Judge: Hoosiers Who Sell Mature Materials Aren’t Adult Booksellers
A federal court declared unconstitutional July 1 an Indiana law that required sellers of any materials that could be deemed harmful to minors to register with the secretary of state and pay $250 to be licensed as an adult bookstore. Eleven plaintiffs, ranging from the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Foundation and the Indiana Museum of Art to the Entertainment Merchants Association, challenged the statute, which had been slated to go into effect on the same day U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ruled it unconstitutional.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy executive director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told American Libraries that FTRF joined the suit because “libraries who sell books at Friends sales or on their own and who are selling books that may fall under the definition of ‘sexually explicit’ would fall under the law, as would any library employee or volunteer who is selling the books.” The statute defined sexually explicit a product or service that appeals to a prurient interest or “is harmful to minors even if the product or service is not intended to be used by or offered to a minor.”
“Clearly, a vast array of merchants and materials is implicated by the reach of this statute as written,” Judge Barker wrote. “A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale—all incidents of unquestionably lawful, non-obscene, non-pornographic material being sold to adults—would appear to necessitate registration under the statute.”
By targeting sellers exclusively, the Indiana law was narrower in scope than a Colorado bill considered earlier this year that banned the sale or dissemination to minors of any materials that could be considered harmful to them. Cosponsored by Sen. Ted Harvey (R-Highlands Ranch) four years after he introduced an almost identical bill as a state representative, S.B. 125 died in a senate committee after the Colorado Library Association and other First Amendment advocates expressed strong opposition.
Posted on July 3, 2008. Discuss.