MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A religious conservative lawmaker in Alabama revealed Monday that she intends to introduce a copycat age verification bill as soon as the state legislature’s 2024 session begins.
State Rep. Susan DuBose (R-Hoover) — who prior to being elected declared to the Birmingham Christian Family magazine that her Biblical worldview would guide her decision making — told Alabama Daily News that her version of other Republican-majority states’ age verification laws will be “a porn ID law.”
DuBose said her bill would be “similar to a bill approved this year by Louisiana lawmakers, which would fine pornographic websites up to $5,000 a day for not verifying the age of its users through a process that requires the submission of a photo ID.”
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.
DuBose, however, claimed to have been motivated by speaking to parents and grandparents concerned “about their 10 to 12-year-old boys because they’re so engaged in their computers,” and asserted that most children in that age group have already seen porn on the internet.
“It’s damaging and addictive to young minds,” said DuBose, who before entering politics was a homemaker with no scientific background in mental health or brain science.
DuBose also stated, without providing evidence, that access to online adult material is “one reason we see so many females thinking that they are transgender.” She told Alabama Daily News that she will also reintroduce the transphobic What Is a Woman Act, which would legally codify definitions of “men” and “women” based solely on biological sex determined at birth.
“My faith impacts everything in my life,” she told the Birmingham Christian Family magazine in 2022. “It is my moral compass. It gives me the strength to make the right choices when so much of the world is pulling in the other direction. Every type of decision you make, you can go back to the Bible and the answer is there.”
Another conservative politician, Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) told the Alabama Daily News that he is working on a parallel project in the Senate.
“Just like young people are prohibited from purchasing pornographic magazines in retail stores, they also shouldn’t be able to access it online,” Orr said. “And currently, we have no prohibitions in effect to prohibit such activity.”