THE PLAY'S THE THING :

Supreme Court Saves "Shakespearean" Child Sex Scenes - And Leaves Real Children Out in the Cold (Thomas G. West and Katherine McGinnis, April 24, 2002, The Claremont Institute--PRECEPTS)

Was the Supreme Court right to define obscenity practically out of existence a half century ago?

According to the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of government is to protect the citizen's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That means protecting people against injury.

The Founders therefore thought that citizens should be held accountable for any speech that could be proven in court to be injurious (such as personal libel). But the Founders also banned speech that injures society more generally - by injuring its moral foundations.

James Wilson, author of the free speech clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1791, wrote, "Indecency, public and grossly scandalous, may well be considered as a species of common nuisance." Such nuisances, he said, "annoy the citizens generally" such that "public peace, and order, and tranquillity, and safety require them to be punished or abated."

Such nuisances, wrote Wilson, are like keeping hogs in a city or running a whorehouse.

The analogy is apt : the Court's decision treats the Constitution not unlike the deed of a whorehouse. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 25, 2002 9:08 AM