Protecting Our Children and Families

This month, for the sixth time in five years, an unelected judge struck down legislation fining businesses that rented or sold violent or mature video games to minors. In the case of Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) v. Governor Schwarzenegger, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte issued an injunction on the statute set to go into effect January 1, 2006. Assembly Bill 1179, signed back in October, declared the following: "This bill would require violent video games to be labeled as specified and would prohibit the sale or rental of those violent video games, as defined, to minors. The bill would provide that a person who violates the act shall be liable in an amount of up to $1,000 for each violation." The reasoning for Judge Whyte's ruling was that "games are protected by the First Amendment and ... plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their argument that the Act violates the First Amendment." He also pointed to other states (MI, IL, and WA included) that have ruled similarly.

According to Title XVII of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which is used in all 50 states, "Harmful to Minors" is defined as "any picture, image, graphic image file, or other visual depiction that - taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors" or "depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what issuitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact." Few would dispute that sex and violence in 3-D controlled animation falls into the definition above.

The opposition to this argument could refer not only to the other mirrored decisions made by courts in the last half decade, but to the 2001 decision, AAMA v. Teri Kendrick, which ruled that "children have First Amendment rights." Precedent can also be found in Ginsberg v. New York which claimed "defining obscenity on the basis of its appeal to minors under 17, has no rational relation to the objective of safeguarding such minors from harm."

That's enough of the legal jargon. The constitutional question it raises is whether the First Amendment, in the form of violent and sexual video games, applies to persons under 18. The legal precedent rulings like Whyte's sets is damaging to children and families nationwide. A decision like this could be used in further cases to make the claim that renting and selling pornography to minors should be protected under the amendment as well. While they're at it, legislation banning children from x-rated internet sites could be found unconstitutional along with selling music with the infamous "parental advisory" sticker slapped on the case. With the deterioration of moral legislation, tobacco and alcohol might soon be allowed in the hands of children.

Through our representatives, laws have been made restricting children from becoming full citizens. Minors are unable to vote, own property, stay out past curfew, imbibe alcohol, be executed for a crime, enlist in the armed forces (without parental consent), and smoke cigarettes, among others. If these "partial-citizens" don't have the right to influence law through a vote, it is plausible to claim they should not have the right to buy violent or sexual video games without parental consent.

It is not my interest to start another populist movement with new moral legislation effecting every tiny action. But, in the interest of families, children, and the nation's future, prohibiting minors from involving themselves with immoral material that is deemed "harmful to minors" gives parents more comfort that their child is not shooting down helicopters, holding up stores, or ripping off prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto.

It also seems as appropriate to mention the strategy of liberals in America. Instead of influencing the representatives that make laws, they subvert the judicial system to find a way to see their crazy ideologies carried out. In cases such as VSDA v. Schwarzenegger, liberals strike down legislation approved by the masses. For a group that claims the majority should rule - they don't let it. You see these tactics now more than ever in the Ninth Circuit. Michael Newdow won his case in the last year that ruled "under god" unconstitutional for children to say in public school. Hopefully, decisions like Judge Whyte's will proceed up to the Supreme Court, where a majority of conservatives sit. It is in the best interest of families that children not get their hands on the figurative matches to start a firestorm of violence and sexual debauchery.