Supreme Court rebuffs attempt for national obscenity standard

According to this article,

http://www.justicemag.com/daily/item/2590.html

the Supreme Court just declined to hear a case arguing that the Miller test and local community standards for obscenity are unconstitutional and impose an undue burden on the creators of art or media.

The attorney for the plaintiff believes that the refusal was more about politics than constitutional law. What a surprise.

On the one hand, I'd be in favor of a national standard, as pretty much all other countries have. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want some of the new batch of idealogues making those decisions.

Chip:

I think is good news. Amongst other things, the lack of a national standard makes the COPA law arguably unenforcable.

If there were a national obsenity standard, than we would see a deluge of federal laws regulating obsenity..... yes, its frustrating sometimes now, but the alternative would be far, far worse.

Furthermore, I think that for the United States, defining obsenity according to local standards is really the best way to do it. In contrast to say, Denmark, which has a couple million people is one similar area, and a long standing mono-religious heritage.... There it is not so hard (I guess)

The United States is just so diverse. That's diversity geographically, to ethnicity, to religion.... and on and on. In fact, that's why we integrate people better than most other places. Imposing a single lens from Alaska to Maine would be really difficult.

Obviously what is obsene in San Francisico or New Orleans is different from what might be considered obsene in Colorado Springs or Tulsa. At least this way there is some kind of resolution. Good move from the Supremes... yet again.

Steve