WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the most recent attempt by Congress to prosecute those who would promote child pornography, ruling that the law did not violate free-speech guarantees.

The court voted 7-2 that the law criminalizing "pandering" of real or purported child pornography over the Internet or through the mail met constitutional standards.

The majority dismissed arguments Justice Antonin Scalia called "fanciful hypotheticals" that the law might make documentarians, movie reviewers and even unsuspecting grandparents subject to its pandering standards.

Congress has responded to the court's decision that a previous law was unconstitutional with a "carefully crafted attempt to eliminate the First Amendment problems we identified," Scalia wrote.

"As far as the provision at issue in this case is concerned, that effort was successful."

Scalia was one of the dissenters in 2002 when the court struck down parts of the Child Pornography Protection Act because they were written so broadly that, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, they could apply to a production of "Romeo and Juliet."

Congress responded in 2003 with a law that, among other things, targets the person who "advertises, promotes, presents, distributes or solicits . . . any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe" that it is child pornography.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who filed a concurring opinion, said he was convinced that material with "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" would still be protected. That is because of the law's requirement that the "defendant actually believed, or intended to induce another to believe, that the material in question depicted real children" involved in sexual conduct.

Justice David H. Souter dissented, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined him.

Also yesterday, the court: