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Obscene material is not protected

John Parman
Friday May 24, 2002

To the Editor: 

 

Readers should know something civil libertarians and constitutional lawyers have known for years: obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. This means that all laws regarding the dissemination and broadcast of obscene (read: pornographic or strongly sexually suggestive) are made on the municipal or state level.  

The censorship of the sex-realted program would not be an issue of First Amendment freedoms, it would only seek to limit access to prurient information not generally held as informative or socially acceptable by the general public. 

If the majority of citizens want to limit that access, then it should be done. We must stop calling every attempt to limit freedom a First Amendment issue, there is not freedom for pornography. 

 

John Parman 

Berkeley