-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Steve wrote:
What's not clear to me, and I wish someone would explain, is how the SC managed to find pornography not similarly protected speech. Arms and munitions can be as arousing for some (e.g., Dr. Strangelove) as sex is for others.
It appears that Roth v. United States was the first case before that the U.S. SC decided that "obscenity" was not protected by the 1st Amendment. The reasoning was that while offensive, unorthodox, or hateful ideas are protected by the 1st, they, unlike pornography, have at least *some* redeeming social value. The court noted that laws enacted after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution banned several different kinds of speech, including profanity, blasphemy, and libel. It's a very common tactic for the courts to refer to post-ratification laws to support limits on Constitutional rights. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBM7HB9izIPc7jvyFpAQFYEgf+Kbx6mCeUYFFplzEnJKfP8vnlesgtt/5e ESOhomTHsQkjgu11hsWkw5mQhrRcF4hHK/4e4fJp4zonY+X9ogtobWoASvunvbGT XSTILWRkKwJtJIwxCUT2ybgER8vpR5U7AItyDjeGPB6mo7vP3cijkDiGXdmcdS+h bR1BmAO7+P1YhZxyHTduNA7ywsWTJ2gBSYgaiiDToF/MGySDYqNvBJ0W/f9XeJ9s Dj1bD3BxfRN1I3trjUlb8G4Ien5ffQxAohbMOqOimqm5PNCguggnERsSNoJVFAMm JKJxt8N4CyIx0r8J8jpAPf7rQ4j5FNj0cY8QI4h8bZWIjezRtyrbgQ== =2uUQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----