Arizona State Rep. Gail Griffin has proposed a bill, HB 2444, that would tax citizens $20 to watch porn on their computers with proceeds helping build a border wall between her state and Mexico.

Congratulations, Gail. That’s officially the most Republican piece of legislation in 2019. So far.

Her bill would technically force all internet service providers to censor “obscene” materials. Legal adults who wants to break through the filter would have to pay a fee determined by the ISP, $20 of which would go to the state to pay for grants that include “build[ing] a border wall between Mexico and this state or fund[ing] border security.” Anyone who knowingly worked around the filter or shared filtered material with someone who hadn’t paid the porn tax would be subject to criminal charges, as would ISPs that didn’t sufficiently block obscene content.

What’s scary is that she’s not the first person to think of this obviously unconstitutional plan. At least 18 states have introduced some version of this pay-for-porn bill, and none of them have successfully passed it because it’s a clear violation of the First Amendment. (Do you really want the government to have a list of everything you’re watching online?)

“It’s pretty clearly unconstitutional,” said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition. The Free Speech Coalition is a non-profit that lobbies on behalf of the adult entertainment industry. The bill is not something new to the adult entertainment industry, but “the border wall twist is new,” Stabile said.

While the bill attempts to define obscenity as something the “average individual applying contemporary community standards… would find appeals to the prurient interest,” keep in mind that the Bible contains incest, genocide, rape, and two naked people eating fruit.

The bill won’t pass. But it’s a reminder that conservatives who claim to love the Constitution are perfectly willing to abandon the First Amendment and our right to privacy if it means appeasing Donald Trump‘s ignorant, racist, and ineffective agenda.

(Screenshot via YouTube)

