Billings Obscenity Ordinance Talking Points
Obscenity Ordinance Talking Points:
No specific incident or history of incidents prompted the need for an obscenity law in Yellowstone County that is stricter than Montana state law already covers.
A Montana state law is already in place prohibiting public display or dissemination of obscene materials to minors.
No signatures were gathered from Yellowstone County residents to test whether or not a stricter obscenity law for adults was needed.
A Bitterroot Valley resident initially proposed the two obscenity ordinances to Yellowstone County. The instigator behind the ordinances does not live here, does not pay taxes here, and cannot even vote on the very ordinance he proposed.
The proposed obscenity ordinance does not define obscenity beyond what the “average” person would find obscene. Yellowstone County is filled with a diverse population of widely varying views. The obscenity ordinance would make Yellowstone County (and its taxpayers) vulnerable to lawsuits. Do we want Yellowstone County to become a legal battleground for what is obscene or not?
The safeguards built into the ordinance—that community standards will ultimately define, through a jury, what is “patently offensive” or “prurient,” and that nothing with some degree of artistic, literary or scientific merit can be deemed obscene—are of little comfort because these safeguards will not prevent the initiation of a bad prosecution in the first place. Nothing in the ordinance protects a person from embarrassment, harassment, intimidation and cost of defending against criminal charges.
The ordinance opens the door to prosecutorial abuse, because the text of the ordinance is not specific enough to ensure that prosecutions for non-obscene conduct/material will not take place. The ordinance could easily be misused for political or personal reasons.
No specific incident or history of incidents prompted the need for an obscenity law in Yellowstone County that is stricter than Montana state law already covers.
A Montana state law is already in place prohibiting public display or dissemination of obscene materials to minors.
No signatures were gathered from Yellowstone County residents to test whether or not a stricter obscenity law for adults was needed.
A Bitterroot Valley resident initially proposed the two obscenity ordinances to Yellowstone County. The instigator behind the ordinances does not live here, does not pay taxes here, and cannot even vote on the very ordinance he proposed.
The proposed obscenity ordinance does not define obscenity beyond what the “average” person would find obscene. Yellowstone County is filled with a diverse population of widely varying views. The obscenity ordinance would make Yellowstone County (and its taxpayers) vulnerable to lawsuits. Do we want Yellowstone County to become a legal battleground for what is obscene or not?
The safeguards built into the ordinance—that community standards will ultimately define, through a jury, what is “patently offensive” or “prurient,” and that nothing with some degree of artistic, literary or scientific merit can be deemed obscene—are of little comfort because these safeguards will not prevent the initiation of a bad prosecution in the first place. Nothing in the ordinance protects a person from embarrassment, harassment, intimidation and cost of defending against criminal charges.
The ordinance opens the door to prosecutorial abuse, because the text of the ordinance is not specific enough to ensure that prosecutions for non-obscene conduct/material will not take place. The ordinance could easily be misused for political or personal reasons.
posted by Editors at 4:40 PM
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