When the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring porn websites to verify visitors’ ages on Wednesday, the justices will likely ignore some crucial context about such laws, which have been passed by more than a dozen states since 2022: In the words of one of their chief proponents, these age-verification laws are a “back door” to a full ban on explicit material, “starting with the kids.”

Even taking legislators’ stated aim of protecting minors from “harmful” material at face value, there is little dispute most of these laws are unconstitutional, as free speech advocates have argued successfully to lower courts around the country. “This case is not close,” wrote a federal judge in December, in an opinion blocking Tennessee’s age-verification law. The judge noted the “unwavering” line of Supreme Court precedent about the strict constitutional scrutiny needed for any law that restricts speech based on its content.

Applying this same precedent, a district court judge blocked Texas’s age-verification law, H.B. 1181, in August 2023. But the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed that decision and upheld H.B. 1181’s age-verification requirements last year under a more relaxed standard. The majority ruled such requirements were “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography.”

The Supreme Court will no doubt focus on whether the 5th........

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