Posted on 04/24/2002 3:56:03 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
Whenever a Supreme Court opinion is bristling with references to Renaissance paintings, classical mythology, and "art and literature throughout the ages," you know the court is about to invoke the First Amendment to protect "Bisexual Schoolgirls' Porn Pictures."
Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down a perfectly sensible federal child porn law last week. Though you might think the attorney general was preparing to rip "War and Peace" off the shelves, the law simply extended the reach of the federal child pornography laws to computer-generated "virtual" images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Without this law, it will be impossible, in practice, to prosecute any child pornography cases.
In order to prohibit, say, "Youngest Teen Sluts in the World!" while leaving the Federalist Papers unmolested, the law carefully defined "sexually explicit" conduct as: "actual or simulated ... sexual intercourse ... bestiality ... masturbation ... sadistic or masochistic abuse ... or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person."
In response to this law, Justice Kennedy expounded on William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" – "the most famous pair of teen-age lovers." He continued: "The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and ... speech is the beginning of thought."
Oh, cut it out.
The last smut prosecutions for works with any redeeming value whatsoever took place almost four decades ago. Since then, pornographers have been running amok, producing the most degrading pornography imaginable – and then running to the Supreme Court to whine about threats to Shakespeare and "Lady Chatterley's Lover."
Some of the more respectable titles taken off the Internet include: "Preteen Pedophilia XXX," "Kiddie Pix," "Mary's Pictures of Young Nude Girls," "Lolita Angels," "Preteen Nudist Camp," "Naked Little School Girls," "Kiddie Porn Lolitas," "Rape Lolita," "Preteen Incest Rape."
Remember: I'm not the one who says "Preteen Sluts" is protected by the Constitution. Pornography defenders always insist on describing this particular constitutional right in vague euphemisms, such as "material dealing frankly with sex" and "sexually themed material." If I have to endure Justice Kennedy's pompous platitudes when we're talking about "Lolita Angels," then I'm not politely avoiding the topic.
The nation is swimming in pornography. You can't turn on TV without seeing simulated sex scenes. And Kennedy is worried that a law banning computer-generated photos of children engaging in sexually explicit acts will put Shakespeare at risk?
If judges pretended to be this confused when interpreting other laws, there could be no laws about anything. Indeed, Depends undergarments would be a necessity on the high court, as justices struggled with whether that feeling in their bellies meant they had to go to the bathroom or needed to burp. Is it "Othello" or is it "Kiddie Pix"?
In addition to Shakespeare, Kennedy claims that if Congress were permitted to outlaw virtual images of children in explicit sex scenes, movies like "Traffic" and "American Beauty" might be made differently. "[L]egitimate movie producers," Kennedy anxiously warns, might not "risk distributing images in or near the uncertain reach of this law."
Justice William Rehnquist points out in his dissent that both "American Beauty" and "Traffic" were made (and given awards) while this precise child porno law was on the books. Not only that, but during that time, four of five federal appeals courts were upholding the law. As Rehnquist says: "The chill felt by the court ... has apparently never been felt by those who actually make movies."
Moreover, the actress who played a teen-age girl in the crucially important simulated sex scene in "Traffic" was not, in fact, a minor. (Why does no one ever say, "'Casablanca' was a good movie – but what it really needed was simulated sex scenes with kids"?) Even high-priced lawyers for the porno industry couldn't come up with more than one "legitimate" Hollywood movie that might possibly – theoretically – fall under the virtual child porn law.
Here is a description, courtesy of an Internet rating service, of just some of the sex scenes from "American Beauty": "a couple has sex with thrusting, her legs up in the air ... a man is seen from behind masturbating in the shower ... a man masturbates next to his sleeping wife in bed ... a girl stands in front of boy, then takes her bra off and we see her breasts ... a man thinks a male couple is performing fellatio (they are not) ... a father kisses his daughter's teen-age friend, caresses her clothed breasts and pulls off her jeans until she's down to her underwear, and opens her shirt, exposing her bare breasts ... a man has several daydreams of a girl in a bathtub with rose petals covering her; he reaches his hand under the water at her crotch level as she puts her head back and moans."
So Congress can't ban virtual kiddie porn because the law might make producers think twice before making movies with scenes like that? This is the doomsday scenario? A little chilling might lead to "virtual" watchable movies.
hmmmmm what to do? free speech vs. states rights...I'm sorry I can't agree, free speech will always trump such state rights. Even the most vile of thoughts. I would work in the community to counter such disgusting crap but I will not allow gov't to have such power (granted I am not the all powerful Oz so I'm stuck with rants, protests, letters etc.). The law itself was good intentioned and needs to be re-written more specifically to counter actual child pornographers from saying their depictions are not real.
What is with the constant p#ssing contest on who's the most conservative? Not picking on you, but that seems to be the slam of slams on FR, up there with being called a liberal. [chuckle]
wasnt too long ago that the Catholic church decided the Protestant beliefs were "spiritual pornography," and I bet similar statements were made in the reverse. Thus, doctrinal books were banned under force of law.
