In a landmark decision on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify that users are at least 18 years old before granting access. The ruling has sparked national debate—but for many Catholic families and advocates, it’s a necessary and overdue measure to shield children from spiritually and psychologically harmful material.
The court split 6-3 along ideological lines, with the conservative majority affirming that Texas’ law serves “an important interest of shielding children from sexually explicit content,” and does not unconstitutionally restrict adults’ rights because it uses “established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data,” according to the majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justice Thomas also addressed the broader societal context, noting that “the use of pornography has always been the subject of social stigma,” and that “this social reality has never been a reason to exempt the pornography industry from otherwise valid regulation.” From a Catholic perspective, this aligns with longstanding Church teaching that pornography not only distorts the dignity of the human person but also undermines the sanctity of marriage, family life, and human sexuality.
Opponents, including the Free Speech Coalition and the adult entertainment industry, argued that the law violates the First Amendment and puts users’ privacy at risk. Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting, wrote that “a State cannot target that expression, as Texas has here, any more than is necessary to prevent it from reaching children,” emphasizing that adult access to such material remains constitutionally protected. Free speech advocates claim that age verification could expose users to data leaks and surveillance, preferring content-filtering software as a less invasive option.
However, Justice Amy Coney Barrett—herself a mother of seven—dismissed the effectiveness of such tools. “Content filtering for all those devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with,” she said during oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, according to court transcripts. Many Catholic parents would likely agree with her, having experienced firsthand the limits of digital safeguards in the face of an internet saturated with graphic content.
This decision marks a reversal from earlier judicial resistance to similar laws. A federal judge initially blocked Texas’ law, comparing it to a 2004 federal statute that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in Ashcroft v. ACLU. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the law, leaning on the precedent set in Ginsberg v. New York (1968), which allowed states to restrict minors’ access to sexually explicit material. Unlike in 2004, today’s justices were clearly influenced by how radically the digital landscape has changed—high-speed internet, smartphones, and 24/7 online access have redefined what’s at stake.
Texas now requires websites to verify age if a third or more of their content is considered harmful to minors, with daily fines up to $10,000 for non-compliance. If a minor accesses the site without proper verification, that fine can rise to $250,000. As a result, Pornhub has ceased operations in Texas and other states with similar laws, according to a report by USA Today.
For Catholics, this ruling is not merely about law—it’s about moral clarity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that pornography “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act” and “does grave injury to the dignity of its participants.” Laws that recognize the damage pornography does to the soul—especially the vulnerable souls of children—are a sign of hope in a culture that often prioritizes profit and personal liberty over the common good.
While legal battles will likely continue, this ruling sends a powerful message: shielding children from moral harm is not only a legitimate state interest—it is a moral imperative.
