BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
LEGALIZED OBSCENITY. Brought
to you by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist! I'm
a bit slow getting to this, but I haven't seen a lot of coverage,
either.
About a year and a half ago
I
wrote about the case of
Extreme Associates, purveyors of such fine entertainment as Ass
Clowns 3. The makers of this harder-than-hardcore pornography,
Robert Zicari and Janet Romano, were being prosecuted by Attorney
General John Ashcroft under federal obscenity statutes. Zicari and
Romano were doing business in California; the case was brought in
conservative Western Pennsylvania.
Well, guess what? Extreme
Associates won. On January
20, US District Court judge Gary Lancaster dismissed the case against
Zicari and Romano, and possibly paved the way for the long-overdue
death of anti-obscenity laws. And if Lancaster is upheld, you can
send your thank-you cards to Supreme Court justices Scalia,
Rehnquist, and Thomas.
You may recall that, a few years
ago, the three conservatives dissented in Lawrence v. Texas,
which overturned anti-sodomy laws. Scalia - who actually wrote the
dissent - fumed that the majority decision could pave the way for
obscenity laws to be overturned as well. It turns out that Lancaster
read Scalia's dissent and agreed. Wrote
Lancaster:
In a dissenting opinion
joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, Justice
Scalia opined that the holding in Lawrence calls into
question the constitutionality of the nation's obscenity laws,
among many other laws based on the state's desire to establish a
"moral code" of conduct.... It is reasonable to assume that these
three members of the Court came to this conclusion only after
reflection and that the opinion was not merely a result of
over-reactive hyperbole by those on the losing side of the
argument.
You've got to love the way that
Lancaster is willing to twist the logical knife into the conservative
Supremes.
Lancaster's opinion is a great
victory for free speech and privacy. It's also a challenge aimed
directly at the right-wing agenda being pursued by George W. Bush's
Justice Department.
PAINFUL TO READ. Take a look
at the side-by-side
comparisons posted by Bruce
Allen of a column by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette's
Ken Powers and an earlier piece by Sports Illustrated's Peter
King. Powers's career is obviously hanging by a thread at this point.
What was he thinking? (Via Romenesko.)
posted at 4:07 PM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
