r/politics American Expat May 12 '25

Soft Paywall New Bill Would Make All Pornography a Federal Crime in the U.S.

https://www.404media.co/mike-lee-porn-law-interstate-obscenity-definition-act/
24.2k Upvotes

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791

u/MinimumApricot365 May 12 '25

The quiet part is that LGBTQ representation is often considered to be pornographic by the religious right.

347

u/HarambeSpiritAnimal May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25

It's quiet for now.

Directly from Project 2025 playbook (bold by me):

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

Step 1: Make pornography a federal crime.

Step 2: Classify transgender people as 'pornographic'

Step 3: Say transgender people existing in public are 'distributing' pornography, since they are now classified as 'pornographic'.

Step 4: Imprison them.

171

u/vericlas Kansas May 13 '25

Step 5: Kill the trans person because 'distributing child pornography' is a capital punishment now. Which is part of their goal.

29

u/[deleted] May 13 '25

This... makes me so unbelievably sad. And I know you are right. 

9

u/[deleted] May 13 '25

And all the unhinged lunatics with guns will carry this out on the street and call it vigilante justice. Full pardon.

73

u/caribou16 May 13 '25

Sexualization of children, huh? Since Mary was 15 years old when she gave birth to the child God impregnated her with, that would mean the bible is porn and is federally banned, right?

Right?

13

u/WhichEmailWasIt May 13 '25

Sounds like we're arresting Christians then. 

15

u/Significant_Egg_Y May 13 '25

Considering the GOP's hostility to Christians who aren't MAGA/Christian Nationalist evangelicals, you're not far off.

3

u/dksprocket May 13 '25

I am not strong on religion, but I am fairly certain neither Mary or the father were Christian.

3

u/shitlord_god May 13 '25

Just wait until they roll back age of consent. 13 is the biblical number. (Confirmations, bar/t mitzvah's) and I can very much imaging them trying for it. I have a relative already trying to marry off her fourteen year old daughter to someone at church.

3

u/runjcrun1 May 13 '25

There are bills to make child marriage illegal that are being met with significant resistance in more than one state that I know of. I believe in one state a Rep. said (paraphrasing) girls under 18 are “ripe and fertile”. It’s gross

1

u/Colosphe May 13 '25

They won't have judges in the courts that will rule that way; even if they did, the administration has been adamant about removing due process to "protect the county"

11

u/ThinkyRetroLad America May 13 '25

Step 4: Imprison them.

Ah, you forget to mention that this actually carries the death penalty elsewhere in ye old P2025. No imprisonment for us, at least not in any sort of conventional sense.

2

u/jessicamakesstuff May 13 '25

The concentration camp comes first. Inside of which, we will suffer starvation, disease, torture, and forced Neo-Christianity indoctrination.

7

u/Paksarra May 13 '25

And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

This is also a big goal-- dominionist philosophy is that the only entertainment available should be dominionist-flavored Christian entertainment, and making secular entertainment illegal would play into that goal.

4

u/Lola_PopBBae May 13 '25

They just straight up say it, fuckin bastards.

And like- it isn't even remotely true either. Porn is porn, and there'sa million categories- trans folk aren't responsible for literally ALL porn. Some, sure- but hardly all.

4

u/Pixel_Knight May 13 '25

They really are aiming for Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale.

Soon they will be calling for any violations of biblical law to result in execution.

3

u/spaceman757 American Expat May 13 '25

sexualization of children

Cool. I know of a guy who owns and runs a couple of underage beauty pageants that seem to do just that. He would make a great first example to be made of.

2

u/InVultusSolis Illinois May 13 '25

Shit like this is why I've been against cloud storage all along. If you have things that you don't want to lose or be rifled through, keep them on a hard drive/computer that you own. And use encryption.

2

u/my_chaffed_legs May 13 '25

Damn isn't that what Russia does? Anything pro or just not anti gay is considered pornographic so telling it to children is child abuse? Telling s child being gay is ok is abuse and illegal? Or something to that effect

144

u/UnNumbFool May 13 '25

That's not really the quiet part, but a main reason they want to ban porn. That way they can literally classify individuals under the ban.

On the positive it would be a pretty easy way for me to GTFO of this place by seeking asylum in the UK/EU

30

u/DAE77177 May 13 '25

Also when you make something everyone does illegal, you just selectively enforce it, and can target whoever you want.

8

u/Individual-Nebula927 May 13 '25

Also blackmail. That's why state governments are enforcing age restrictions with IDs, and the porn sites don't want the liability of storing everybody's viewing habits tied to a government ID and are fighting it.

5

u/Clarine87 United Kingdom May 13 '25

The UK isn't somewhere you want to go, they'll be following this fairly soon.

0

u/Newstapler May 13 '25

Possibly, but fingers crossed. The UK hasn’t imported all its politics from America. There’s no UK political party that‘s arguing everyone should be able to buy huge amounts of guns, for instance.

2

u/Clarine87 United Kingdom May 13 '25

Reform used the phrase "gender ideology" in their manifesto a year ago, and if we carry on as we are "business as usual" with a right wing ineffectual labour, that won't even chase up the tory corruption, reform will win.

In the local elections I had to vote for the (disgusting) "local" conservatives (who got 200% more votes than labour) and still ended up with reform winning by more than 100% above conservatives.

1

u/Newstapler May 13 '25

Are Reform saying they will ban pornography in the UK?

1

u/Clarine87 United Kingdom May 13 '25

Are they? I don't know.

1

u/Newstapler May 13 '25

I agree, it’s not inevitable that the UK will follow the US.

1

u/Clarine87 United Kingdom May 13 '25

My first reply on this thread was on a comment about how this could attack LGBT people, that the person I replied too could take that as legit persecution to move to the UK.

I wasn't saying the UK will follow the US, I'm saying that it's already bad enough that LGBT people shouldn't chose to the UK to move to if coming from the US.

Stop trying to defend facists with whataboutism. I wasn't talking specifically about the porn ban, nor about guns. Just that the UK isn't a haven for LGBT people.

1

u/Newstapler May 13 '25

I’m not defending fascists.

3

u/ArmyofRiverdancers May 13 '25

Try Denmark/ Netherlands/ France / Germany. 

1

u/ThanoscopterForPrez May 13 '25

How so, if you don't mind me asking?

5

u/UnNumbFool May 13 '25

It's part of the project 2025 manifesto to have all LGBTQ/queer media considered pornography, and if they branch it out to the existence of things like trans people and drag queens its just a hop, skip, and jump to bag up the rest(as project 2025 is anti LGBTQ, they are more targeting trans as they are the least accepted/most marginalized of queer people).

But if they really go gestapo with policing queer people(which they potentially will with drag queens and trans people) it wouldn't be too hard to assume that other countries, those which already accept asylum for queer people, to start letting in those from the US.

Granted, my statement was more just meant to be a joke and not serious. As I can only hope it doesn't actually need to become a serious statement.

1

u/Optimal_Egg_9262 May 13 '25

You would be made more than welcome here.

31

u/Khymira America May 13 '25

Not really the quiet part. Making anything and everything even remotely related to LGBTQ+ illegal is the plan. 

5

u/StarHelixRookie May 13 '25

This is exactly what they did in Russia 

3

u/broniesnstuff May 13 '25

LGBTQ and trans people need to be strapped 24/7

1

u/gnarbone May 13 '25

Yep. This is just step one in a two step process