High Court Orders Porn Question Back on Ballot

The state's highest court this week overruled the Cambridge City Council and placed an anti-pornography referendum back on the November municipal ballot.

Two weeks ago, the city council voted 5-4 not to place the proposed ordinance before voters in the upcoming election after the city solicitor decided the measure was unconstitutional.

But the Women's Alliance Against Pornography, a grassroots organization which collected more than 5200 signatures in support of the petition, appealed to the state's Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) and won its case on Tuesday.

The first referendum of its kind in the nation, the proposed ordinance would not ban pornography, but would give alleged victims legal recourse against the manufacturers and distributors of whatever is deemed sexually dehumanizing.

The city council is now mandated to place the binding referendum question on the November 5 ballot, Assistant Clerk of Courts L. Holly White said yesterday. "Whether the [city] thinks the law is unconstitutional is another step at another time. Let someone challenge it later," she said.

For the past two years, anti-pornography feminist groups have tried to enact identical laws in Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and New York. But in August, a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that an Indianapolis statute, similar to the Cambridge proposal, was unconstitutional.

If the anti-pornography measure is approved by voters in six weeks, City Solicitor Russell B. Higley said yesterday he would recommend that Cambridge officials not enforce the ordinance.

After hearing arguments Tuesday morning from both the city and the Alliance, the seven-member court handed down its unanimous decision later that afternoon. Justice Ruth Abrams, a resident of Cambridge, abstained from the vote.

The Mass high court acted with unusual speed in this case because the city will be mailing out absentee ballots today to Cambridge residents all across the country, according to David E. Sullivan, a city councilor and state elections official.

"The decision means that the [court] agreed with those of us who think the right to vote took priority," said Sullivan, adding that the city solicitor's decision was "clearly erroneous in this case."

Suzanne G. Melendy, a spokesman for the Women's Alliance, said that "thanks to the SJC, the initiative petition process is alive and well in the city of Cambridge." The grassroots feminist organization will renew its political campaign to get city voters to approve the ordinance, Melendy said yesterday.