EDITORIAL

Los Angeles County District Attorney Evelle Younger has drafted an anti-obscenity bill, introduced in the California State Legislature by Assemblyman Howard J. Thelin. The measure provides a $2,000 fine for the distribution of morally corruptive material to persons under eighteen.

The bill supposedly sets up exact standards as to what is pornography and what is not. However, the standards mentioned in the bill contain only the usual well worn phrases "contemporary community standards" and "predominant appeal to the prurient interest."

Under the terms of this proposed bill we believe some persons might consider ONE "morally corruptive." Should the bill become law it is entirely possible that newsdealers could be arrested for selling ONE to a person under eighteen-in spite of the fact that the U. S. Supreme Court has declared ONE not to be obscene.

We have never suggested that ONE not be sold to minors. To do so would be to put ourselves in a class with "nudie" and "girlie" magazines and other publications of this genre, where ONE emphatically does not belong. For ONE to print For Adults Only on its cover would be to confess a guilt we do not feel. We would be directly implying that we are "dirty"-and we are not.

If a homosexual teenager, aware of his deviation and not knowing where to go for information, wanted to read ONE to try and learn something about himself, we believe he should be allowed to do so. Would ONE corrupt his morals? Would ONE be dangerous? On the contrary. The danger lies in the volumes of conjecture and misinformation sold under the guise of "medical books."

If the Younger-Thelin bill is passed, the homosexual teenager might be forbidden to purchase ONE at a news stand. This would be bad. It would keep valuable information from persons who need it. For this reason we oppose this bill.

There is no need here to go into the problematical question of whether or not pornography influences anyone but the feeble minded and naive. To say that today's teenagers know nothing about sex would be erroneous. To say they would be harmed by pornography is at least debatable. The majority of teenagers in 1965 are considerably more sexually sophisticated than the unimaginative publishers and distributors of so-called pornography.

Ostensibly Younger's bill is aimed only at hard-core pornographywhatever that is. But we fear that in the eyes of the law the core can be hardened to fit whatever pleases the enforcers of such laws. Under the sanction of this bill, witch-hunters could have a field day.

In future years this country will be sufficiently enlightened so that everyone, teenagers included, can laugh off pornography, or read it for its freak value. Then the pornographer will be out of business and magazines like ONE can get on with their work unhampered by public hysteria. Until that time we have no choice but to fight such legislation as the Younger-Thelin bill.

Ray Johnson

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