> And is a law that requires some proof of age-- a credit card, whatever -- to
> access a website so terrible? What is gained by demanding that children
> have unlimited access to these sites?
I'll make the same arguments I made to right wing extremists who want to force filtering on libraries. The first argument is that free speech comes with no limitations. That means that I don't have to put up some barrier to my porn website to keep out children. Secondly, children aren't interested in this material. By the time they are interested, they are teenagers with sexualities and a right to have access to this material. Lastly, no evidence has ever been provided that accessing porn causes any kind of harm to minors as a class of people. There simply isn't an army of young people walking around in a daze because they viewed some kinky sex pictures on the Internet.
If the legal climate becomes more hostile towards pornography and erotica, I am willing to start running porn websites as a form of disobedience. I doubt that I will ever have to make that decision, as the right wing attack on porn is doomed to complete failure. It's kind of hard to eliminate something that everybody enjoys. Kind of like how Prohibition didn't work.
Chuck