Yep, that’s right. The U.S. Government still believes, decades after the Ulysses case was decided, that when someone publishes literature that some U.S. Attorney doesn’t like, that the author should be sent to prison.
PITTSBURGH – A U.S. District Judge has denied motions to dismiss the federal obscenity charges against author and webmistress, Karen Fletcher. Fletcher was indicted last year on six counts of transmission of obscene matter, based on short stories she posted online.
Fletcher’s ‘Red Rose’ website, which had 29 subscribers, charged $10 per month for customers to read fantasies consisting of “explicit stories about adults having sex with children,” according to the FBI’s search warrant which was executed in August of 2005. At that time, the government seized Fletcher’s computer containing the online stories, to which 40 writers allegedly contributed.
Fletcher’s is the first federal obscenity case in decades involving only writings. Mooney’s key argument was that mere words alone cannot be obscene. “Textual material is different than other kinds of visual depictions,” he said. “Text is as close to the process of thought as we can get. The First Amendment doesn’t mean much if one is only allowed to write down their own thoughts for their own perusal.” (source and full story)
Separate the content (which I must admit is shocking) from your patriotism. If you believe in the Constitution, and you believe in what this country means, you can NOT believe that any American should ever face prison for writing fiction – no matter what the subject matter of that fiction might be.
