AFA Action celebrates Mississippi laws protecting children from explicit online content
TUPELO, Miss. — AFA Action, the government affairs affiliate of the American Family Association, applauds Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves for signing two bills to protect children from the dangers of online pornography. The first bill, HB 1315, requires that the providers of K-12 school and library databases remove obscene and inappropriate content. The second bill, SB 2346, requires pornographic websites to make sure users are age 18 and older.
“Just like Big Tobacco once did in targeting kids, the pornography industry is trying to expose children to explicit content as early as possible,” said Dr. Jameson Taylor, director of policy and legislative affairs for AFA Action. “Big Porn, which includes household names and Fortune 500 companies, is creating an addiction model for pornography. Their goal is to sexualize kids using any means possible, including libraries, homework databases, and innocent internet searches.”
SB 2346, sponsored by Senator Nicole Boyd, is based on a Louisiana law that went into effect on January 1, 2023. The law allows parents to sue the owners of pornographic websites if they don’t implement commonsense age-verification requirements. These are the same types of safeguards increasingly used for online gambling or alcohol sales.
HB 1315 is sponsored by Rep. Lee Yancey, but eventually became the vehicle for HB 1341, a bill championed by Speaker Philip Gunn. After learning about instances of harmful and pornographic material in Mississippi’s K-12 library databases, Speaker Gunn introduced legislation aimed at holding database vendors accountable when they fail to remove adult content.
“Virtually every state has contracts with online database subscription services offered by companies like EBSCO and Gale,” said Dr. Taylor. “These databases are marketed as ‘age appropriate,’ but they contain obscene and sexually explicit material. Examples include articles that discuss how to have sex or, in the worst cases, live links to borderline child pornography. Children have a right to their innocence and no parent should have to worry about their child being exposed to pornography while doing homework.”
“Mississippi now has some of the strongest laws in the country to protect children when they go online,” concluded Dr. Taylor. “We are going to keep fighting back against the American Library Association’s radical push to sexualize kids by exposing them to graphic sex, child trafficking and rape, and bestiality. Schools and libraries need to be safe places for our children.”
AFA Action is a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to advancing biblical, family values in society and government by educating and influencing public policy. The mission of AFA Action is to inform and mobilize individuals to strengthen the biblical foundations of America by persuading individuals with the truth of the Gospel, challenging the lost to repent, promoting societal values that are consistent with Scripture, restraining evil and exposing the works of darkness, motivating people to take a stand on cultural and moral issues, and encouraging Christians to bear witness to the world the love of Jesus Christ. Find AFA Action Alerts here.
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For more information on AFA Action, visit www.afaaction.net or follow AFA Action on Facebook or Twitter.
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To interview an AFA or AFA Action spokesperson, contact [email protected], Beth Harrison, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.
