COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho —

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law aimed at blocking children from seeing online pornography, local legislators praised a similar Idaho law passed in 2024.

Nearly half of the states have passed laws requiring adult website users to verify their ages to access pornographic material.

An adult-entertainment industry trade group called the Free Speech Coalition had challenged the Texas law, arguing that it puts an unfair free-speech burden on adults by requiring them to submit personal information that could be vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The court ruled 6-3 in the matter last month.

“Adults have the right to access speech obscene only to minors ... but adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote

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