Federal Obscenity Rule Nixed In Internet Porn Case

CaptainEbo writes "A court has declared the federal anti-obscenity law unconstitutional in a criminal case against an Internet porn distributor: 'We find that the federal obscenity statutes burden an individual's fundamental right to possess, read, observe, and think about what he chooses in the privacy of his own home by completely banning the distribution of obscene materials.' The court's decision rested in part on Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case striking down anti-sodomy laws. Under Lawrence, said the court, 'upholding the public sense of morality is not even a legitimate state interest.'"

Comments

Re:This Will Be Appealled

[dustmite]

* A 1987 study found that women who were battered, or subject to sexual aggression or humiliation, had partners who viewed significantly more pornography than those of a control group drawn from a mature university population. (3)

Repeat after me 100 times: "Correlation is not equal to causation." Please demonstrate that viewing pornography was the cause of increased sexual aggression. It's just as easy to argue, and is seemingly more likely, that people who are already "sexually aggressive" are more likely to watch porn than those who aren't. Or there may be other factors involved. The existence of a correlation does not allow conclusions to be drawn.

* A 1995 meta-analysis found that violent pornography might reinforce aggressive behavior and negative attitudes toward women. (4)

That's VIOLENT pornography. Other existing psychological studies have also demonstrated that viewing images/movies of violence (without porn involved) increase aggressive behaviour. So really your problem here may have nothing to do with the "pornography" component and everything to do with the "violence" component. Could you please separate the two (hint about "science": you should try only test one thing at a time, unless you have an ideology you want to falsely reinforce by incorrectly linking A to undesirable B), and demonstrate that non-violent pornography causes an increase in aggressive behaviour? It could VERY WELL be that non-violent pornography has no effect at all on aggression rates, and that the real culprit here that causes "harm to society" is images of violence.

* A US study of teenagers exposed to "Hard core" pornography, "Two-thirds of the males and 40% of the females reported wanting to try out some of the behaviors they had witnessed. And, 31% of males and 18% of the females admitted doing some of the things sexually they had seen in the pornography within a few days after exposure." (5)

So? I fail to see the harm demonstrated. It's also true that watching advertisements depicting people eating ice-cream increases the amount of ice-cream eating behaviour, 'your next assignment is to prove that ice-cream eating is harmful'.

* A 1987 "panel of clinicians and researchers concluded that pornography does stimulate attitudes and behavior that lead to gravely negative consequences for individuals and for society, and that these outcomes impair the mental, emotional, and physical health of children and adults." (6)

This sounds a little vague, there is not much information here. I know many well-adjusted people who have viewed a lot of pornography, if pornography is harmful why are the vast majority of people immune to these harmful effects?

* A 1993 study found, "Exposure to sexually stimulating materials may elicit aggressive behavior in youth who are predisposed to aggression. Sexually violent and degrading material elicits greater rates of aggression and may negatively affect male attitudes toward women." (7)

Again, images of violence are already known to increase aggression: please separate the "effects of images of violence" from "effects of images of naked women". Also, not all pornography depicts women being degraded ... perhaps the cause of the problem here is not porn, but depictions of women being degraded? Is it possible that showing non-pornographic films of women being degraded also encourages more negative attitudes towards women? OF COURSE IT IS. You still haven't demonstrated that pornography is the cause.

* A 1984 evaluation of the increase in rape rates in various countries bears close correlation to liberalizing of restrictions on pornography. (8)

Correlation .. YAWN .. that means nothing. Demonstrate causality, please.

* Three separate studies demonstrate that exposure to violent pornography may increase males' laboratory aggression toward women. (9,10,11)

Again, this could have everything to do with images of violence and nothing to do with nakedness.

Re:I'm with you here.

[onepoint]

here is a link that talks about the court case ( it starts talking about it in the middle )

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1 56 44-2004Dec21.html

Onepoint

Re:More Information from Pittsburgh Sources...

[Lord Kano]

If you will recall in 2000 the majority of the American people voted for the Democrat.

No. A plurality did.

You didn't have "huge numbers" then, don't think you have them now.

Then, clearly not. This time is debatable.

Remember the rhetoric at the Republican convention.

No. I didn't watch either convention. My decision was made in 2000. When Bush won the 2000 election, I knew I'd be voting for him again in 2004.

The other was gay marriage. Again it was an issue ruthlessly exploited by the Republicans to paint a picture that if the Democrats had their way gays would be wedding across the nation.

It's not fair to blame the Republicans for spiking the ball when the Democrats gave them such a perfect set for it.

Democrats were beating the drum of "gay rights" and the Republicans took advantage of society's revulsion at that.

By getting it on the ballot in 11-12 states they also drove large numbers of socially conservative voters out to vote and they probably voted Republican after they voted no on Gay Marriage. It was a brilliant strategy.

Once again, the social liberals set this up. By pushing the issue in state supreme courts, they forced the opposition to step up the fight. The US Supreme Court's sodomy decision and the Massachusetts supreme court's decision on gay marriage caused a backlash. You can't blame Republicans for taking advantage.

I really doubt the elections had anything to do with the realities of the electoral landscape, of the center and right turning on the lefties. It was an exercise in ruthless, brilliant campaigners crushing an inept Democratic party.

The Democrat base is now so far to the left that they didn't have the ability to run to the center they way they did in 1992 and 1996. Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut in 1992. He signed the "welfare reform" law in 1996. He courted centrist voters. In this election the democrats couldn't do that. After vilifying Bush's tax cut for 3 years, they couldn't then claim to want tax cuts.

Wont really get me to defend the Democrats, they are pathetic and getting more so everyday.

I'll defend and attack them at the same time. So many of the Democrat's ideals are wonderful. I'd love to see some of their social policies become law, problem is that the rest of their platform is so repugnant to me that I can never support them in a presidential election.

LK