The proposed law would require public school districts to share information with parents to help them filter out pornography on computers.
Louisiana’s public school parents could soon receive information to help them protect their children against sexually explicit content and interactions online. Louisiana’s House Education committee approved a bill Wednesday (April 25) that would require the state Department of Education to compile that information in order to have public school districts distribute it to parents.
Senate Bill 250 states the Education Department will provide information to school districts about the dangers of sexually-charged cyberbullying, the addictive and destructive nature of pornography, and the dangers of internet interactions with strangers. The bill would also require the Education Department to make resources available to parents that will show them how to install free internet filters on home computers to filter out pornography.
State Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, said she sponsored the bill because children with smartphones and other technology can view sexual content “on a daily basis” to the degree that their brain changes with regard to their views on sex and themselves.
Mizell’s bill also drew attention to how porn has created a “public health crisis” by perpetuating “a sexually toxic environment” that encourages sexual harassment among teens. The bill also stated advances in technology are exposing children ages 11 to 12 to pornography, and that the exposure is leading to low self-esteem and body-image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and an increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior.
“We’re innocently allowing them to (do) what I think is the equivalent of going to the French Quarter and letting them just go at it,” Mizell said.
Although a page-and-a-half of Mizell’s 5-page bill went into detail about the harms of pornography, the House committee proposed and passed an amendment to delete the bulk of that information. State Rep. Walter Leger, D-New Orleans, stressed that having comprehensive sex education in schools would in part help to address the concerns that spurred Mizell to sponsor her bill in the first place.
“If we would provide that real education, that would assist us in dealing with this very issue and it could be dealt with within that sort of educational opportunity to highlight and help students understand the dangers that are posed by exposure (to pornography),” Leger said.
The details of the plan in Mizell’s bill closely mirror an initiative launched this year by the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Archbishop Gregory Aymond invited all parishes to participate in the ministry’s inaugural Safe Haven Sunday to alert their 510,000 Catholics about the harms of pornography.
David Dawson, the Office of Marriage and Family Life director for the Archdiocese, said Jan. 30 that parents need to have a conversation with their children to explain that parents are “not coming after” children to punish them, but to instead encourage them to speak with parents about their actions online. He also said that it is important to get everyone involved to address this issue.
“Everybody involved has to be a part of the solution because if it’s just a policy thing, or if it’s just the principals, then there’s not enough people to be a part of the process,” Dawson said.
The House committee unanimously passed Mizell’s bill to the House floor a month after the Senate unanimously passed her bill with 35 votes on April 26. If it passes the House, the governor will still have to sign it into law before it could go into effect Aug. 1.
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Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles .
