I’ll confess that I find some of the stuff the CBLDF defends to be distasteful. Why, then, support them?
Because if I can impose my taste on the law of the land, then so can someone else. And I’ve little doubt that there’s things I like that others would find distasteful.
Or, as others have put it, far better than I:
If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
— Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), from a unanimous court opinion (1969)
At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence. Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal. Government action that stifles speech on account of its message, or that requires the utterance of a particular message favored by the Government, contravenes this essential right. Laws of this sort pose the inherent risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information or manipulate the public debate through coercion rather than persuasion.
— Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2458, US Supreme Court (1994)
I believe that the First Amendment should cover everything. Even the incredibly icky, distasteful stuff. Because if we let “them” start making ethical judgments, they might not stop until it’s nothing but Norman Rockwell and Hummel figurines.
— Phil Foglio (b. 1957)
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
— Henry Lewis Mencken (1880-1956)
The extra fillip in CBLDF cases — and what makes the CBLDF different from, say, the ACLU or other First Amendment defenders — is the popular prejudice that comic books are for kids only. If comics are just for kids, then anything in them that is not “kid-friendly” is indefensible, like the Disney Channel suddenly putting “Daisy Does Dallas” at 9:30 in the morning.
But comics are (as I hope at least today’s posts have made clear) not just for kids. Indeed, they are for all ages, and forcing them to comply with just what is suitable for 8-year-olds would be like having the Disney Channel run on every station, all night. I mean, I like PB&J Otter as much as the next guy, but that only goes so far.
So one of the things the CBLDF works on in particular is cases where comic books are being particularly targeted because they are comics, because they are not real art, not truly protected speech.
And that’s why the CBLDF.