Karen Fletcher has plead guilty to charges of obscenity stemming from her “fantasy site” Red Rose Stories. On this site, Karen published pornographic stories depicting sex and violence committed on young children. By pleading guilty to the charges brought by federal U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, Fletcher sought to avoid a public trial.
What is especially interesting about this story is that this gives authorities the precedent to go after text-based pornography as opposed to the easier target of video and photographic pornography, which may troubling to some writers. And it doesn’t help that if Karen didn’t plead guilty the authorities would have a very difficult time convincing a jury that this site with fictional stories that only are available to paying members is a danger to the public at larger, regardless of how appalling the content is.
Established porn authors such as Peter Sotos and Dennis Cooper had better watch their backs.
Link. Additional commentary from AVN. (via Reverse Cowgirl)
It looks like in England it’s illegal to call things what they are.
A young man who attended a recent protest against the Church of Scientology was served with a summons for holding a sign that accurately stated “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.” Apparently, the officers on the scene of the Anonymous-organized protest banned the word ‘cult’ on the basis that it is “abusive and insulting” to the Church.
When advised to remove the sign, the teen quoted a ruling made by a Mr Justice Latey, in which the CoS was described as a “cult” which was “corrupt, sinister and dangerous”. This didn’t matter to the officer who then gave the boy a court summons and removed the sign herself.
From an American position, this turn of events is absurd considering our foundness for free speech, but hopefully the British courts will realize that 1) Justice Latey is completely right and so is this teen, and 2) protests are best non-violent but they don’t need to be ‘nice.’
Good luck, unnamed teen crusader of truth!
Link. (via Boing Boing)