1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

Senator Mike Lee is trying to push a bill that would mark pornography a federal crime in the U.S. Just like the Screen act, it’s being pushed as a means of “protecting children” but how many of these “protect the children” bills have ACTUALLY protected children? How would this bill protect children in states where child marriage is legal? Where their own parents are their exploiters? No, just like the screen act, this is a bill that would actually seek to criminalize every day Americans and businesses further. Ask Mike Lee and whoever supports this bill what counts as pornography to them? Because for many people, a woman wearing a bathing suit at a beach is pornographic. Sites like X and even Google would be at risk of being shut down because they would be seen as “sharing pornography”. How many scientific photos of the human body would be taken down because it would be deemed pornographic? The answer is many. YouTube (which already has strict sensors) would be affected ever more for content that’s not even pornography because the reality of a bill like this is that it’s written by people who still think ankles are arousing. Those are not the type of people who should be making decisions that affect the country this way. We are a country that prides itself on our freedom of expression. Anything less would put us in the same league as China, Russia or even North Korea. If Mike Lee and whoever else REALLY wants to protect kids, then they’ll start by criminalizing child marriage.