Case Overview
You see that image up there? The one from the comic book that is recommended for 14-17 year olds? Our client, Dan Kleinman, thinks that if you want minors to have access to that, you just might have a problem. He calls it “grooming behavior.”
Amanda Jones, a Louisiana librarian, gained national notoriety for advocating that minors should have access to books like that. Why? Her position is that this book should be in your public library. She has not equally advocated for Hustler Magazine nor The Turner Diaries to be available, at least not that we have been able to find. Why books like this? Everyone has an opinion.
As First Amendment advocates, we do not think that this book should be banned. You should be able to buy it. If you want to give it to your child, that’s between you and your child. But we also believe that Mr. Kleinman has the right to express his critical opinion of anyone who advocates for this kind of thing to be accessible to children.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:
“[W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.”
Perhaps today’s “fighting faith” is that it is sick to think a child should have a comic book about stuffing butt plugs up their ass. And the theory of our Constitution says that you should be able to write books like this, publish books like this, and read books like this. But just as equally, our Constitution says that you should be able to criticize anyone who thinks that it is just fine, if not wonderful, to teach children how to use a butt plug or give a blowjob.
For expressing such criticism, Jones sued Kleinman for defamation and false light, with the backing of the American Library Association. Kleinman filed an Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss this case, which is currently pending.
