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Comment by cweagans | Hacker News Reader

From your link:

> In practice, pornography showing genitalia and sexual acts is not ipso facto obscene according to the Miller test.

I'm not sure you can make the statement that pornographic materials aren't protected speech. I don't think you can make the statement that they are though.

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In practice it is protected, but as the law is written it's hard to say how or why. Pure pornography with penetrative sex, by any reasonable definition, "depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct" and "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". And it's pretty clear that most pornography is intended to "appeal to the prurient interest". So it's really only protected because juries refuse to convict, meaning it's only protected if the defendant is seen as likable.

Why Does “literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” matter. And who gets to judge that? I can arbitrary decide it does hold artistic value to me. If at least one person finds it is valuable why should it be banned?

I understand you’re simply quoting the Miller Test but the entire concept of obscenity is ridiculous. Speech is speech. The Constitution says nothing about obscenity.

It is ridiculous, i agree 100%. It's a holdover from the bad old days.

"Patently offensive" carries some weight there.

To those from Puritan backgrounds its probably offensive. To less prudish backgrounds, probably not.

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