Child Pornography

Three years ago, ignoring constitutional objections raised by the ACLU, the legislature expanded the state’s child pornography law to ban both the possession and distribution of images that merely “appear to be” of a minor engaged in sexual conduct. This year, in belated acknowledgement that the law could not withstand legal scrutiny, a bill was introduced to revise the statute. Once again, though, the ACLU objected that the bill continued to unconstitutionally ban images that did not involve actual minors. The Media Coalition, a national organization representing most of the booksellers, publishers and periodical distributors in the country, joined the Affiliate in opposing the bill, but to no avail. The General Assembly passed the legislation with virtually no dissent.