Main | Tuesday, April 20, 2010

And WE'RE The Perverts?

The Supreme Court has overturned a 13-year ban on "crush videos" saying the ban violated freedom of speech. Never heard of crush videos? Me neither. It turns out some heterosexual men are thrilled by the sight of women crushing small animals to death with their stiletto heels or bare feet. And they'll pay to see it.
Chief Justice John J. Roberts Jr., writing for an eight-member majority, said the law was overly broad and not allowed by the First Amendment. He rejected the government's argument that whether certain categories of speech deserve constitutional protection depends on balancing the value of the speech against its societal costs. "The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits," Roberts wrote. "The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it." [snip] Animal rights groups and 26 states had joined the Obama administration in support of the 1999 law. They argued that videos showing animal cruelty should be treated like child pornography rather than granted constitutional protection. But Roberts said the federal law was so broadly written that it could include all depictions of killing animals, even hunting videos. He said the court was not passing judgment about whether "a statute limited to crush videos or other depictions of extreme animal cruelty would be constitutional."
I've seen a few things in porn that I totally wish I could scrub from my brain. But this? I'd have to self-lobotomize.

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