Puritans and Lady Godiva: why two justices voted to uphold California's video game law

Justice Thomas, who hasn't spoken during a court argument in five years, supported the California bill for a different reason -- because early American Puritan society placed the father in total control of a family and anyone wishing to speak to a child had to go through him.

Thomas' entire dissent is a long list of early American source material.

Part of the father’s absolute power was the right and duty “to fill his children’s minds with knowledge and... make them apply their knowledge in right action.” [cit. omitted] Puritans thought children were “innately sinful and that parents’ primary task was to suppress their children’s natural depravity.” [cit. omitted]. Accordingly, parents were not to let their children read “vain Books, profane Ballads, and filthy Songs” or “fond and amorous Romances, ... fabulous Histories of Giants, the bombast Achievements of Knight Errantry, and the like.”

It goes on like this for some time.