Wahl for mayor.Vote for a change.

[Matthew X]

A Chat With T.L. Wahl- St. Louis' First Amendment Advocate- Rob Black Ain't 
the Only Porn Guy to Have Run for Mayor
Vegas is going nuts trying to legislate lap dancing, and a bunch of right 
wing religious goofballs in Cincinnati got the Marriott Corp. to cave in on 
the showing of pay-per-view movies in a Marriott. This of course prompted 
us to give TL Wahl a call and see what was doing in St. Louis. Wahl along 
with his wife Suzie was a recipient of the Hal Freeman Freedom Isn't Free 
Award at the recent Night of the Stars. [Ironically the "Stars" have to pay 
to go to a benefit honoring them.]
Wahl likes to say he's the only guy in America convicted twice of 
prostitution for having sex with his own wife. Wahl runs openly advertised 
$200 "educational seminars," but the cops in St. Charles County saw it 
another way and figured Wahl's brand of Tupperware party was more like 
hooking. Having lost at the appellate level, Wahl asked the Missouri 
Supreme Court to hear his case but as yet hasn't received an answer. Wahl 
also writes and comments on First Amendment issues.
Gene: Anything new on your legal front?
Wahl: Oddly enough, we have not heard back from the Missouri Supreme Court 
as to whether or not they will hear our case. It's taken quite awhile. 
That's unusual. Otherwise things here are kind of quiet.
Gene: Are you still doing your educational seminars.
Wahl: We're not doing performances at this moment. They told us in St. 
Charles County that if we did the show again, we'd get 30 days in jail. And 
they use the word "show". Thirty days in jail would be pretty hard for me 
to take financially.
Gene: You're pretty active on the local political scene.
Wahl: Yeah. I've run for state representative. I've run for alderman here 
in St. Louis and I ran for mayor of Lake St. Louis. Suzie applied for the 
job of police chief back in 1991. When I ran for mayor I put together a 
booklet listing the issues that I thought were confronting the city. And I 
walked on foot every street in the city and knocked on every door of every 
resident in the city. I didn't win the election but that booklet was well 
regarded. But a lot of people used and referred to that booklet as far as 
the issues that would have to be dealt with. They did come to a boil and 
did have to be dealt with. A lot of the times the solutions I had proposed 
were the ones they ended up using.
Gene: I think Cincinnati's going to be the start of some pesky little First 
Amendment mosquito bites
Wahl: It goes back and forth. This being basically a theocracy in disguise, 
whenever they get a chance with a national threat or a national emergency 
they take that opportunity to swing the pendulum their way. But that's 
okay. We're not quitting. One of the things that we've considered doing in 
St. Louis is offering our performances for free. The problem with our 
performances is that there's sex and there's money. They consider that 
prostitution. Thereby we'd circumvent the whole prostitution aspect of it. 
We haven't worked real hard on that in finding a location, but that is a 
possibility and we'll see what the court rules. One day we may put the 
seminar on for free and see what they come up with next. I don't think 
they'd ever get us on obscenity because we offer scientific value in our 
presentation.
Gene: What are your feelings about receiving the Freedom Isn't Free Award.
Wahl: I was really genuinely honored. I remember when I heard about that 
award many years ago I really did think I'd like to have that some day. At 
the same time I'm kind of embarrassed because there I am in the room with 
the previous award winner who took a bullet in the back and is paralyzed 
for life. I got the award without being physically attacked, permanently 
attacked or spending any real time in jail. I haven't been through what 
some of those guys have been through.
Gene: How long have you been active as far as First Amendment issues.
Wahl: We were outed by our controversy in September 9, 1991 when the cops 
came in with a bogus search warrant [the Wahl's had an amateur video 
company] in honor of the local police chief's political campaign. They came 
in with a bogus search warrant, had a very public parade and we blew it all 
up in their faces. That's when we decided the best defense was a good 
offense. We've been very vocal about every issue, particularly censorship 
issues ever since then. When the local county prosecutor held a sideline 
job teaching law courses at the community college and told those people in 
the classroom that his opinion making an X-rated video was an act of 
prostitution, I sued him for libel. I also sued him for having a part time 
job. I sued the prosecutor on and on. I filed five or six lawsuits against 
him. His name was Tim Braun. None of the suits went anywhere. They were 
more of nuisance suits than anything else but they got in the newspaper and 
got us press. It drew attention to issues and we helped get him beat 
finally. A couple of years ago he publicly announced that at the behest of 
a local censorship group, Citizens Against Pornography, he was going after 
local video stores. They sent letters to the local video stores telling 
them they had better get rid of their stuff or face prosecution. I went 
around to the stores and said we need to have an organized effort to get 
this guy out of office. They trusted me with their mailing lists. Here I 
am, a mail order guy but I promised them I wouldn't use their mailing lists 
for my own purposes. I didn't. I printed up flyers
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