Brown v. EMA and the obscenity double standard
Here's something that doesn't
happen everyday: Commonweal contributor
and Notre Dame professor Cathleen Kaveny agrees
with outspoken conservative Charles Chaput, the Catholic archbishop of Denver.
The subject is violence in
video games, specifically the recent Supreme Court decision striking down--on First Amendment
grounds--California's ban on selling or renting violent games to minors. Chaput
praises
Justice Clarence Thomas's dissenting opinion, and he argues persuasively that
"when we too readily stretch an individual's right to free speech to include a
corporation's right to sell violence to minors, we collude in poisoning our own
future."
Kaveny concurs
and offers some thoughtful questions. Later in the comment
thread--always a lively place over at dotCommonweal--she adds this: "I've never
been sure why some Catholic conservatives I know--friends of mine--are way more
worried about sex in movies than violence." Kaveny commends Chaput for
"worrying about violence, as well as sex."
