Become a Felon - Post Banned Material!

The so-called Communications Decency Act makes it very easy to become a felon - all you have to do is put indecent material on the net where some young person can access it. In spite of the rhetoric put out by the pro-decency forces, the law bans a lot more than just perverts mailing unsolicited pornography to your kids; you can be a felon for much less, and the law isn't really about stopping that. It's about adults talking to each other. It's about teenage kids talking to each other in language that your parents consider impolite but Beavis and Can't say his name on the net use all the time. It's about literature and art that some people don't like. It's about discussing abortion methods, whether you think it's murder or the most important method for preserving women's rights, and, yes, that means lots of pro-life sites are violating the law.

And the CDA is also about selective enforcement. Will the censors bother you for putting the Bible on-line, a book of honest history which describes really indecent things done by kings and soldiers and murderers over the years, and uses language that was perfectly legal in King James's day? Not likely - but they can. Will they bother www.playboy.com? Probably. Will they bother you for posting Michaelangelo's painting of Adam from the Sistine Chapel? Probably not, even though he's naked. But they can. Will they bother you for posting a picture of your four-year-old kid naked that you did for photography class? Maybe. Are these examples any different under the law? No. Are they different under President Pat Buchanan and his Supreme Court vs. President Ann Richards and her courts? Very.

Material banned by the CDA