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Old 07-10-2008, 12:55 PM  
Quentin
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,280
Quote:
Originally Posted by Due View Post
I guess EU credit card processors will start gaining more business now that they are forcing the business out of USA.
If I am not mistaken both Oral and Anal is considered obscene in some states, can anyone confirm? Also there was at some point 1 state where it was illegal to have sex on sundays, would a website displaying live sex shows be obscene in that state?
My understanding from speaking to a number of attorneys and constitutional law scholars on this subject is that regardless of how a given state or municipality's obscenity laws are written, such laws will not survive court scrutiny if they are substantially more specific than the Miller test.

The only sex acts that are patently illegal to depict are those involving minors (and that's handled under statutes relating to child pornography, not obscenity), and those that constitute a recording of truly non-consensual sexual activity (and such depictions are not "porn," they are documentation of criminal acts).

There are quite a few states that still have anti-sodomy laws on their books, but such laws essentially have been rendered moot by the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.

It's all well and good to have a law that says "no anal sex allowed," but actually enforcing such a law is a very different story, in light of the court's ruling in the Lawrence case. The same can be said for obscenity statutes that get more specific than the Miller test, as that test defines (vaguely, at best) the extent of the government's ability to restrict sexually explicit depictions, which are presumed to be protected by the First Amendment until "proven" obscene at trial.
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