How many times have we seen efforts at censorship justified as “protecting the children”? This solicitous concern for children never seems to extend to feeding hungry children or clothing freezing children…instead, it is almost always focused on protecting them from what the concerned folks consider smut–which is pretty much anything of which they disapprove.
I’ve seen this show multiple times. Currently, it’s playing in Ohio, where Republican lawmakers are proposing to protect children by “updating” the state’s obscenity laws with an “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act.”
“Ohio has clear gaps in its indecent exposure and obscenity laws,” said Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Township, one of the bill’s sponsors. “The legislature has said time and time again that kids should not be exposed to obscene material. Now we are taking the step to ensure that the same type of obscene performances that they cannot watch online, they can’t watch in person.”
And what sort of “obscene performances” are these intrepid culture warriors seeking to ban? If you guessed drag shows, you win the prize….The legislation identifies “obscene performances” as those with “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex using clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers.”
Mrs. Doubtfire, I presume…
The Ohio ACLU, among others, warned against the “chilling effect” such laws have on free speech, noting that for decades, these types of laws have been used to target unpopular speech and art.
“This bill takes regular, everyday activities and turns them into potential crimes, based on whether somebody else might be offended by what other people are wearing,” said Dwayne Steward, executive director and CEO of Equality Ohio and Equality Ohio Education Fund, in a statement. “This bill gives government the unacceptable power to police what people wear.”
In a nod to the very subjective nature of what constitutes “obscenity,” the legislation Includes exceptions for breastfeeding and “bona fide” artistic performances. The questions of who decides when an artistic performance is “bona fide,” and what criteria are to be applied in order to make that determination are not addressed. Several constitutional law professors, as well as the ACLU, explained that the bill is unconstitutionally vague, requires (already overburdened) police to act as art critics, and potentially criminalizes wearing a bikini or a T-shirt without a bra.
These efforts–piously defended as necessary to “protect children”– crop up with regularity, and just as regularly are struck down by the courts.
Remember when Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, criminalizing the sending of “indecent” or “patently offensive” material to minors over the internet? In ACLU vs. Reno, he Supreme court held that the terms of the Act were unconstitutionally vague and overly broad, and thus violated the First Amendment. The Court emphasized that phrases like “indecent” and “patently offensive” were not clearly defined–indeed, were in the eye of the beholder–and that senders would inevitably be uncertain about just what was being prohibited. That uncertainty would create a chilling effect on lawful speech. The Court also pointed out that vague laws encourage arbitrary enforcement.
The Court compared that measure to “protect children” to burning down a village to roast a pig. I loved that metaphor, because that’s exactly what these culture warriors would be doing if their persistent assaults on the Bill of Rights were successful.
If there is one principle that pervades the Bill of Rights– one principle that animates our constitutional “village”– it is “live and let live,” the principle that, so long as we are not harming the person or property of someone else, we are each free to live our lives as we see fit. I think the majority of Americans are willing to live by that credo, but throughout our history we have had to contend with numerous moral scolds intent upon preventing others from engaging in behaviors and making life choices of which they disapprove. Insisting that other people’s choices are “harmful to children” is the strategy they employ to justify imposing their beliefs on others.
Meanwhile, what is really harmful to children is poverty. Not having enough to eat. Not having a warm coat in winter. Substandard housing. When Ohio’s legislature fixes those harms, I’ll believe they actually give a rat’s patoot about children.
These kinds of “to protect our kids / flag / Christian” laws are proposed by the far right, not to actually get then enacted, but rather they are proposed to feed their base of religious zealots. That base of followers and talk radio listeners lap it all up, send in their contributions, and vote to support those Republican “warriors” fighting for the American way… whatever that is. It’s politics for the ignorant.
You sucked me into reading the bill, so I plugged it into AI and found out who it targets – transgender people. It is based on a legal case in Xenia where a transgender woman was caught in the YMCA locker room exposing her “private parts.”
Josh is tweaking the law to replace the wording “private parts” with “private areas.”
Apparently, the transgender woman was found not guilty in Xenia because she was so obese that none of the men could see her genitalia. I guess minors were in the male locker room.
I swear, what are we going to do with all these transgender people?
Personally, I don’t pay much attention to the people in the locker room or bathroom. In the YMCA, the problem was the gay men in the saunas and whirlpools. They were getting their memberships revoked all the time.
p.s. I listened to a podcast interview that said that the Tech Bro’s are spending big on Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign. Once he wins the election, they will use him to expand data centers in Ohio and open the laws to make it easier for AI expansion.
Yes vague laws do indeed lead to arbitrary enforcement, but that’s the point, isn’t it? They get to be the arbiters. Therein lies the problem. When the people who decide what is and is not appropriate are the people who disdain facts and refuse to acknowledge science, that limits everyone’s right to be left alone to be themselves.
So, we can see just what titillates these culture warriors themselves: anything that is a bit sexually different. On another hand, it is amazing that they have not tried to outlaw breasts.
I just can’t understand all of the nonsense the hypocritical Christians are trying to shove down everybody’s throat. Trying to hide a reality, doesn’t that make it a forbidden fruit that becomes even more coveted? I believe in equality for all, regardless of gender. Maybe that’s because I’m a woman and had been perceived to be of lesser value. But as I have lived seven decades and the last five providing solely for myself, I have grown less and less appreciative of so-called male superiority. And all these old fat white men trying to tell all the rest of the world how to live is disgusting to me
I remember when was ten or so, a family friend with Hollywood connections gave me a bunch of publicity photos of models in modest (by 1950s standards) one-piece bathing suits. Having multiple copies, I shared them with my friends. You’d have thought I had given them plague-infested photos.
As of our 50th High School reunion, we all seem to have survived. I’d like to see proof of “harm to minors”.
It is bad enough that the morality police want to go after “adult entertainment” (which made the VCR industry and added billions to the economy through both adult and mainstream VCR/DVD sales and rentals), but now using this as an excuse to attack gay and transgender individuals is really a new low.
I won’t go into the stupidity of the various laws the moral police go through to “protect our children” (put your photo ID into a hackable database), but I would like to remind you all of one of my heroes.
While we properly argue about the legality of these laws and about the First Amendment, only one person came out and simply said, “I love smut” — Tom Lehrer in his 1965 song “Smut”. Sadly, the satire still applies today
Children certainly don’t have the judgmental viewpoint toward people who dress extravagantly, colorfully and read child appropriate books to them in the libraries. Their attention is drawn, held and the little group of children have a good time with peers. Of course, the reader and parents/guardians benefit too just being around the group of new human beings learning about the world. It’s wonderful to observe.
Lying to children and telling them if they don’t believe or toe the authoritarian line of utility they will be sent to hell by their “loving God” is mental/emotional torture.
The creativity and progressive thinking that is discouraged in those settings can be soul crushing.
The hierarchy of needs is vital like shelter, nutrition, rest and freedom from violence and harm, but the systematic overt negative pressure on the child’s confidence and mind needs a push back.
In US our inherent rights need to be protected to be ourselves and to live accordingly with in the laws.
In US our inherent rights need to be protected to be ourselves and to live accordingly with in just laws.
Cue Tom Lehrer, or at least his spirit… let’s all sing a verse or two of Smut…