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Free speech under pressure
Published December 3, 2006
Did you know that people don’t like the First Amendment?
Every time I read news reports, it seems that someone, somewhere is trying to erode the power of the First Amendment, always with some sort of excuse based on fear mongering to get their point across.
Unfortunately for over-concerned parents everywhere, the First Amendment did not come with a child safety lock, because freedom of speech is intended to be used by adults. That hasn’t stopped them, however, from trying to limit what you and I can enjoy without having to worry about the rugrats looking over our shoulders.
Take for instance, the recent law passed in Louisiana that would prevent retailers from selling video games to minors that do not meet the state’s carefully worded requirements. Louisiana doesn’t want minors to play overly violent or sexual video games, and I applaud the sentiment. However, once they start placing their own limitations on the games — in an already self-regulating industry with its own ratings system — that borders on censorship, which is forbidden by that pesky Amendment.
Or, for an example even closer to home, look at the prosecution of Gordon Lee, a comic book shop owner who has been fighting off a legal case for two years involving a young child and a free comic book that contained nudity. Lee, of Rome, Georgia, gave a 9-year-old child a copy of “Alternative Comics #2” as part of an annual event called Free Comic Book Day. The title, which contained an anthology of art and stories, had one piece in it involving the art of Pablo Picasso, which contained a bit of male nudity. Lee was charged with distributing obscenity and has since been fighting off charges against an incompetent legal system (the district attorney dropped the charges and filed new ones because the wrong child was used as a witness in the original deposition) and the natural prejudice against comic books and art.
Lee’s legal costs have been supported by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which has kept him from running into debt to save himself prison time for accidentally giving a minor a comic book containing nonsexual nudity. Is Lee’s action in giving out the comic ill conceived? Yes. Is he distributing obscenity? No.
Nudity is a divisive issue in how it is handled, but the art, similar to that in any art museum, does not meet the legal definition of obscenity. Look it up. The art does not meet the prurient interests of pornography or other obscene material. Lee is being prosecuted because he had the misfortune of unknowingly giving this material to a child in a city that apparently thinks the First Amendment is a suggestion, not the law.
Do children need protection from mature images? Yes, although the limits of that protection lie with the parents, not just the government. America is so busy screaming, “Protect the Children!” that it often forgets that the children are not the only people buying these games and comics.
But as long as we continue to react with emotion and feelings rather than logic and law, the assault on the First Amendment will continue, until one day, when it finally collapses, we all wonder where our freedoms went.
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