Internet Pornography Part 2: The Free Speech Double Standard

After publishing my previous article "Internet Pornography wins at the Supreme Court," I received several comments that the court decision to rule in favor of porn instead of child protection was correct. These remarks stated that porn is "protected by freedom of speech" and it is solely the parents' responsibility to control what their kids watch, see or call up on their computers.

This is such double-standard PC "correctspeech". But I'll tackle the double standard in a minute.

First of all, this "control and being responsible" is inaccurate. We can't always control what comes up on our computer. Porn purveyors are getting very crafty. You can put in a totally innocent word, and they have used it in their search engine optimization to pull unsuspecting people to their sites.

How about the library? In order to research things at the library, your child may automatically be exposed to porn. The almighty American Library Association has declared libraries "free reign" territory to porn seekers. Just this past Saturday, I went to the library and witnessed first hand that we may have to walk by a computer where someone is openly viewing porn in order to sit down at an available machine. At my local library, there are no cubicles barring your view of the next computer.

Now for the double standard:

I'm always getting comments like this on my various political articles: "Government shouldn't interfere"... "You can't legislate morality." Then why do these "freedom seekers" drag other peoples' morality into court for every little thing?

I would have to ask the PC crowd who so strongly advocate parental instruction in the case of porn - then why are you against parental notification for abortion? President Obama's pet project, FOCA (The Freedom of Choice Act) would ban all states' parental notification laws. How can you justify saying something like internet porn is "up to parents" but parents should have no control in such an important area as their daughter getting as invasive a surgery as abortion?

Organizations like NOW, NARAL and Planned Parenthood insist on not allowing parental notification because they're trying to convince our daughters that parents are, of course, the enemy. Parents will no doubt disown or beat their daughters for getting pregnant. But then these same liberals are going to turn around and say "but listen to your parents on porn"? Give me a break.

Here's another "politically correct" double standard: When we complain about sex and violence from Hollywood, the PC gurus say, "You don't want to see it, change the channel." Then these same PC gurus make a stink in courtrooms about when some kid gets up at graduation and prays in the name of Jesus. Well, that's the kid's freedom of speech. If you don't want to hear it, leave the stadium.

Plus, the liberals in government are always trying to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, forcing religious broadcasters to allow non-religious points of view onto their stations. If you don't want to hear the conservative point of view, why don't you change the station?

How about using "freedom of speech" as an excuse to stop SEEING someone else's free speech? Liberal groups have hired the ACLU to fight the Choose Life license plate in nearly every state that has it, on the basis that it "offends pro-choicers", or Christian monuments because "they don't want to see it".

Since when does the First Amendment say anything about freedom from SEEING? Well, how about I don't want to SEE your filthy pornography pop up in front of me? Somebody please show me where "freedom from seeing" is in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As for porn as free speech, Obscenity has no specific protection under freedom of speech, and it used to be that porn could be governed by obscenity laws such as the following cases:

Rosen v. United States, 161 U. S. 29 (1896 - "material is obscene if intended to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.");

Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957 - "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest");

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973 - "...if (a work) would be found appealing to the prurient interest by an average person applying contemporary community standards, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way and has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value"). Under Miller, material could be considered obscene in one location but not in another.

In one case, Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, (1964), Judge Potter Stewart said he could not precisely define pornography, but said in a post-decision statement, "I know it when I see it."

Stewart's statement is a tell-tale sign of today's problem. As the laws get newer, with our new philosophy that no one should judge what's right or wrong or good or bad, who's to say what's obscene? Oh, wait a minute...then who's to say what's wrong with a manger scene in public? Or is that too obscene for you?

(Note: Pornography for personal use in the home is not prohibited by the afore-mentioned laws, and child pornography is governed by laws not mentioned above).

Sources and links:

Pornography is not a victimless crime. See the statistics in this excellent article by Ac Producer "Melissa B": http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1340274/pornography_and_pornographic_images.html?cat=47.

A petition can be signed against FOCA as it is currently written at the Life Issues Institute website.

U.S. Obscenity Court cases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment.

Jacobellis - http://supreme.justia.com/us/378/184/case.html.

Rosen - http://supreme.justia.com/us/161/29/.

Roth - http://supreme.justia.com/us/354/476/case.html.

Miller - http://supreme.justia.com/us/413/15/case.html.