On April 28, California Congressman Duncan Hunter (R) introduced legislation that could “turn parents into prosecuting attorneys fighting a wave of obscenity,” the representative told Family.org.
H.B. 4239, also called the “Parents’ Empowerment Act,” would allow the parent or guardian of a minor to sue in federal court anyone who knowingly disseminates any media containing “material that is harmful to minors” if the material is distributed in a way that “a reasonable person can expect a substantial number of minors to be exposed to the material and the minor, as a result to exposure to the material, is likely to suffer personal or emotional injury or injury to mental or moral welfare.” The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Comic books are an extremely easy target for over-zealous D.A.s looking to grab some quick headlines. Up in Dallas last year, in another Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Case, a D.A. successfully prosecuted a comic dealer for selling an adult comic to an adult by arguing to the jury "Comics are for kids--everyone knows that. Therefore, these 'adult' comics are for kids, because everyone knows adults don't read comics." Since comic shops don't have deep pockets to wage heavy-hitting legal warfare, and jury pools are too quick to buy into this faulty reasoning, this law just begs to be abused in mind-boggling bad ways. When we were living in Temple, Lisa had a friend who was such a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, I could see her using this law to sue Scholastic and J.K. Rowling because she believes Harry Potter promotes Satanism and is "obscene."
Heck, even good laws are perverted in awful ways. A couple of years back I got called in for jury duty in an obscenity case. Some video clerks were on trial for selling some porno DVDs. The assistant D.A. made some unbelievable assertations, such as U.S. Supreme Court rulings on community standards weren't applicable, because the Supreme Court didn't live in this community... that sort of thing. But when jury selection commenced, that's when things got surreal. During questioning, there were maybe a dozen people that were vehemently, violently opposed to pornography, erotica, nudity or any variation thereof. One elderly lady about 80 announced it was easy to determine what was obscene and purient because "that's what it is." To her, everything was obscene, be it a newsstand copy of Cosmo or a rated-R flick like Monster's Ball or Swimming Pool. Some of us murmured under our breaths that it was easy to tell which members of the jury pool would be going home early. Then the judge read off the names. We were stunned. Every single one of the anti-porn people were seated! The lawyer for the defense was utterly confused and dumbfounded. It actually took him a minute to get over his shock and protest. Most of those people were on his submitted list of rejected jurors. There were some intense minutes of conversation at the bench, I can tell you. As much as I could hear and piece together, the judge said, "No, that list was for people you wanted on the jury." They recessed and reconvened about three times that day, filing motions and objections, keeping all of us there well into the evening. At the end, they let the remaining pool go and kept the skewed jury. The defense lawyer looked shattered, and the assistant D.A. looked like the smuggest cat that ate the canary ever. I never heard what ultimately happened in that case. There's no way a conviction would survive an appeal, but was obvious the assistant D.A. didn't care about that--it was an election year, and the D.A.'s office wanted some "family values" convictions it could crow about in the media. Any spin off chilling effect would be a welcome bonus.
It doesn't matter what your opinions on erotica are. This was a prosecution purely motivated by politics (I have no idea if the D.A. or the assistant D.A. were Republicans or Democrats. The trial was in Bell County, so either is equally likely). The whole thing was an embarrassment and a tremendous waste of tax dollars.
I'm a parent. I find myself more and more annoyed with network broadcaster scheduling shows with heavy sexual content in the 7 p.m. "family hour." The Friends finale (a show Lisa and I used to watch regularly) had Chandler comparing the pain of childbirth to being "kicked in the nuts." Calista happened to hear that, and immediately begins pestering us what "nuts" are. Now I've been a devotee of NYPD Blue and other programs that feature strong language and even occasional nudity in the past. I happen to enjoy strong language and occasional nudity. I strongly resent the chilling effect that's resulted from the FCC overreaction to Janet Jackson's boob-baring incident. There should be room for nudity and other creative adult elements in programming, but there is no excuse for such programs to run sooner than 8 p.m. CST. And as a parent who expends a great deal of effort to control what my daughters see and ensure it's age-appropriate, let me be the first to say that it ain't easy when even the most innocent of programs pauses to bombard kids with hyper-sexual commericals for "Bratz" dolls and the like every 10 minutes.
So ultimately, it's a mixed bag. Society commoditizes and commercializes sex and violence, targetting inappropriate audiences. The Powers That Be respond with knee-jerk legislation that will result in a few high-profile, token prosecutions, but no real impact on the reality situation, and no clear set of rules or standards. And the only victims will be those associated with art forms and creativity that are not part of the problem in the first place. I have no doubt that this proposed federal law will be put to problematic use at the very first opportunity.
Personally, I could easily forsee myself or any number of SF writers being dragged into court for our writing, on the grounds that "Sci-Fi stuff is for kids. Everyone knows that." You can contact your representative here to voice your displeasure with this bill.
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