The Pro Porn Court?

WYLL.com, NEWSMAX.com, RFMNews.com, FederalObserver.com ^ | 4.17.2002 | Kevin McCullough

[KMC1]

Be afraid, be very very afraid. Last night on Fox News Channel on Brit Hume's Special Report, Brian Wilson reported on the comparison between the new TV show that mimics the Supreme Court and the actual Supreme Court as they both ruled on cases dealing with "virtual child pornography". The TV version voted 7 to 2 in the same direction that the actual Supreme Court voted (6 to 3). It would have been 7 to 2 in the actual had Sandra Day O'Connor taken a little more of her medication that morning.

In Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition (a pornography trade, lobbying, and activist group), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that images can show children having sex, children can be shown in nude or erotic poses, children can perform sexual acts, children can be shown having sex with adults, children can be shown having sex with their own or opposite gender. The only catch - as long as they are not actual children being shown. Sound Confusing? Well it is.

Yesterday's ruling basically opens the way up to allowing pedophilia, child porn, and child molestation to be a major theme of everything from movies to printed materials - as long as they can prove that, the children depicted aren't actually children.

Getting the Court to rule this way obviously thrilled the ACLU and other pro-porn groups across our nation. It obviously deeply cut the groups that are trying to stop one of our nation's most cruel vices from spreading. So what should we expect? More of the same from as best I can see it.

With the publication of the University of Minnesota Press book released three weeks ago promoting the idea that sex between children and adults is just neato keen, and now being followed up with the ruling from this court that children can be made legitimate sexual objects on screen, parents - be afraid, be very very afraid.

Load the shotguns, carry your concealed weapons and suspect every creep that talks to your kids in the grocery store. At the rate the U.S. is going you might just have to shoot someone to literally save the innocence of your own child.

Harsh rhetoric - hardly. Why is the pope this week bringing all the bishops from around the world to meet to discuss the issue of homosexual pedophilia (and a few isolated cases of heterosexual too) amongst the servants of the church? Why is the North American Man Boy Love Association still in business and doing better than ever before? What is the great defense as to why we should not allow children to be sexualized on film - even if adults are playing them or a computer generated them?

(Too be read with a whiny little voice while holding one's nose) "Because we might not get to see films like Traffic or American Beauty." I didn't see Traffic though I am aware that it was nominated for Best Picture the year it came out. But I did see American Beauty which was deemed 'Best Picture'. This little political perverted statement - made through the eyes of a Pretendlander as director - wished to paint the middle class conservative family in America as nothing more than twice adulterating, homophobic, pedophilic, drug addicted, twisted rot. The director's anger against the "right wing" was focused into an attempt to say, "this is how conservative middle class America REALLY lives". Pretendland loved it - that's way they rushed it to the Academy to be deemed "the best of the year". But church going America for the most part yawned as it came and went - it didn't represent most American families - and we knew it.

Pretendland has evidently wielded its logic to the halls of the Supreme Court. But what it has done in the meantime is make every child in America - more vulnerable to the stalking of men who wish to prey on little boys and girls.

I'm sorry Mr. & Ms. Justices of the Supreme Court - but you struck out on this one. Your reasoning was lame. Your decision was even worse.

Maybe you will wear it as a badge of honor that you made child porn the new "fetish du jour", but please take note, you weakened Americans today.

Thank goodness there is that 2nd Amendment! It's there just in case we need to protect ourselves day to day. You may be sitting there saying, "C'mon what's with all the 'protectionism'?" If that's you, well, never mind you won't ever get it anyway. For the rest of you, lock and load, and be very afraid, be very very afraid!

[general_re]

So you believe that promoting child pornography (real or virtual matters only to the subject of a photo, not to those who feel its ripple effects) despite the fact that it will without a doubt increase the sexual abuse of children?

I don't believe the increased abuse of children is an inevitable result of this ruling, but I accept that it is a possibility. Reasonable people may disagree.

I'm guessing you'd be singing a different tune if one of your children were abused by someone who was desensitized to the evil of child abuse by virtual kiddy porn.

I would be wrong to do so. I accepted the reality of child abusers before this ruling, and I accept it afterwards. I will continue to be vigilant against such abuses of my children, just as I was before.

So, what say you: Would you just accept it if your child were abused and chalk it up to collateral damage in the extension of the 1st Amendment to cover perversity, or would you suddenly grow a pair and act like a man?

A rather loaded question. If I am properly doing my job as a parent, I will be much less likely to have to deal with such a contingency. And from my perspective, a real man doesn't ask "the village" to raise his children for him.

I believe that's a fair enough answer to your questions for now. Would you like to answer mine? What are the potential negative consequences and implications if the court had ruled in the opposite direction?

[gdani]

So you believe that promoting child pornography (real or virtual matters only to the subject of a photo, not to those who feel its ripple effects) despite the fact that it will without a doubt increase the sexual abuse of children?

Generally, the more guns there are, the more people get shot and killed. Does that mean guns should be outlawed?

[Calico Cat]

Why was a 'mainstream' pornographic lobbying group the plaintiff in this case? Could it be that the legit adult sites want to start adding child porn (virtual, as the case may be) to its sites? If you're going to invoke the slippery slope fallacy, wouldn't this be a 'mainstreaming' of kiddy porn? If you don't believe it, look at how porn has changed in the last thirty years: while teenagers may have had access to the relatively mild images of 'Playboy' and 'Penthouse' in the 1970s, the mainstream keeps getting more and more extreme to attract an increasingly jaded audience: look at the success of Max Hardcore and Extreme Productions. In 1972, would anybody have believed that these creeps would have been allowed to push the crap they're making? What makes kiddy porn any different? As much as I love liberty and the First Amendment, this Supreme Court decision frightens me. "I've seen the future, baby--it is murder." (Leonard Cohen)

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I don't see this as a good decision. I see this as another way to normalize pedophilia. What's to stop a pedophile from showing this garbage to a child, or children accessing it for themselves and being told that intergenerational sex is normal? If it's legal, and the virtual figures are realistic, why in the world would a child think it was wrong?

