Article: 15614 of alt.censorship Newsgroups: alt.censorship From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) Subject: [soc.men, et al.] Feminist Censorship of "Porno"? Message-ID: Followup-To: alt.censorship,soc.men,soc.women,alt.feminism Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 01:58:10 GMT Lines: 100 [A repost - Carl] Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.feminism From: Mark B. Subject: Feminist Censorship of "Porno"? Message-ID: <1993Apr15.180237.5230@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 18:02:37 GMT In article <1qjsruINNink@dns1.NMSU.Edu> dsteinbe@nmsu.edu (David Steinberg) writes: >Anyone who is interested in the feminist anti-pornography movement >might want to read this month's Off Our Backs. Very scary (IMHO) talk >about the need to regulate pornography and ways of reinterpeting the >1st Ammendment to do so. While we do get to hear from our "favorite" >feminist, what is so scary is the fact that she has created a movement >behind her. Oh well, read it for yourself; maybe you'll agree with >them... There is a related battle up here in Canada. A provincial board of inquiry has been asked to judge on a human rights case brought forward by two women against three Toronto variety stores that sell allegedly pornographic magazines, including Playboy and Penthouse. The charge is that the "display and sale" of these magazines creates a hostile environment that is discriminatory against women. This is an extremely important case because it could override existing federal legislation that allows pornographic material into Canada. In a bizarre twist, the validity of the original complaint has been called into question... Excerpt from Eye magazine's Scott Anderson without permission... "There have already been a number of discrepancies in the women's case... The complaints were filed, according to the OHRC, in April, 1988, by Pat Findlay, a member of an informal women's group called PorNo, and Dr. Marti McKay, a psychologist practising in Toronto. ...Findlay corroborated McKay's story that the complaint was filed in August, 1985, first. However, her story varies after that. 'It was two years before they decided they did have jurisdiction and that they would in fact take the case,' Findlay explained. 'But meanwhile they had been doing research to reach that decision. But because it is a precedent-setting case it took that much time to get the evidence together so that they could say, "Yes, we will take this case".' If the complaints were filed in 1985 it would stand to reason that the offending incidents involving the variety stores also occurred that year. However, a Commission document obtained by EYE, which is signed by Findlay, indicates that "the complainant" alleges that on January 10, 1988, M. McKay and I approached the proprietor of the store to request that she stop displaying and selling the pornographic material." Then, "On January, 1988, we returned to the store and repeated our request" and "on February 1, 1988, M. McKay and I wrote the proprietors to repeat our request." But according to Findlay the Commission had already spent "two years" collecting "evidence" following their 1985 complaint. So, it appears that the Commission had Findlay and McKay replay these incidents three years later. If that was the case, there is also the possibility that the reason the first complaint became "staledated" was because after two years they didn't have jurisdiction in the case. Geraldine Sanson, laywer for the Commission, would not comment on the complaints filed in 1985 and said only that the OHRC was proceeding on those filed in 1988. (All the complainants became noticeably unsettled when Peter Israel mentioned the 1985 date during the second day of the hearing.) Alan Schefman, a Commission spokesperson, said that the 1985 complaint may have been "withdrawn", although he would not elaborate. He also dismissed as insignificant the three years between the time the complaints were reportedly first made and when they were actually filed with the OHRC." - end of article - The only reason why I can imagine they would push the dates forward would be that we have since elected a pro-feminist government (NDP) that IMHO - might be more inclined to restrict access to "pornography". Mark B. -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =