CBLDF Files Suit Against New Arkansas Law

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has joined the American Booksellers
Foundation For Free Expression Inc, the Arkansas Library Association;
the Association Of American Publishers, Inc.; the Freedom To Read
Foundation, Inc.; the ACLU of Arkansas and others to strike down
Arkansas Act 858, which served to amend Arkansas Code § 5-68-502.
The law was signed into law by Arkansas Governor Huckabee on March
28th and makes it unlawful "to display material which is harmful to
minors in such a way that minors, as a part of the invited general
public, will be exposed to view such material . . . provided,
however, that a person shall be deemed not to have displayed material
harmful to minors if the . . . lower two-thirds (2/3) of the material
is not exposed to view and segregated in a manner that physically
prohibits access to the material by minors;" or to "allow to
view . . . to a minor, with or without consideration, any material
which is harmful to minors."

Put simply, the law requires any content deemed "harmful to
minors" to be both segregated and blinded. CBLDF and
co-plaintiffs assert that the law unconstitutionally requires
retailers and libraries to prevent all minors from accessing
constitutionally protected materials that may be considered
inappropriate for younger minors. By requiring plaintiffs physically
to segregate such material, the statute unconstitutionally restricts
adults and minors from access to materials protected by the First
Amendment.

"Popular novels and serious non-fiction carried by my and other
bookstores, like such works as I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by
Maya Angelou; Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck; romance novels by
Nan Ryan and Linda Howard; Forever by Judy Blume; Joy of Sex by Alex
Comfort, feature sexual content or have sexual content on the cover
that some might consider inappropriate for young children," said
Mary Gay Shipley, proprietor of That Bookstore In Blytheville, one of
the plaintiffs. "Under this law, I would be required to create
an `adults only' section in my store to display some of the
greatest novels and most important works of serious non-fiction,
including Of Mice and Men, Forever, and Joy of Sex. I don't
sell `dirty books' and I resent being treated like I run an
adult bookstore." Libraries and comics retailers run similar
risks.

"The language of the `harmful to minors' law is
problematic to comics retailers because the definition of
sadomasochistic abuse, taken at face value, could include any
superhero comic book with a fight scene," explains Fund Director
Charles Brownstein. "Other language in the law would also make
retailers vulnerable for selling work of unquestionable literary
merit, such as Craig Thompson's Blankets, Will Eisner's A
Contract With God, and Dan Clowes' Ghost World. If retailers
needed to segregate all of this material,we're looking at a
situation where a vast majority of the comics they sell, most of
which are innocuous by standards upheld by television and movies,
would have to be blinded and displayed in a section minors
couldn't enter," Brownstein adds.

The Fund and co-plaintiffs are asking for an immediate injunction to
prevent the state from enforcing the law, in essence preventing any
retailer from being prosecuted.

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