SALT LAKE CITY—Attorneys representing the state of Utah have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by adult trade organization the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) challenging the state's recently enacted age-verification law targeting adult entertainment websites. In court filings, counsel from the Utah Attorney General’s office argues that the law only allows private, civil actions for any violations.
“As [the] plaintiffs correctly pleaded in their complaint, ‘the Act creates a private right of action by which Utah residents—and not state actors—are empowered to [enforce the Act].’ The Court cannot enjoin Defendants from doing something they lack statutory authority to do in the first place, nor can the Court treat Defendants as a type of proxy stand-in for parties that might be averse to Plaintiffs in a later lawsuit,” said David Wolf, assistant Utah attorney general, leading the defense for the state against the FSC. In response, the coalition’s director of public affairs Mike Stabile told AVN in an email that “we fully expected the state to make this challenge, and look forward to the upcoming hearing next month.”
Industry attorny Corey Silverstein reacted to this new development with a statement to AVN saying he found it “hard to believe that the state actually believes the arguments it is making. The state of Utah and the Utah Attorney General's office can try to spin this unconstitutional law however they would like but nothing is going to change the fact that the judiciary won't be buying the arguments that the State is selling.
“The state's defenses to the lawsuit are both predictable and meritless and I have full faith that the federal judiciary at either the district court or circuit court level will not allow this blatant government attack on the First Amendment to survive,” Silverstein added.
The FSC's suit challenges the constitutionality of Utah’s Senate Bill 287, which was introduced by Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, and Rep. Susan Pulsipher, R-South Jordan. The bill was sent to Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, a social conservative like Weiler and Pulsipher, who signed it into law. A day before it took effect on May 3, Pornhub blocked all Utah IP addresses and warned users to contact their state elected officials to change the law.
FSC executive director Alison Boden announced the lawsuit against Utah on the same day. Boden said that “we are fighting not only for the rights of our members and the larger adult entertainment community but for the right of all Americans to access ... protected expression in the privacy of their own home.” Counsel for the coalition has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on the age verification law. In the motion, counsel argues that the state legislature has adopted a public policy agenda with a “long legacy of constitutional invalidity.”
“In doing so, it has placed Plaintiffs in the untenable position of abiding by the act’s terms and enduring the constitutional infringement, or violating the Act and risking lawsuits. … Stifling adult speech is a feature of this legislation, not a bug,” notes the motion.
A federal judge has scheduled oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition et al v. Anderson et al.
