Letter: Once Todd Weiler, and those like him, get it established in law that lawmakers can define what is, or is not, “offensive,” where is the line to be drawn?
FILE - Republican state Sen. Todd Weiler looks on as he sits on the Senate floor on March 2, 2023, at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. A law requiring porn sites verify the age of their users took effect on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. Its implementation comes days after Pornhub blocked its site and videos in Utah in protest. Robert Gehrke’s articleI am sure Sen. Weiler was amused when someone phoned him and cussed him out for his role in blocking access to the Pornhub website.
The problem is that Weiler, under the guise of attacking porn and protecting youth, is pushing a much larger agenda, and I think he knows it. Once he, and those like him, get it established in law that lawmakers can define what is, or is not, “offensive,” where is the line to be drawn?The idea that the government is determining what a free press can publish — and the internet is just another form of that press — is offensive to the First Amendment.
This is precisely the battle that Larry Flynt, late publisher of Hustler magazine, had to fight in the 1980s. He was joined at that time by major media companies in cases that, at one point, went to the U.S. Supreme Court. As Chief Justice William Rehnquist said in the court’s unanimous opinion: “At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection.
Weiler is a prominent member of a political party that preaches respect for the Constitution and small government. He should practice what he preaches.
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