Civil Liberties               The National Newsletter of the ACLU
#380, Spring 1994             (c) 1994 American Civil Liberties Union

THE PRESIDENT'S WORD       Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU

     I have just finished writing a book about some current civil
liberties controversies of major importance, entitled Defending
Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights.  Due from
Scribner's in the fall, this book gave me an opportunity to counter
widespread misunderstandings about "pornography," a term that literally
means sexually arousing expression, but which some have come to wield as
an epithet to stigmatize any sexually oriented expression that they
dislike.

     Prominent in the news recently have been feminists Andrea Dworkin and
Catharine MacKinnon, who advocate censoring what they label "pornography,"
and whose definition of porn -- sexually explicit speech that
"subordinates" women -- has enjoyed steady promotion in the media
spotlight.  As a result, the public believes that the pornography debate
pits free speech against women's equality, and civil liberatians against
women's rights advocates.  Case in point: The general counsel of Women
Against Pornography has said: "The ACLU is a male dominated organization
that uses its women to further its antifeminist agenda.  When Strossen
became an apologist for the pornographers, she passed their litmus test to
become president."

     My book sets the record straight on these misconceptions, showing
that the ACLU's steadfast opposition to censoring pornography reflects its
longstanding commitment to both women's rights and free speech.

     For example, in an Indianapolis case that struck down a
Dworkin/MacKinnon-inspired law, the ACLU argued that the law violated both
the First Amendment and women's equality rights.  Our friend-of-the-court
brief noted that the law perpetuated outmoded, infantilizing stereotypes
about women's inherent vulnerability and need for governmental
"protection" in the sexual realm, and concluded: "A statute that formally
equates women with children and men with satyrs is hardly a step toward
sexual equality."

     That censoring sexual speech harms the women's rights cause has been
vividly demonstrated in Canada, where the Dworkin-MacKinnon angle was
enshrined in law two years ago.  The primary victims of Canada's anti-porn
statute have been feminist, lesbian and gay writers, along with
booksellers who purvey their writings.  The latter, in fact, have been so
systematically harassed under the law that one storeowner -- represented
by Canada's ACLU counterpart -- is challenging the discrimination in
court.  And predictably, two books by none other than Andrea Dworkin have
been confiscated.  We told you, Andrea ....

     Censorship is a driftnet that invariably ensnares not only the
designated targets, but also those committed to advancing the rights of
oppressed groups.  Thus, the ACLU, during its very first decade, had to
defend the pioneer advocates of birth control, such as Margaret Sanger and
our own founding mother Mary Ware Dennett, against prosecution under
obscenity laws.  More recently, we challenged the Reagan/Bush
Administrations' "gag rule," which barred the staffs of federally funded
family planning clinics from informing their patients about abortion.

     Historically, all laws that have suppressed sexually-related
information have thwarted women's autonomy.  Any Dworkin/MacKinnon law
would fit neatly "in the tradition," as presaged by incidents in which
these two feminists were themselves involved in campaigns to suppress
expression.  Dworkin led an effort to "kill" A Woman's Book of Choices, by
reproductive rights activists Rebecca Chalker and Carol Downer, because
she disagreed with one passage in it.  And both Dworkin and MacKinnon
figured in the decision of law students at the University of Michigan to
remove, from an art exhibit, a video created by some female feminist
artists that addressed issues of sexuality. (The artists, represented by
Marjorie Heins, Director of the ACLU'S Arts Censorship Project, were
eventually vindicated.)

     For those of us who are both civil libertarians and feminists, former
ACLU women's rights lawyer Kathleen Peratis said it all: "If you love
freedom and like sex, censoring pornography is bad news."

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