Proposed Porno Law Targets Distributors

Political leaders and civil liberties supporters are divided over a proposed Massachusetts bill which would allow rape and assault victims to sue the publishers and distributors of pornography.

According to Massachusetts House Bill No. 5194, "It shall be sex discrimination to produce, sell, exhibit, or distribute pornography." Sex discrimination is illegal and can be the basis of civil suits.

Supporters of the bill said that it is a necessary response to a trend of increasing violence against women.

"The Women's Legislative Caucus feels that much of the pornography that is printed and spread about has led to a lot of the abuse of women," said Rep. Mary Jeanette Murray (R-Cohasset, Hingham and Hull), a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is our major push to stop it."

But civil rights groups said the bill is a justification for censorship. "It's not a civil rights bill. It's a censorship bill," said Karen Hudner, lobbyist for the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

The bill may infringe on first amendment rights because its definition of pornography goes beyond the Supreme Court's previous rulings on "obscene" material.

The current Massachusetts bill is the latest in a series of anti-pornography bills initiated by University of Michigan Law Professor Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, a feminist writer.

MacKinnon and Dworkin co-authored anti-pornography city ordinances in Indianapolis and Minneapolis, which were ruled unconstitutional or repealed by local officials.

A similar MacKinnon-Dworkin bill was defeated in a 1985 Cambridge referendum.

The current law differs from the Cambridge bill because it only applies to visual images, not literature, said Nancy M. Ryan, executive director of the Cambridge Women's Commission.

Ryan said the law still has fundamental flaws.

"The law was very, very general and still is," she said. "It talks about images of women being degraded without any real explanation of what that is."

The Women's Commission opposed the Cambridge bill because of the unclear definition of pornography and the "chilling effect" of the trafficking provision, Ryan said.

"The courts would have been able to decide what is or is not able to be seen or read," she said. "Bookstores and video stores would start censoring themselves in order to prevent being dragged into court."

Although the Cambridge Women's Commission has no formal position on the current bill, Ryan said she disliked the bill's name.

"I object to the title of the proposal," an act to protect the civil rights of women and children," she said. "It sounds like chivalry."

Central to the conflict over this bill is a disagreement over whether pornography actually provokes violence against women.

Murray said there is an established link between pornography and violence against women.

"The courts have decided that there is a relation to viewing pornographic films and men attacking women," she said.

But Hudner said there is no proven correlation between pornography and violence. "Women suffered from violence and abuse long before there were visual images," she said.

Hudner said the bill places blame on publishers, distributors, and video store owners instead of on the assailant.

"A criminal can say `I didn't mean to beat her up. Pornography made me do it,'" she added. "People have to be directly responsible for their own actions."

The bill has caused divisions among feminists and women politicians, Hudner said. "It's sort of a Pied Piper of older women pushing younger women into believing that censorship is acceptable in a free society," she said.

The controversial nature of the bill, which has bipartisan support, is reflective of the split among feminists across the country, said bill co-sponsor Rep. Barbara Gardner (D-Holliston).

"I don't think anyone has found a way to combat pornography without running amok with civil liberties unions and others who want to protect individual rights," she said.