ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation joined May 6 with seven other plaintiffs to challenge the constitutionality of an update to Ohio’s antipornography law. The measure adds digital transmissions to the list of print, audio, and video formats deemed harmful to minors when they depict sexual acts or “extreme or bizarre violence, cruelty, or brutality.” A legislative analysis of the amendment, which takes effect August 6, states that the presence of prurient material in Ohio becomes a crime when someone offers it as a “direct presentation to a specific, known juvenile or group of known juveniles.”
“This bill leaves no doubt: If you exploit children in Ohio through any medium, you will be punished,” Gov. Bob Taft said after signing the bill, according to a May 7 Associated Press report.
Among the plaintiffs in Bookfriends, Inc. v. Taft are the Association of American Publishers, the Sexual Health Network (a sex-education site), and the Dayton-based Wilke News bookstore, where the press conference announcing the suit was held. The bookstore “can be prosecuted for anything they find is distasteful that could be harmful to juveniles,” Pat Latham, who owns Wilke News, said in the May 7 Dayton Daily News. “It goes from potty-training books up to the Bible and the Koran,” agreed her husband and bookstore co-owner Jim Latham.
Posted May 13, 2002.