[law] CBLDF JOINS FIGHT AGAINST NEW LAW IN ARKANSAS
Following is the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's news release that offers more information related to
this story that was mentioned here recently.
Fund Joins Coalition To Strike Down New Arkansas Law
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has joined the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression Inc, the Arkansas Library Association; the Association Of American Publishers, Inc.; the Freedom To Read Foundation, Inc.; the ACLU of Arkansas and others to strike down Arkansas Act 858, which served to amend Arkansas Code ยง 5-68-502. The law was signed into law by Arkansas Governor Huckabee on March 28th and makes it unlawful "to display material which is harmful to minors in such a way that minors, as a part of the invited general public, will be exposed to view such material . . . provided, however, that a person shall be deemed not to have displayed material harmful to minors if the . . . lower two-thirds (2/3) of the material is not exposed to view and segregated in a manner that physically prohibits access to the material by minors;" or to "allow to view . . . to a minor, with or without consideration, any material which is harmful to minors."
Put simply, the law requires any content deemed "harmful to minors" to be both segregated and blinded. CBLDF and co-plaintiffs assert that the law unconstitutionally requires retailers and libraries to prevent all minors from accessing constitutionally protected materials that may be considered inappropriate for younger minors. By requiring plaintiffs physically to segregate such material, the statute unconstitutionally restricts adults and minors from access to materials protected by the First Amendment.
"Popular novels and serious non-fiction carried by my and other bookstores, like such works as
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou;
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck; romance novels by Nan Ryan and Linda Howard;
Forever by Judy Blume;
Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort, feature sexual content or have sexual content on the cover that some might consider inappropriate for young children," said Mary Gay Shipley, proprietor of That Bookstore In Blytheville, one of the plaintiffs. "Under this law, I would be required to create an `adults only' section in my store to display some of the greatest novels and most important works of serious non-fiction, including
Of Mice and Men,
Forever, and
Joy of Sex. I don't sell `dirty books' and I resent being treated like I run an adult bookstore." Libraries and comics retailers run similar risks.
"The language of the `harmful to minors' law is problematic to comics retailers because the definition of sadomasochistic abuse, taken at face value, could include any superhero comic book with a fight scene," explains Fund Director Charles Brownstein. "Other language in the law would also make retailers vulnerable for selling work of unquestionable literary merit, such as Craig Thompson's
Blankets, Will Eisner's
A Contract With God, and Dan Clowes'
Ghost World. If retailers needed to segregate all of this material,we're looking at a situation where a vast majority of the comics they sell, most of which are innocuous by standards upheld by television and movies, would have to be blinded and displayed in a section minors couldn't enter," Brownstein adds.
The Fund and co-plaintiffs are asking for an immediate injunction to prevent the state from enforcing the law, in essence preventing any retailer from being prosecuted.
Visit
CBLDF.org for links to coverage of the lawsuit.
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