Federal appeals court lets porn website age verification mandate go into effect

A federal appeals court on Friday stayed an injunction blocking enforcement of an Indiana law requiring pornography websites to verify user ages.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit called the Hoosier measure “functionally identical” to one adopted by Texas.

That law has been in effect since April, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a preliminary injunction.

Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 17 has never gone live, despite an effectiveness date of July 1.

Days before that happened, a U.S. District Court Judge Richard Young, of Indiana’s Southern District, issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement. He said the requirements were “likely unconstitutional.”

But now that injunction is on hold.

“We do not see any adequate reason why Texas’s law may be enforced pending the decision on the merits …, while Indiana’s may not be enforced,” Judges Frank H. Easterbrook and Amy J. St. Eve wrote.

“Functionally identical statutes should be treated the same while the Supreme Court considers the matter,” they added.

They granted Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s request for a stay on the preliminary injunction until the nation’s top court decides the Texan case.

“This is a huge win for Hoosier families, ensuring our children can’t easily access explicit material,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. “We will continue upholding our constitutional duty to defend our laws in court.”

Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner, however, partially dissented.

She agreed with the appeals panel’s decision to freeze proceedings while waiting for the Supreme Court’s opinion. But she disagreed with her colleagues’ choice to grant the stay.

Rovner noted that when the Supreme Court declined to block Texas’ law, it was already in effect and the plaintiffs “were already subjected to its burdens.”

The court’s decision, she wrote, “merely left the case as it found it, leaving the parties no worse off than they had been.”

In contrast, she continued, plaintiffs in Indiana’s case haven’t had to comply with the law’s “burdensome requirements.”

The judge argued a stay should only be issued after considering the merits. Otherwise, she added, the court “impose(s) a cost” on those that must comply with the law, and curtails their First Amendment rights, “based solely on an unreasoned stay denial.”

“To reach (this conclusion) for parity alone, when the cases are presented in opposite postures, accords too much weight to a one-sentence denial of a stay,” the judge wrote.

Pornography video-sharing website Pornhub had promised to exit Indiana before the stay was issued. It is unclear if it will now do so.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.