Replies

Actually, it is a federal issue. See the following SCOTUS decisions:

Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire (1942):

"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words....It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

Roth vs. The United States (1957)

"Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press--either (1) under the First Amendment, as to the Federal Government, or (2) under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as to the States.... In the light of history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance.... The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.... All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance--unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion--have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests; but implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.

Of course, these were overturned in the 1960s, when people knew better than our Founding Fathers. So much for precedent actually counting for something. It seems that precedent only counts as long as it extends only as far back as the 60s.

President Bush's campaign for worldwide democracy and liberty would have a lot more weight to it if our own society weren't so degraded by the moral-liberalism and permissiveness of the baby-boomer generation. Alas, only perverts and criminals get to enjoy their free will; no one else is allowed to.

I was born too late.