment to protect minors from pornography. NC Values will be watching to make certain the anti-pornography provision in HB8 is enforced, and we will be there for support in the face of any legal challenges.”
The NC Values statement celebrating the passage of HB8 mischaracterizes all adult content as illegal "obscenity."
Veteran Right-Wing Activists Fighting a Wide Array of Equal Rights Issues
NC Values is a Christian conservative organization that has funded and campaigned against abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights in North Carolina.
The group is led by veteran right-wing culture warriors Tami Fitzgerald and Mary Summa, who have been campaigning for decades against a wide array of civil rights measures, from the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for women, to visibility and equal rights for transgender North Carolinians.
The group’s acknowledgement that the alleged age verification provision of HB 8 is in fact targeting all legal pornography for adults is part of a current self-disclosure trend among right-wing activists. This includes editorials referring to the bills as “anti-Pornhub laws” and several statements by the American Principles Project’s Terry Schilling bragging about his involvement in crafting and passing the age verification state laws as a path to reinstitute federal obscenity prosecutions immediately after the inauguration of the next Republican president.
Main Image: NC Values leaders Tami Fitzgerald and Mary Summa.
