By a 6-3 vote, SCOTUS upholds age-verification laws for online porn, holding that they are only subject to intermediate

[Sympthsical]

8. It's a legal standard when deciding constitutional issues

It's a little complicated, but the best explanation I can manage is when considering this law, the question the Court posed was whether or not it furthers a legitimate government interest and the law is tailored for this even if it may slightly complicate a constitutional right. In this case, Texas instituted age verification to prevent minors from accessing porn. Adults argued the regulation interfered with their First Amendment right to consume legal content.

When using intermediate scrutiny, the Court's asking 1. Is the law constitutional on its own (can you have age restrictions?) and 2. is the law written to effect solely that purpose? In other words, is the law written with the purpose of preventing minors from accessing porn, or are there sneaky provisions in it whose real aim is to prevent adults from accessing porn? Are they making porn more difficult to access for adults on purpose, or is that added layer of difficulty incidental to the purpose of protecting children?

So there were three levels when deciding what standard to use when judging the constitutionality of a law. Rational basis (least intense), intermediate scrutiny (sometimes it's a violation of rights, but sometimes it's not, so let's explore the space here), and strict scrutiny (it looks like you are either grossly violating constitutional rights or likely to do so, and unless there is a God-level good reason here, we're going to be pretty hostile to what you're doing and the government had better explain itself thoroughly).

In this case, where obscenity is involved, the Court ruled that it lands in the middle. This traces back to a decision in 1968, Ginsberg v. New York, where the Court ruled you can ban adult materials to minors. The speech is protected for adults and not for children. So, in this case, the Court decided to use that medium scrutiny. The law is aimed at children, but has some ancillary effect on adults.

All intermediate scrutiny requires in this case is that the law is not written and executed in such a way that the government is attempting to violate the First Amendment (i.e. they say they're protecting kids, but their real goal is adults).

The Court said that isn't the case. Yeah, it's a slight pain in the ass for adults, but the government's interest in withholding the material from children is legitimate and the law as written is not an excessive burden on adults exercising their rights.

And I'll just quote the salient bit from the decision, because that might actually be clearer than my cobbled explanation:

Because H. B. 1181 simply requires proof of age to access content that is obscene to minors, it does not directly regulate adults’ protected speech. Adults have the right to access speech obscene only to minors, see Butler, 352 U. S., at 383–384, and submitting to age verification burdens the exercise of that right. But adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification. Any burden on adults is therefore incidental to regulating activity not protected by the First Amendment. This makes intermediate scrutiny the appropriate standard under the Court's precedents.