A new law designed to protect children takes effect July 1 in Virginia. It requires websites with more than a third of its material “harmful to minors” to verify that the user is 18 years of age or older before accessing the website. The new law leaves it up to the website to determine the method they used to verify the age of the user.
Similar laws have been enacted in Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi and Arkansas.
This legislation was passed in the Virginia legislature with bipartisan support and signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin May 12.
Susan Muskett, an attorney and president of Pro-Family Women, believes the law is “a tremendous victory for Virginia families.” Pro-Family Women’s mission is to proclaim and give witness, in prayer and action, to the truths of the Catholic faith.
“Unfortunately, in too many instances, the internet has become a platform facilitating human trafficking and prostitution, and far too many young people have been robbed of their innocence by either stumbling upon or being led to a site with pornographic material,” she said. “By making it more difficult for minors to use the internet to access explicit sexual content, this bill is a commonsense safeguard for the children of Virginia.”
Muskett said opponents of this law argue that a better approach would be for parents to speak to their children about the harms of the internet, and to implement parental controls on their children’s electronic devices.
“But pornography’s link to adolescents’ participation in risky sexual behavior, mental health problems, sending of sexually explicit imagery, poor academic achievement, and long-term use of pornography later in life, warrant the enactment of this law,” she said.
