Sunday, March 04, 2007

"Freedom of speech does not cover obscenities"

Could spell rough times for California lefty bloggers ;->

Orange County Register
[...]A Riverside woman who faces a criminal charge of swearing at John Wayne Airport is suing the county, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona and two sheriff's deputies, alleging infringement of her free-speech rights[...]

[...]John Eastman, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University in Orange, said Venable's federal lawsuit may not hold muster.

"Freedom of speech does not cover obscenities," he said.

5 comments:

Mike said...

I'm not defending her behavior, but should this really be a criminal offense? It's ludicrous to me that we have such a law on the books. This is the sort of thing that scolding should be enough for. If no one cares, that's just an indictment of the standards of our country today, I guess.

Purple Avenger said...

Yea, if some milder flavors of porn fly under the banner free speech, one would think uttering a few expletives would too.

Chad said...

I agree but there should be a way of punishing rude people. Personally I would like to see robots that wander the earth smacking rude people on the head.

Mike said...

I'm all for a law allowing conservatives and libertarians with concealed carry permits in Virginia to pistol whip such people. I can think of a few times where I'd have gone to get a permit just so I could teach some manners to a few drivers if we had such a law ;)

Purple Avenger said...

Chad, I believe there's a karma balance that ultimately nails rude people.

They'll get theirs someday.