Replies

In THIS case Reese is 1000% correct!

The First Amendment was written to protect Religious and Political speech - not porn.

Thr 1st Amendment was written in the days where nobody could dream of the scum we have (lawyers & politicians) responsible for spouting filth and degenerate actions to our children.

To those who whine and cry about we should NOT be legislating 'morality' - Hey stupid! What do you think ANY law is if it isn't a MORAL limit?

So movies and photographs are not protected by the First Amendment?

The First Amendment was written to protect Religious and Political speech - not porn.

That doesn't answer my question. Does the First Amendment protect movies, including The Passion of the Christ, or does it not?

What do you think ANY law is if it isn't a MORAL limit?

The proper role of laws is to enforce that subset of morality that says "don't infringe on the individual freedoms of others." The government has no authority over personal moral failings, e.g., gluttony or sloth.

This sounds suspiciously like the argument used by those who want to restrict commercial speech, i.e. that corporations don't fall under the umbrella of first amendment protections because they aren't individuals.
Whether your right to freedom of speech is being abridged by an act of Congress or by the fiat of a quasi-legitimate government regulatory agency, it is still being abridged.
While I have sympathy for Reese's argument; I'm not one of those who equate the works of D.H. Lawrence with Tampa Tushy-fest, both equally valid forms of expression, I do have to insist that an arm of the federal government have some respect for the rights of people who they are putatively working on behalf of and stop censoring perfectly acceptable forms of speech.
How can an un-elected group of seven political appointees- in other words, a bunch of political hacks who've never worked in the broadcast industry and thus have no insight into how decisions are made-decide for an entire country what is proper viewing material?
By the way, how is this attack on the United States Constitution any different from the similar ones exercised so frequently by the U.S. Supreme Court, other than the fact that it is one retroactively endorsed by Congress?