[cynicalman]

Wonder how the Justices would feel if they saw their grandchildren's nude picture on the web

For some of the justices their grandchildren would be adults, I think you mean their great grandchildren.

Who voted which way??????

[general_re]

Your personal attack is uncalled for.

Thank you for that, but it's okay, really. Emotions run high on this issue, and I am not a hothouse flower, likely to wilt under such pressure ;)

I am, however, an optimist, insofar as I believe that most people are susceptible to reasoned arguments, and I think that an eminently reasonable argument can be made here. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone suggests that I myself am a pedophile, but so be it. I can withstand such slings to present what I feel to be the truth.

[tdadams]

Distasteful or not, the ONLY factor in this decision should be whether there is injury to children.

I wouldn't go with that argument. There are all too many people who believe that facilitating injury or the potential to commit injury is equally criminal. I've already heard it said by those who normally are very studious and discerning on issues of constitutional law, that even virtual porn fosters lust and can thereby lead to sexual assualt.

That's blurring the lines to an unacceptable degree in my opinion. It's becoming my unofficial motto: Liberty can be abridged to an endless extent if we want to base laws on "what if."

[general_re]

Why was a 'mainstream' pornographic lobbying group the plaintiff in this case? Could it be that the legit adult sites want to start adding child porn (virtual, as the case may be) to its sites?

Not having read the briefs of both sides, nor being able to peer into their hearts, I cannot authoritatively answer this question. However, the court's decision seems to indicate that their stated objection was that it would have the effect of criminalizing material that was currently permissible, and that there was no underlying crime within "virtual" porn, as the court's previous rulings on child pornography had required.

It may be possible that they wish to add such "virtual" child pornography to their stock-in-trade. However, neither of us know that to be the case, and it would be imprudent to behave as though we knew something we do not yet know.

If you're going to invoke the slippery slope fallacy, wouldn't this be a 'mainstreaming' of kiddy porn?

Possibly. However, the underlying rationale for criminalizing child pornography has always been that such pornography is A) evidence of a real crime, involving harm to real children, and; B) the dissemination of child pornography leads to a demand for, and the production of, more child pornography, and hence more harm to children. "Virtual" child pornography fails this test on both counts. The children depicted are not real, and hence no real children are harmed in the production or distribution of such material.

Fair enough, yes? Now, I'll ask you to return the favor - would you address my original question, and tell me what you believe to be the potential negative consequences and implications, if any, had the court ruled to uphold this law?

[truenospinzone]

I don't see this as a good decision. I see this as another way to normalize pedophilia people using guns to commit crimes. What's to stop a pedophile gun-owning criminal from showing this garbage weapon to a child, or children accessing it for themselves watching Goodfellas and being told that intergenerational sex shooting innocent people is normal? If it's legal, and the virtual figures are realistic, why in the world would a child think it was wrong?

[FreeTally]

People need to quite hyperventilating.

The only people that are hyperventilating are those who claim this decision legalizes child pornography or will now protect it on technicalities. The only thing thos does is protect innocent parties whom the law could have been used against even if no children ever had sex in the movies or pictures or writings. Im not sure why this is so hard to grasp.

[general_re]

I almost forgot - one more thing.

As much as I love liberty and the First Amendment, this Supreme Court decision frightens me.

It frightens me too. But animals are not capable of reason, and hence are ruled by their fears. I am not an animal, and neither are you. Let us stop and think about this, and reason together as men, rather than behaving as unthinking animals...

[beckett]

What was the vote Justice by Justice? And who wrote the opinion? Anybody know?

[Kevin Curry]

The are no more pro-porn than the man who provides car keys and a fifth of whiskey to a drunk is pro-drunk driving.

[Clara Lou]

Hey, I'm on your side. The hyperventilators need to read up just a little bit (or a lot) and look at more than a paragraph of the opinion or the title of this thread.

[Amore]

Child pornography incites child abuse. Period.

This is my concern. From all that I have read, these child abusers start with child porn and it gets them going but, after a while, it loses its thrill, it's not enough, and they progress to trying to make actual contact.

[general_re]

Justice Kennedy wrote for the court, striking down the law, with which Justices Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, and Steven concurred. Justice Thomas wrote a seperate concurring opinion. Justice O'Connor concurred in part, and dissented in part, voting with the minority. Justices Rehnquist and Scalia dissented.

Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Thomas in the majority. O'Connor, Rehnquist, and Scalia in the minority.

[Kevin Curry]

Im not sure why this is so hard to grasp.

Because it is slippery, foul, and false. This decision will open the floodgates of kiddie porn. Pedophiles acorss this land are cheering. Only an idiot would fail to understand that.

Or a pro-porn libertarian. But I repeat myself.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Thomas in the majority. O'Connor, Rehnquist, and Scalia in the minority.

Actually, only Rehnquist voted to uphold the whole law. The majority struck down two provisions (one banning using adults to play children, and the other banning "virtual" images of children), and O'Connor and Scalia voted to strike down the first of those but not the second.

[general_re]

True. I wanted to break it down by votes, though. The case lists it like this:

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. OConnor, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and Scalia, J., joined as to Part II. Rehnquist, C.J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined except for the paragraph discussing legislative history.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Actually, you were more nearly correct than I was. Both Rehnquist and Scalia voted to uphold the whole law, and O'Connor voted to uphold one of the two challenged provisions and not the other. What confused me is that Scalia didn't write an opinion of his own, but joined in parts of Rehnquist's and parts of O'Connor's.