Salt Lake City-A U.S. District Court judge has trimmed down a lawsuit challenging a state anti-porn law by dismissing six plaintiffs from the case.

Fourteen plaintiffs had challenged the Utah Harmful to Minors Act, amended in 2005 to filter pornography in cyberspace by requiring labels on Web sites distributing material deemed harmful to minors.

Judge Dee Benson last Wednesday removed six of the 14 plaintiffs from the case, saying they had failed to prove that they would be directly affected by the new statute. Those included two Utah-based Internet service providers, former Attorney General candidate W. Andrew McCullough, The King’s English Bookstore, Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore and the Utah Progressive Network Education Fund, Inc.

The state’s Harmful to Minors Act, which went into effect in the early 1970s, was initially directed toward book and video stores where material could more easily be placed away from the hands of children, Assistant Attorney General Jerrold Jensen said.

“In the ’60s, we didn’t have an Internet. A minor cannot go into a book store and get Hustler magazine,” Jensen said.

To keep up with ever-advancing technology, state lawmakers amended the act one step farther. In 2005, the Utah Legislature extended its prohibition to the Internet, sparking a lawsuit claiming the law violated the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“They are taking the position that applying the Harmful to Minors statute to Internet content to minors is unconstitutional,” Jensen said.

Benson has now limited the focus of the lawsuit to two areas: whether the law can be legally applied to the Internet, and whether porn sites accessed in Utah could be required to label their content which could then be more easily filtered using software.

“We are going to argue that it can be done, they are going to argue it can’t,” Jensen said. “That’s an issue that’s fair game for the courts.”

Those plaintiffs allowed to continue with the case include the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, the Association of American Publishers, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and five others.

The Attorney General’s Office is waiting for the plaintiffs to file their amended civil complaint before the case moves forward. The state should file its response before year’s end, Jensen said.