Gaiman Explains Things Well

If you're out of the loop on comics in legal news, then you may have missed the arrest of Christopher Handley. The case is unique because he's not a retailer nor an artist, but a collector jailed because he was found to own materials considered distasteful. The CBLDF is acting as special consultant, but the case is especially tricky to defend because the art contains pornographic images of children and the material described is obscene by virtually all standards of decency. It's the kind of case that has stalwart first amendment advocates asking, "Is this worth defending?"

The answer, of course, is that the question is never,"Is this obscene?" but always,"Why do we have the first amendment?"

I'd go on, but really Neil Gaiman explains why we must "defend the indefensible" better than I ever could. He touches upon the history of censorship (particularly in relation to comics). It's a moving piece and I highly recommend you take a few minutes to read it.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html