The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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Something about this legal tug-of-war feels oddly familiar — like watching the same argument play out on repeat, just with new players and slightly sharper language. This week, the Free Speech Coalition quietly reshaped its challenge to Tennessee’s Protect Tennessee Minors Act, filing an amended complaint after the state’s attorney general moved to shut the case down altogether.
The Protect Tennessee Minors Act, passed in 2024 before the Supreme Court’s pivotal decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, has already had a winding journey through the courts. Back in November 2024, FSC joined forces with MelRose Michaels, O.school, Adam & Eve, and JustFor.Fans to challenge the law. A Tennessee district court initially paused enforcement, offering a brief moment of relief — but that didn’t last. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later lifted the injunction, clearing the way for the law to take effect.
Then came the Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling in Paxton, which reshaped the entire conversation around age-verification laws. FSC representatives signaled they weren’t backing off — if anything, they seemed more determined, talking about the need to carve out “sensible limits” so lawmakers couldn’t keep whittling away at adults’ access to protected speech. That phrase stuck. Sensible limits. Simple words, complicated reality.
In the revised complaint, FSC and its co-plaintiffs argue the Tennessee law crosses constitutional lines. They say the Act imposes a content-based burden on protected speech, one unlikely to survive even the “intermediate scrutiny” framework laid out by the Supreme Court. The filing also claims the law is too vague under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause and raises familiar Section 230 concerns — specifically, that forcing website operators to act as publishers of third-party material conflicts with federal protections long relied upon across the internet.
At the same time, the complaint openly acknowledges that the legal terrain shifted after Paxton. Still, the plaintiffs insist Tennessee has pushed past even those broadened boundaries, suggesting the state read the Supreme Court’s decision as a green light rather than a guardrail.
“The PTMA is materially different than the Texas law challenged in Paxton, and this action seeks relief on grounds that the Supreme Court did not address in that case,” the new complaint reads. “Put otherwise, Paxton impacts this case but doesn’t decide it.”
The state’s response arrived quickly. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs don’t actually have standing to sue him and that the case lacks “sufficient facts to state a plausible claim.” It’s the kind of procedural counterpunch that can quietly end lawsuits before the deeper constitutional questions ever get airtime.
In a supporting memorandum, Skrmetti challenges the plaintiffs on several fronts. He contends the attorney general isn’t the proper defendant because enforcement authority rests with district attorneys. He also points to the absence of any real enforcement action — no test case, no penalties handed down — suggesting that without tangible harm, the plaintiffs’ standing is shaky. And, perhaps most predictably, he maintains the law satisfies the “intermediate scrutiny” standard set out in Paxton.
Now the decision sits with Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman, who will determine whether the case survives this early hurdle. If it moves forward, the fight over Tennessee’s law could become yet another defining chapter in the broader AV debate — the kind that doesn’t just live in court filings but ripples through platforms, creators, and anyone trying to figure out where protection ends and overreach begins.
And maybe that’s the quiet tension hanging over all of it: not whether the arguments will keep coming, but whether the courts can draw a line that actually holds.
