| |
N0KFQ > TODAY 03.03.16 17:22l 40 Lines 1594 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 86552_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Mar 3
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N9PMO<NS2B<N0KFQ
Sent: 160303/1516Z 86552@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1873
Congress bans sending obscene materials through the mail
Congress enacts the so-called Comstock Law, making it illegal to
send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" book through the mails.
Also unlawful under the law is sending anything "designed or
intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of
abortion."
The law was named after Anthony Comstock, the one-man moral
majority of his time. Comstock, a salesman from Connecticut,
found allies for his campaign at the New York YMCA. He devoted
his entire life to fighting what he perceived as vice,
particularly obscenity and gambling. As he once explained, "the
place for a woman's body to be denuded is in the privacy of her
own apartments with the blinds drawn."
Many of today's armchair moralists who have attacked Hollywood
for an alleged role in the 1999 Littleton, Colorado killings
would have appreciated Comstock's views. He described children as
a glass of pure and clean waterthat is easily tainted with a drop
of ink.Mixing metaphors, he then said that "vile books and papers
are branding-irons heated in the fires of hell."
The Comstock Law prompted many states to add laws of their own,
and heavy-handed restrictions on sexually oriented material
continued for many years. James Joyce's Ulysses was even barred
from the United States until court challenges finally determined
that it was not obscene. The current Supreme Court standard
exempts from obscenity prosecution any material that has literary
value.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
Using Outpost Ver 3.1.0 c41
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
