Senate Democrats Just Told Parents Exactly Where They Stand on Protecting Kids From Porn

Thirteen Senate Democrats walked into a committee room Wednesday and made a choice that should haunt their next campaign. Every single one of them voted against requiring porn websites to verify that users are actually adults before serving up explicit content. Not some of them. All of them.

The vote was 15 to 13 along party lines. Senator Mike Lee’s SCREEN Act, which stands for Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net, advanced through the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee with unanimous Republican support and unanimous Democratic opposition. The bill ultimately failed because the committee lacked a quorum. Four Republicans weren’t physically present, and while they voted “aye” by proxy, those votes don’t count toward the minimum needed for official action. Four Democrats were similarly absent and voted “no” by proxy.

Here’s what gets me. This isn’t complicated legislation asking for the moon. The SCREEN Act would simply require commercial pornography websites to implement age verification technology. That’s it. The kind of check that prevents a twelve year old from clicking through to material that rewires developing brains and distorts their understanding of intimacy before they’ve even had their first real relationship.

The bill also authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to enforce these requirements and explicitly prohibits websites or third party verification providers from keeping or selling any personal information collected during the process. So the privacy concerns that Democrats love to trumpet? Already addressed in the text.

You know what’s really telling? The research that conservative groups cited before the vote. Fifty four percent of children age thirteen and younger have been exposed to sexually explicit content. Eighty percent of teenagers between twelve and seventeen have seen it. The average age of first exposure is now twelve years old. Twelve. That’s sixth or seventh grade for most kids.

Twenty seven states have already enacted their own age verification laws because parents are desperate for someone, anyone, to help them protect their children from an industry that profits from addiction and exploitation. This isn’t fringe stuff anymore. It’s mainstream parental anxiety that crosses party lines in living rooms across America. Except, apparently, it doesn’t cross party lines in the Senate.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, didn’t mince words. “The porn industry is preying on America’s children for profit, and now it is doing it with the support of Democrat lawmakers,” he told The Daily Wire. His organization joined Heritage Action, Family Policy Alliance, American Compass, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and several other groups in pushing for passage.

Schilling continued with a warning that Democrats should take seriously. “The Democrats have a choice. They can join the effort to protect kids online, or they can face the political consequences of standing with the porn companies. Today, thirteen of them chose poorly.”

He’s right. This vote is a gift to Republican challengers in the next election cycle. Imagine the campaign ads. Imagine trying to explain to suburban moms why you stood with Pornhub instead of their seventh grader. Good luck with that conversation.

The Democratic members who voted no include ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Gary Peters of Michigan, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Andy Kim of New Jersey, and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. Write those names down.

What’s the Democratic argument here? That age verification is too burdensome for an industry making billions off content that destroys marriages and sexualizes children? That we should trust porn companies to police themselves? That parents complaining about their kids stumbling onto hardcore material before they can drive are just being hysterical?

The free market works when it operates within moral boundaries that protect the vulnerable. Children can’t consent. They can’t understand what they’re viewing or the long term psychological damage it causes. Requiring age verification isn’t government overreach. It’s the bare minimum standard of decency in a civilized society.

Republicans get accused of being out of touch, of not understanding technology, of wanting to regulate everything. But here we are, proposing a straightforward solution to a problem that parents are begging us to address, and Democrats won’t even meet us halfway. They’d rather protect an industry that profits from human degradation than stand with families trying to raise healthy kids.

This vote tells you everything you need to know about priorities. When push came to shove, Senate Democrats chose Big Porn over your children. Remember that.

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