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.
Show me the part of the Constitution that authorizes them regulate speech in any way.
How these people who want to jettison the Constitution can call themselves "conservative" is beyond me.
Both are trying to outlaw thoughts.
I find that abhorrent.
Please find a victim before you mete out punishment.
That sounds great until they pass the "Freedom to Produce Child Porn Without Criticism Act" and you wind up in the slammer. Just ask the pro-life movement.
Meanwhile, sexual deviants get their jollies and real children suffer real harm while we debate whether or not the first amendment was intended to protect child pornography. The only thing I know for sure is that the founders wouldn't have had time to debate this issue, they would have been too busy making sure child-molesting deviants found the limits of the first amendment at the end of a rope.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that pornography is not speech. Please show me where in the Constitution the federal government gets authority to regulate it.
It's pure CRAP that Porno should be shielded by the Constitution.
Porno....Abortion....... HOMOSEXUALITY....Adultery....just SOME of the things KILLING our Country.
The same amendment that protects the rights of pornographers to spew their filth is the same one that allows me to preach the Gospel openly, without fear of governmental reprecussions.
Thats why, whenever speech is involved, I am an unashamed libertarian.
The justices have ruled that virtual child pornography is protected by the first amendment. Of course, if they considered original intent it could not be since the men who crafted the first amendment also endorsed and signed obscentiy laws.
What they have done is chipped away at your freedom again and you're loving it. These types of laws are supposed to be left to states and localities. If you believe that scumbags and perverts have an unalienable right to kiddie porn, virtual or otherwise, then you and your fellow residents can vote to do just that.
Me and my fellow residents don't want taht crap anywhere near our kids and grandkids. The ACLU has taken librairies to court forcing them to make porn available on their internet connections. Guess whats coming to your library.
Pedophiles don't have an unalienable right to child pornography and conservatives and libertarians should not be applauding edicts from Washington because they happen to agree with the robes.
IMHO, of course.
OOoooooo! The world would come to a screeching halt if THAT happened, wouldn't it???
But, alas, I'll not convince the libertines among us.
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