SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Utah state representative David L. Hogue (Republican) has submitted a proposed amendment to Utah’s current obscenity statutes which would serve to insert language regulating the sale of violent video games into the definition of what is considered “obscene” under state law.Hogue’s proposed alteration attempts to specify what constitutes “inappropriately violent” content, and includes reference to any game that “uses brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage,” or which “endorses or glorifies torture or excessive weaponry.”
Some of the bill’s language appears to be directed precisely towards games like Grand Theft Auto, which – ironically – recently made headlines not for the gratuitous violence contained in the game, but for sexually-explicit material which can be unlocked by gamers using codes that can be found online.
For example, the proposal cites games in which “lead characters resort to violence freely,” and contains game-related acts of violence that are “patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole, with respect to what is suitable material for minors.”
Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), are quick to assert that the proposed amendment faces a tough road in the courts, and is very likely to be struck down as unconstitutional.
“You can’t just stick violence into an obscenity statute and expect it to stand up to constitutional scrutiny,” said Margaret Plane, legal director of the ACLU in Utah, addressing the Associated Press. “Obscenity is not protected speech. Government can regulate obscenity. The courts have not said the same thing about violence.”
The proposal, which is still in the planning and discussion phase in the UT legislature, is unlikely to get much further without stiff opposition from gaming industry groups, including the primary trade association of the electronic gaming sector, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The ESA has successfully forestalled such legislation in a number of states around the country, and has had success thus far in persuading the courts that bills like Hogue’s are unconstitutional.
