Utah Senate Dumps ‘Games As Porn’ Bill

Website GamePolitics is reporting that the Utah State Senate has dropped the proposed HB257 bill which would have equated mature rated video games with pornography. The bill, submitted by Republican David Hogue, attempted to amend an existing law preventing the sale of pornography to minors by categorizing violent video games as obscene. The bill was approved by the Utah House of Representatives by a vote of 56 to 8. In fact, even when Hogue's bill passed its vote in the House of Representatives, it was despite reservations from other Representatives, including fellow Republicans Margaret Dayton and Scott Wyatt. Hogue mentioned video games' alleged connection to school shootings as support for the bill, saying "Would these same kids have done this anyway without watching violent videos? Maybe not." Numerous similar bills in other states have also been defeated for the same reason, although HB257 was perhaps the most openly problematic with regard to the U.S. constitution – with two constitutional law experts from the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment heavily criticizing the bill in an editorial for the Salt Lake City Tribune. Although technically the bill could be revived in a subsequent session of the senate, most observers now believe this is extremely unlikely to happen.