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Supreme Court Sides With Pornographers Again
eagleforum.org ^ | July 14, 2004 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 07/13/2004 10:11:42 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

Do you ever wonder why the internet is so polluted with pornography? The Supreme Court just reminded us why: it blocks every attempt by Congress to regulate the pornographers.

From its ivory tower, the Court props open the floodgates for smut and graphic sex. Over the past five years, it has repeatedly found new constitutional rights for vulgarity, most recently invalidating the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).

This latest judicial outrage happened on the final day of the Supreme Court term, after which the justices headed out for a long summer break. Lacking teenaged children of their own, the justices closed their eyes to electronic obscenity polluting our children's minds.

For decades, pornographers have enjoyed better treatment by our courts than any other industry. The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography.

The flood of pornography started with the Warren Court when it handed down 34 decisions between 1966 and 1970 in favor of the smut peddlers. In mostly one-sentence decisions that were issued anonymously (the justices were too cowardly to sign them), the Court overturned every attempt by communities to maintain standards of decency.

The judges' obsession with smut is astounding. Even though five Supreme Court justices were appointed by Presidents Reagan and the first Bush, graphic sex wins judicial protection in essentially every case.

Woe to those who transgress an obscure environmental law, or say a prayer before a football game, or run a political ad within two months of an election. They find no judicial sympathy, as courts now routinely restrict private property rights and censor political speech.

But the pornographers can do no wrong in the eyes of our top justices. The most explicit sex can be piped into our home computers and the Supreme Court prevents our democratically elected officials from doing anything about it.

COPA was enacted by Congress in response to the Court's invalidation of the predecessor law, the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But decency lost again when six justices knocked out COPA in Ashcroft v. ACLU.

COPA was badly needed, as filth plagues the internet, incites sex crimes, and entraps children. COPA banned the posting for "commercial purposes" on the World Wide Web of material that is "patently offensive" in a sexual manner unless the poster takes reasonable steps to restrict access by minors.

You don't need to look very far to find a tragic crime traceable to the internet. In New Jersey in 1997, 15-year-old Sam Manzie, who had fallen prey to homosexual conduct prompted by the internet, sexually assaulted and murdered 11-year-old Eddie Werner, who was selling candy door-to-door.

COPA did not censor a single word or picture. Instead, it merely required the purveyors of sex-for-profit to screen their websites from minors, which can be done by credit card or other verification.

But minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are most easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young.

Justice Kennedy declared it unconstitutional for Congress to stop porn flowing to teens, shifting the burden to families to screen out the graphic sex rather than imposing the cost on the companies profiting from the filth. His reasoning is as absurd as telling a family just to pull down its window shades if it doesn't want to see people exposing themselves outside.

In a prior pro-porn decision, Kennedy cited Hollywood morals as a guide for America, but this time he relied on the prevalence of foreign pornography. "40% of harmful-to-minors content comes from overseas," he declared in holding that the other 60% of obscenity is wrapped in the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court insisted that individual internet users should buy filters to try to block the vulgarity. Should those who do not like air pollution be told to buy air masks?

The Supreme Court protects pornography in books, movies, cable television, and the internet, real or simulated, against all citizens' clean-up efforts. The Court is no longer the blindfolded lady weighing a controversy, but is dominated by media-driven supremacists forcing us down into a moral sewer.

This latest pro-porn decision was too much even for Clinton-appointed Justice Breyer. He said, "Congress passed the current statute in response to the Court's decision" invalidating the prior law; "what else was Congress supposed to do?"

The solution to these ills foisted on us by judicial supremacists is for Congress to exercise its constitutional powers to remove jurisdiction from the federal courts over pornography. The Court has abused its power, and it's Congress's duty to end the judicial abuse.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: copa; culturewar; demeaningwomen; eagleforum; hedonism; hollywoodmorals; hollywoodvalues; immoralwomen; lawlessness; lustoftheflesh; mockinggod; moralrelativism; mtvculture; oligarchy; phyllisschlafly; popculture; porn; pornography; protectchildren; romans1; secularhumanism; secularstate; sexualperversion; smut; supremecourt; tyrantsrule; vulgar; whateverfeelsgood
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To: Phantom Lord
It would make a great name for a porno.

It might already be taken....He might want to check.

121 posted on 07/13/2004 11:29:31 AM PDT by Bella_Bru (It's for the children = It takes a village)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
who owns my body?

No one.

Well, someone has to, if not me (as you stated) who? And if not someone or something other than me, then I do.

122 posted on 07/13/2004 11:29:39 AM PDT by Phantom Lord (Distributor of Pain, Your Loss Becomes My Gain)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
who owns my body?

No one.

Great. That means I can harvest your organs and you would have no legal basis to object, since you don't own them.

Right?

123 posted on 07/13/2004 11:29:54 AM PDT by Modernman ("I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members" -Groucho Marx)
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To: Poohbah
Great. I'm sure it will be as big a success as the War on Drugs has been.

Alongside of the War on Homelessness.

124 posted on 07/13/2004 11:30:39 AM PDT by Bella_Bru (It's for the children = It takes a village)
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To: ServesURight

Right. So even if the kids don't see the porn (and since most teenagers who have computers are better techies than their parents, of course any porn filters will be rendered null and void by them) the neighborhood sickos can be filled to the brim with porn and be ready to put their sick fantasies into action on the neighborhood kids.

There is no justification in the Constitution or anywhere else to protect pornography. There is no inalienable right to watch explicit and especially weird, violent, or child sex. If you want sex, go do your own.


