Anti-Porn Activist Causes
Multimedia Stir in North Carolina
The insistence of a Charlotte, North Carolina, man on reading aloud the steamy passages of library books at televised Mecklenburg County commission meetings prompted commissioners March 20 to consider purchasing a tape-delay device to edit out the audio portion of the activist’s appearances. An unexpurgated version would air between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Ironically, the dialogue convinced Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County patron Martin Davis, 44, not to share a passage from Women on Top, which describes two women having sex with a dog. “I think some of my prior activities have made a difference,” Davis said in the March 21 Charlotte Observer. Although Davis has been protesting since 1997, no library materials have been removed or restricted to date.
“I call it my ‘mother test,’” Commissioner Tom Cox said of the tape-delay plan, which would bleep language “I wouldn’t want my mother to hear.”
“This is not so much about books in the library,” commission Chairman Parks Helms remarked about Davis’s activism. “This is about politics. Remember that.”
Posted March 26, 2001.
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