Q&A: Author of Oklahoma games-as-porn bill

A pair of bills has cleared state legislatures this month, and are only awaiting gubernatorial signatures to become law. Yesterday, GameSpot interviewed the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party author of a Minnesota bill that would fine minors who purchase M-rated or AO-rated games.

Today, Republican Oklahoma Representative Fred Morgan discussed the language and intent behind his HB3004. If it becomes law, Morgan's bill will classify games that depict inappropriate violence alongside pornography under the state's "harmful to minors" statutes.

GameSpot: There's no exemption in the law for parents or guardians to give to their children a game that's been deemed inappropriately violent. I was wondering if that was the intent of the law?

Fred Morgan: I think the whole concept is just to move away from the language that's been stricken down by the courts on limiting First Amendment rights, and one of the ways behind this bill is to categorize these types of games as being similar to pornography in the sense that they are harmful to minors. So you can't really say that one group can give it to them and another group can't, so I think that is intentional. If it's illegal for an adult to give alcohol to a minor, you can't sell it to them, but you wouldn't want parents to be giving it to them, either.

GS: The amended law says any description of inappropriate violence, in any form, would be harmful to minors. The way I read that, it would mean that a game review or an editorial in a newspaper could fall under the law if it describes what's so objectionable about the game, and I'm wondering if that was part of the intent of the law.

FM: Say that again one more time. I don't see that at all, but let me make sure I understood the question.

GS: The law says that any description of inappropriate violence, and it specifies "in any form," would be harmful to minors.

FM: I have to take a look at that one. I don't know the answer to that without taking a look at it.

GS: But this wasn't intended to...

FM: I can't say that. I want to see what the actual language of the bill is and have a chance to look at it first before I give you a good response to that.

GS: You said this approach was done to get away from language that had previously been stricken down.

FM: Correct. When we did the interim study on this, we were looking at the Illinois language. And of course it was stricken down between the time of the study and us going back into session here. We looked at the court opinion on that, and there were some positive things in the opinion as far as being able to restrict. One of the things they said is the state does have a role in assisting parents in protecting children from harmful materials. So we looked for other models, [and] other ways to approach the problem than simply trying to limit First Amendment rights--the First Amendment is not unlimited--and this was a way of setting community standards on what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. It's very similar to the pornography laws, which have been upheld.

GS: And I'm guessing you expect this law to withstand judicial review even though it seems more restrictive on the surface than the Illinois law.

FM: It's interesting, that's a good point. I think it takes a different approach to it and that was the key. But I think you may be right. I think there's a possibility that it's more restrictive in some ways than the Illinois language that was stricken down, but for different reasons. If you look at the Illinois opinion, they approached it from a different perspective, and this language in this bill approaches it from a different way of regulating, I think, than the one that was stricken down in Illinois.

GS: Have any of your constituents contacted you to express their opposition to this bill?

FM: I've had a couple of 25-year-olds who have seen some of the publicity. But I don't know that they were my constituents because they were all e-mails and they didn't leave their address, so I can't really say. I've gotten a lot of positive support from lots of people, both constitutents and nonconstituents, on it.

GS: How much pressure is there for politicians to pass laws around an issue like family values, regardless of ultimately how effective or constitutional they might be?

FM: There are social issues that are bothering the American public. One of the things that came out in this debate is that we don't want Hollywood values being determined for Oklahoma. It becomes a little bit of a state's-rights issue of our ability to determine what is going to be our community standard of decency. What kind of standards are we going to set for what's acceptable for our kids to see? There's always pressure from constituents who are concerned about the moral fabric of the country, about what's being done to erode the values that parents hold, and just the community standards. So there's always that, but there's always people who are interested in the other side of that.

GS: Thank you very much.

FM: Thank you.