Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site bbncc5.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer
From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: banning pornography
Message-ID: <365@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Sep-85 11:19:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.365
Posted: Sat Sep 21 11:19:47 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 05:50:43 EDT
References: <70@ucdavis.UUCP> <870@utcs.uucp> <885@ptsfa.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 34

>>nazi literature, and so on.  More important than the right to free speech is
>>the right to any kind of meaningful life at all, the right not to have people
>>preaching hatred of you.
>More important to whom? Certainly not to the person whose free speech is being
>denied.  I never heard of this "right not to have people preaching hatred of
>you". Is this a right you WISH you had, or  did I miss it in the constitution?

Alan Rosenthal is posting from Canada, a country which, until recently, had
no "Bill of Rights" analogous to that in the U.S. Constitution.  Civil
Rights were the province of the individual provinces.  In any event, there
is certainly Canadian precedent for laws against hate propaganda, and also
for harassment of gay publications under the hazy definition of
"pornography." Only recently did Toronto's "The Body Politic", an excellent
monthly newspaper, have the case brought against it by the government
dropped after almost five years.  This was harassment of the worst form
for a low/no budget operation.

I think his comments are a good example of the meaningless hyperbole which is
being bandied around by this "anti-pornography" movement, and the experience
of "TBP" a good example of how similar statutes can be misused.

By the way, the Cambridge (Mass., USA) City Council recently voted to
exclude a version of the Dworkin civil rights statute from the November
ballot, despite it having received a sufficient number of signatures.
Interestingly, the council split between liberal/conservative lines,
but in a completely unexpected way: liberals voted FOR the referendum,
conservatives AGAINST the referendum.  Apparently, the conservative
members, all of whom claimed to support the statute, knew that such a
ballot item would be certain to attract progressive voters of all
persuasions, and such a turn-out would be damaging to their candidacy! :-)
-- 
/Steve Dyer
{harvard,seismo}!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer
sdyer@bbncc5.ARPA


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com