July 1st marked the first day for a lot of Indiana laws to take effect. One makes drunk driving accidents a violent crime. One makes low-stakes gambling legal in taverns. One well overdue law requires an eight hour hold on anyone charged with domestic violence. One law was overturned by a federal judge the day it came in effect- Indiana's "Naughty Law," as one local news program called it.
I'd heard about the law on NPR months ago It was definitely a scary, slippery slope law, like charging pregnant women with neglect, abuse, and even murder. The law would have required that any retailer selling material (books, dvds, other media) that a prosecutor might deem sexually explicit pay a fee of $250 and register as an "adult" retailer.
The NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist...
I understand this was targeted at adult retailers that misrepresented their merchandise to get permits, but the language of the law was so vague, everything from a grocery store to a book store, from an art museum to a video rental shop could potentially be targeted. There are already laws for adult shops. No one under 18 (or maybe it's 21?) are admitted into the places. I don't see the necessity, even with more specific language, to have a law like this.
This morning, I watched the news to hear that yesterday, on the day the law took effect, a federal judge threw it out. From The Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker found the new law passed earlier this year by the Indiana General Assembly to be vague, too broad and potentially applicable against “unquestionably lawful, nonobscene, nonpornographic materials being sold to adults.”
“A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale ... would appear to necessitate registration under the statute,” Barker wrote. http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/jul/01/judge-throws-out-new-indian...
I'll wait until next year to find out if they try again on this one. How do you define pornography and sexually explicit material for a law? Then consider how you would keep nudity or sexuality, say in an art museum, from being an "adult" place? Is it just me, or does this attempted law really make Indiana sound like some major right-wing ultraconservative bible thumping state?
