Jesus Castillo, Supreme Court, And Free Speech

I've been following the Jesus Castillo case for a while. The case itself is an obscenity charge for selling an adult comic to an adult undercover police officer in Dallas. Recently, the US Supreme Court denied his appeal, with the notion that obscenity is a state-level affair, despite the First Amendment being a Federal law. There's also an interview with the head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and some good ruminations from Neil Gaiman on the subject. Bad precedents for free speech - the CBDLF donations and giving to the EFF are Good Things.

Comments

you said it, man

[SweetAndSourJesus]

nobody fucks wit de Jesus.

News for Nerds??

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, so it's a pet issue of Hemos' but does this really merit a story on slashdot?

How is this really news for nerds? It sounds more like Causes of the Editors, Stuff only we care about.

Slashdot: amateur platform.

Re:News for Nerds??

[saskwach]

Many of the nerds on Slashdot are very interested in censorship and pr0n :oP

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[Anti Frozt]

• "...what right does anybody else have to tell them what they can and cannot say, do, smoke, eat, drink when it does affect other people."

When it does affect other people?? I think the government has quite a bit of right when damaging acts such as smoking, rape, and murder adversly affect the surrounding public. I'm personally quite glad that a lot of cities in Ontario having inacted anti-smoking by-laws.

You are NOT to look upon the human body!

[Faithful Believer]

Don't any of you liberals get it? If Christ the LORD wanted us to look at naked humans all the time, we would all be naked all the time! Isn't that much obvious? The Bible, praise be to God, says that we are to be modest in the sight of the LORD and each other. That means we should not be looking at each other in the absense of clothing. I'm glad to see this man might be faced with jail time. He must be punished for peddling this material which corrupts and distorts minds with shameless immorality. Praise be to God!

This case is ridiculous bull.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, mind you, this post isn't entirely a normal troll. I do actually feel this case is a horrible infringement on our rights. However, it does kind of remind me of this. Ye olde gaping anus is sometimes a better metaphor for current events than people give it credit for. I mean, it's a guy bending over and spreading open his anus to an almost impossible width. Wow! Who would've thought such a thing was possible! And everytime you click this link, you are forced to stare into the external redness that is this great man's humongous anus. Kind of reminds me of life, it does... But I digress. This guy getting busted for selling adult comics to an adult really irks me, in kind of the same way this blatent goatse.cx troll probably irks you.

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[fireboy1919]

Maybe you should question why something is covered by free speech. The intent of the idea of free speech is to mostly to allow the populace to criticize the government and other figures with power as a means of exacting political change.

As a supplement, it is to allow one to teach one's beliefs and way of life to other people.

So I put it to you that porn is not for either of these purposes; it is merely for pleasure. It stands, therefore, not as a right, but rather as a privelege awarded by the majority.

The question may be raised, then, as to why they should repress others in satisfying their desires. The answer should be simple: because the mere presence of such material is displeasurable for them. They don't want to risk their children getting it, or them seeing things in a moment of weakness.

Since
1) It does not further the intent of the free speech ammendment
2) It makes some people happy, and others unhappy.

The decision falls to the majority. Will more people be unhappy with it than happy? Then it won't be allowed.

Re:First amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, let's not make things up. Do some research. CNN has a very informative analysis of the ambiguous nature of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment here.

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[tomstdenis]

That's just plain fucking stupid. You don't need to smoke to survive. So why should I be denied a working environment because my boss wants clients to smoke inside?

And "simply decide" is not that simple. If that were the case then unemployment would be close to 0%.

Tom

Re:Troll Alarm!

[blueapples]

It is interesting to me that you make a temporal distinction between the effects of being exposed to second hand smoke for most of your life and the effects of a gun shot wound. Both are damaging. Both can, and often do, kill. We should be able to think a little longer term than this.

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're right, but there are many other professions where employee safety is shamelessy flouted: Automobile racing should have an absolute speed limit of 25MPH. No movies should feature stunts where anyone falls out of a >1 story window. Law enforcement officials should be made to wear full body armor at all times. All buildings and furniture should be built only of brick and concrete so they don't catch fire and endanger firefighters.

Ridiculous? Of course. It's not at all analogous to sexual harassment because putting up with sexual harassment is not an inherent part of most jobs; being in a smoky environment is widely understood to be an inherent aspect of bartending. Just as driving in a 200MPH traffic jam is an inherent aspect of racing, and rushing into burning buildings is part of being a firefighter.

Re:Whoa, There, Cowboy! Local Obscenity Laws == Go

[el-spectre]

Thank you for getting my point!