125 posted on 07/13/2004 11:30:45 AM PDT by little jeremiah ("You're possibly the most ignorant, belligerent, and loathesome poster on FR currently." - tdadams)
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To: Modernman
I can harvest your organs

I prefer the term "procure."

126 posted on 07/13/2004 11:30:46 AM PDT by Phantom Lord (Distributor of Pain, Your Loss Becomes My Gain)
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To: Pietro
Finally, there was no pornographic industry in 18th century America.

[ TRELAINE ] Really, you must try harder; this is too easy! [ /TRELAINE ]

127 posted on 07/13/2004 11:31:45 AM PDT by steve-b (Panties & Leashes Would Look Good On Spammers)
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Comment #128 Removed by Moderator

To: Modernman
"Jeez, man, haven't you been paying attention in the last 50 years or so as to what happens when government decides to legislate away vice?"

To be fair, abortion should not be considered only "vice." Unlike abortion, drugs, smoking, drinking, prostitution, only harms the person seeking it; abortion is the taking of another human life, period. It can be reasonably argued that a person has the right to destroy their own life, but that right is not extended to destroying the life of another.

129 posted on 07/13/2004 11:32:03 AM PDT by Valentine_W
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To: Melas

What kind of pornography was allowed when the founders wrote and signed the Bill of Rights?


130 posted on 07/13/2004 11:32:06 AM PDT by little jeremiah ("You're possibly the most ignorant, belligerent, and loathesome poster on FR currently." - tdadams)
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To: Phantom Lord

There is a huge demand in various places for child prostitutes, too.


131 posted on 07/13/2004 11:32:53 AM PDT by little jeremiah ("You're possibly the most ignorant, belligerent, and loathesome poster on FR currently." - tdadams)
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To: Poohbah

Poohbah weak on junkies and dealers? Say it ain't so!


132 posted on 07/13/2004 11:33:00 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: little jeremiah
the neighborhood sickos can be filled to the brim with porn and be ready to put their sick fantasies into action on the neighborhood kids.

So long as they don't act out their sick fantasies on anyone other than consenting adults, what business is it of yours?

There is no justification in the Constitution or anywhere else to protect pornography.

Our courts disagree.

133 posted on 07/13/2004 11:33:04 AM PDT by Modernman ("I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members" -Groucho Marx)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
If you think the FF would have condoned the Porn industry, it's you who's been brainwashed by anarchists posing as libertarians.

If you think the FFs intended for the federal government to ban everything they didn't condone, you're a little sudsy between the ears, yourself.

134 posted on 07/13/2004 11:33:17 AM PDT by tacticalogic ( Controlled application of force is the sincerest form of communication.)
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To: Poohbah
OK. Forget laws written by idiots. How do you stop this on a PRACTICAL basis?

The idiots are the gods in robes and those who support their particular brand of tyranny IMHO.

For the sake of argument only I grant you your assesment of the efficacy of the law written by Congress.

On what basis does the SCOTUS prohibit an elected Congress from making such a law?

Certainly not by precedent or anything contained in the Constitution. Scalia says that they could very well ban the material itself and while I think that is a step too far, I am certainly in agreement with the 4 who argued that COPA was not an undue burden.

Justice Scalia, dissenting.

I agree with Justice Breyer's conclusion that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is constitutional. Both the Court and Justice Breyer err, however, in subjecting COPA to strict scrutiny. Nothing in the First Amendment entitles the type of material covered by COPA to that exacting standard of review. "We have recognized that commercial entities which engage in 'the sordid business of pandering' by 'deliberately emphasiz[ing] the sexually provocative aspects of [their nonobscene products], in order to catch the salaciously disposed,' engage in constitutionally unprotected behavior."

There is no doubt that the commercial pornography covered by COPA fits this description. The statute applies only to a person who, "as a regular course of such person's trade or business, with the objective of earning a profit," and "with knowledge of the character of the material," communicates material that depicts certain specified sexual acts and that "is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest." Since this business could, consistent with the First Amendment, be banned entirely, COPA's lesser restrictions raise no constitutional concern.

135 posted on 07/13/2004 11:33:35 AM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: Tailgunner Joe
We conservatives are going to crush your gang of pimps, whores and baby-killers and then we're going to vacuum your brains out with a tube.

Wow, love the threats. Will there be lynchings of uppity black folk, too?

136 posted on 07/13/2004 11:34:02 AM PDT by Modernman ("I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members" -Groucho Marx)
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To: Phantom Lord
Well, someone has to

Wrong. People are not property.

137 posted on 07/13/2004 11:34:09 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: little jeremiah

If anything, the founders intended the states to deal with it.


138 posted on 07/13/2004 11:34:25 AM PDT by Melas
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To: Robert_Paulson2
When religion joins with political power, you get the inquisition

Take a few slow, deep breaths. The libertinization of the laws that we see nowadays is of very recent vintage. Prior to that, we didn't have "inquisitions" or "religious police" or any of those types of hobgoblins, just laws preserving basic order.

139 posted on 07/13/2004 11:34:48 AM PDT by inquest (Judges are given the power to decide cases, not to decide law)
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To: Phantom Lord; Modernman
Gerntlemen, the proper term is 'liberate'.

As in: I found it necessary to liberate that fantastic pen from the supply cabinet.

Or

Tom liberated all of Sally's Ding Dongs and she was pretty pissed come lunch time.

Or in your case:

Modernman and Phantom Lord decided to liberate TJs organs as nobody owned them anyway.

140 posted on 07/13/2004 11:35:01 AM PDT by Bella_Bru (It's for the children = It takes a village)
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