RALEIGH, N.C. — Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, signed into law Monday a bill mandating age verification on adult websites, ignoring the arguments and warnings of free speech advocates.
The new requirement will go into effect Jan. 1, 2024.
One in a slew of copycat bills introduced by religious conservative Republicans in several U.S. states, North Carolina’s House Bill 8 passed with bipartisan support last month, after State Sen. Amy Galey (R-Alamance) inserted the anti-porn language into a previously unrelated measure about high school computer science classes.
As XBIZ reported, Galey justified her amendment by saying the measure was needed “to protect our children,” citing the seven other states that have passed similar laws and noting with satisfaction that overall traffic to adult websites in Louisiana dropped 80% after that state’s age verification law passed.
Last week, Free Speech Coalition (FSC) sent a letter to Gov. Cooper, asking him to veto House Bill 8. FSC Executive Director Alison Boden told Cooper, “This age-verification law is flawed and deeply unconstitutional, and will face many of the same legal challenges as laws in states like Texas and Louisiana have faced.”
After the bill passed the legislature, a rep for North Carolina’s leading religious conservative group, NC Values, stated to the local press that the alleged age verification amendment is in fact an “anti-pornography provision.”
Democrats Keep Ignoring Free Speech Advocates
Gov. Cooper and the North Carolina Democrats who voted for the Republican-led initiative are among a growing group of fellow party members supporting these right-wing proposals across the country for various reasons.
In August, Democratic state representative — and SWERF — Lois Reckitt teamed up with Maine’s Christian Civic League to propose a similar age verification bill, which conservative leaders have been openly promoting in an effort to reinstitute obscenity prosecutions of adult content at the federal level.
The bills are being touted by Republicans as bipartisan wins around the country, with some Democrats revealing the reasons behind these alliances of convenience. Virginia’s age verification bill was signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in May and went into effect July 1, the same day that a similar bill took effect in Mississippi. The Virginia bill received bipartisan support, although it was later revealed by Democratic State Sen. Scott A. Surovell that he had engineered a vote-trading scheme with the bill’s Republican author over an unrelated bill.
Texas’ extremely controversial version of the age verification law, which includes an outlandish, unconstitutional mandate to post anti-porn propaganda as “health warnings” on adult websites, was also passed with the support of the state’s Democratic lawmakers.
XBIZ contacted state, House and Senate offices of the Texas Democratic Party at the time to ask about Democratic support for the Texas law, but all declined to respond.