By Fred Jackson and Jody Brown
The recent Supreme Court decision legalizing sodomy is being used in Ohio to challenge that state’s obscenity law.
It is just what the critics of the Supreme Court decision predicted. Groups would take the reasoning of the six justices and turn it into legal arguments for doing away with other laws governing moral standards.
The Washington Times reports a lawyer who specializes in defending the distribution of sex images, including Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine, is using the high court’s reasoning to try to get a client off who is charged with selling obscenity.
That lawyer, H. Louis Serkin, argued before the court this week that “practically all choices made by consenting adults regarding their own sexual practices [are] a matter of personal liberty and thus beyond the reach of state control.” That is basically the reasoning the Supreme Court used last month to dismiss state sodomy bans.
According to the report, Sirkin stated that the right to own obscene material at home implies the right for others to sell obscene materials. Citing statements by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia in Lawrence v. Texas, the attorney said those rights “have moved out of the marital bedroom and into the public sphere of commercial interactions and private interactions between consenting adults.”
The Times quotes county prosecutor Mike Allen who says he expects Sirkin’s motion to fail. But he is still taking it seriously because Sirkin was successful last year in persuading the high court to strike down the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996.
The newspaper points out that by raising the federal constitutional issue at trial, Sirkin has preserved his right to appeal a decision against his client through the Ohio courts — and all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Allen predicts Sirkin will do that, even though in his opinion Sirkin is distorting the sodomy ruling.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