Problem is that I fear the slippery slope. Once we have the government start deciding what speech is acceptable, and what is not, we've started the inexorable decline towards tyranny. And eventually, the government will decide that the preaching of Biblical Christianity is unacceptable to them. The marketplace of ideas can conquer pornography. But a tyranical government deciding what may be spoken, written and communicated is likely to decide that the Gospel is unacceptable.
The reason child porn is illegal is that minors do not have the ability to make such contracts.
But drawings don't have ages, or rights.
I do care that you think pedophiles have an unalienable right to virtual kiddie porn and I also care that you place the "right" of pedophiles to satisfy their perversity above the rights of citizens to govern themselves.
I also care that you seem to embrace a living breathing document when it suits your fancy. The original intent of the first amendment did not protect obscenity.
By the way, is the right to life a federal issue or a state issue?
Here's your slippery slope.
In 1973 SCOTUS ruled, in Roe v Wade, that first trimester abortions were a right granted some damn place in the Constitution.
A bit later SCOTUS ruled, in Doe v Bolton, the right to kill babies extended all the way to through the third trimester due to an illusory "health of the mother" issue also located in the same document, somewhere.
Today we kill'em on the way out and some Professor down at Princeton is lobbying to extend that to, oh lets say, two or three years after the birth of the baby.
How's that for slippery from the same slippery clowns who have ruled virtual porn protected in that same heavy breathing document.
Even "virtual" kiddie porn affects "real" children in these two ways. This is a fact in the real world that the Supreme Court chose to ignore. But it is still true.
This is not a "freedom of speech" case for thepornographers. This is a "freedom from honesty" case forsix Justices of the Supreme Court.
Congressman Billybob
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I would if I could but I never hear a peep out of the people that make up the movement anymore.
Good because the definitions seem to vary based on how insecure the person is.
I do care that you think pedophiles have an unalienable right to virtual kiddie porn and I also care that you place the "right" of pedophiles to satisfy their perversity above the rights of citizens to govern themselves.
Wow I talk about criminalizing thought as wrong and now I am NAMBLA's front man...quite a leap. Are we about to do battle...that seems to be a line in the sand.
I also care that you seem to embrace a living breathing document when it suits your fancy. The original intent of the first amendment did not protect obscenity.
No, I believe the 1st amendment was intended to protect political speech and gov't criticism and adams wiped his butt with it(sedition act). The 1st amendment has evolved over the years. Whether we like it or not, that is the way it is. Howl at the wind if you must but I believe slander/libel and starting a panic are the only forms of speech the gov't should be allowed to regulate. I'd be happy if the Supremes would stick to that since they seem to "find" new rights or ways to abridge rights every year.
By the way, is the right to life a federal issue or a state issue?
I believe it should be a state issue unless an amendment to the US constitution is passed.
Wow, a conservative test...I feel so...so... talked down to. Oh well.
Please give me a break. That's a favorite leftist argument. Conservatives shouldn't stoop to it.
In spite of what the left says, the federal government has limited authority. The commerce clause was intended to address two problems. One was that some states would not allow the goods of another state to pass through their borders. The other was that some states had a tarriff on goods coming into their borders from another state. That's all the commerce clause was intended to address. And that's all the federal government can legitimately address with the commerce clause. A fact that the federal government pretty much recognized up until the 1930's. (There were exceptions, but nothing in a big way.)
Don't ya'll see a wee bit of irony in this article? While the primary topic is child porn and the recent Supremes ruling, Ann's statements in the article which discuss pornography, in general, seem full of irony. She dated Bob Guccione, Jr. Bob Sr. owns Penthouse. Sr initially supported Jr's foray into SPIN magazine (emphasis on the music business) with some of his Penthouse fortune.
Wonder when Ann got so concerned about porn. Glad she did, mind you. Just wonder what took so long.
(And please don't flame me, I'm an Ann Coulter fan. Yet I also think it's necessary to question inconsistancy.)
Speaking as a Christian, and just a decent human being, digitally manufactured child porn is evil, disgusting, vile, wretched. It forebodes ill for our society that we are even discussing this, but I fear the consequences of censorship more.
So the filming was lawfull, but under the "Child Protection Act", since the actress was depicted as under-aged, the film could have been prohibited.
Anyone possesing it could be tried in court (with very severe penalties).
I have mpegs of the BATF officers being shot at Waco, should I stand trial for their murders ?
If not, then what is the crime of having pics of a sexual nature that never happened ?
Ann, I love your opinions. But you are out to lunch on this one.
If not, then what is the crime of having pics of a sexual crime that never happened ?
And that's all proponents of the SC majority are advocating....
So absurd is this ruling, public defecation and urination will now also be considered "free speech."
The masses are mired in confusion - and I know exactly where it comes from.
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