If S.C. Rep Bill Chumley Gets His Way, You’ll Pay $20 to Look at Porn
Oh — and Chumley also believes he can define ‘obscenity’
by DAVID AXE
In December 2016, South Carolina state representative Bill Chumley — a Republican representing the Spartanburg area — proposed a law requiring any device that can access the internet to include a “digital blocking capability” for “rendering obscenity inaccessible.”
Chumley’s proposal isn’t just a clear violation of the 1st Amendment, it’s also wildly impractical, as it could mandate blockers in computers, mobile phones, T.V.s and even game consoles — few of which are built in South Carolina.
Plus, it would have the effect of creating a major, pornography-based revenue stream for one of the most socially-conservative states in the union. To disable the blocker and view porn under Chumley’s law, South Carolinians would first have to pay $20 to the government.
Yes, a porn tax.
Chumley, a 69-year-old neo-Confederate who wants to establish an official holiday celebrating the South Carolina’s slavery-motivated, 1860 secession from the union, based his bill on two deeply-flawed assumptions.
“Studies have shown that pornography is a public health hazard, leading to a broad spectrum of well-documented individual impacts and societal harms,” his bill states.
“Easily accessible pornography on products that are distributed through the Internet is impacting the demand for human trafficking and prostitution,” it continues.
Neither one of those assertions is true. But tell that to the national Republican Party, whose latest platform repeats the untrue claim that porn represents a health crisis.
“Pornography, with his harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public-health crisis that is destroying the life of millions,” the platform claims. “We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children’s safety and well-being.”
Chumley dutifully acted on the GOP’s urging. And doing its own part, on Dec. 15 the South Carolina house of representatives promptly forwarded the unconstitutional bill to its judiciary committee — where, if society is just, the bill will languish until it dies.
The public doesn’t seem too keen on the porn tax. Apparently sometime shortly after Chumley filed his bill, someone altered his Wikipedia page, changing the lawmaker’s name to “Bill Chumley AKA ‘Pedo McDickcheese.’”
Ha ha ha. Now let’s crunch the numbers.
There are around three million adults in South Carolina. Seventy percent of men and 30 percent of women view porn, according to one recent study. If Chumley’s bill becomes law and even half of S.C. porn-consumers stick with their erotica habits and don’t switch to some unregulated medium — say, good-old-fashioned paper smut — then the Palmetto State could rake in as much as $30 million a year in porn fees.
That’s nearly two percent of the state’s annual budget. Chumley’s bill requires that the money go toward South Carolina’s efforts to combat human-trafficking. But note — this is one of those states where lawmakers routinely raid one agency’s budget in order to plug funding gaps resulting from corporate tax giveaways and other “conservative” experiments.
Start taxing porn, and porn will start paying for government in a big way. But porn — like smoking and alcohol and other fun stuff that we tax — won’t go away just because government makes it more expensive and benefits from it.
It will, however, become a hot commodity on the black market. Which Chumley wouldn’t mind at all, right?
Chumley’s bill reflects deep ignorance of technology, economics and human nature and — even in South Carolina — has very little chance of making it out of committee. But if it does, it will force state regulators to make a very difficult decision.
They’ll have to decide … what’s obscene.
Is non-sexual nudity obscene? Is an R-rated movie depicting simulated sex obscene? Is a clinical representation of sexual intercourse obscene? Is a written description of sex obscene?
Is gay sex more obscene than straight sex? Is interracial sex obscene? Is a photograph of Ryan Gosling thinking about sex obscene?
You can ask Chumley yourself what he believes might qualify as obscene. I recommend sending him links to, and images of, potentially obscene imagery so that he — the self-appointed arbiter of our sexual morality — may clearly indicate which representations of which expressions of physical love are acceptable in his conception of the universe.
You can email Chumley here. His Facebook page is here. His phone number is (864) 476–9677. His address is P.O. Box 22, Reidville, South Carolina.
I’m sure he’ll enjoy hearing from you. Seems like a real nice guy.
