On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear both sides of the FCC vs Fox Television Stations to decide whether the Federal Communications Commission has the right to levy substantial fines to television networks who broadcast anyone using a “fleeting expletive”, polite-speak for someone dropping an isolated F-bomb or any other so-called unscripted “indecent” language. The FCC has had the power to fine broadcasters for indecent words for many years, but after several incidents of celebrities dropping the F-bomb in live awards shows, the FCC incorporated what became know as the “Golden Globes Rule”, which declared that even the single use of an expletive could be illegal. Add to it, the silly media frenzy over the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” which exposed one of her breasts at the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show, and riding the wave of moral outrage, the FCC increased the fines by ten times, from tens of thousands of dollars per incident, to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The case which the court will hear on Tuesday, was ruled in the television networks favor last year when a federal appeals court called the FCC’s policy “arbitrary and capricious” because of the vague and sometimes unequal manner in which they apply the rules. Unhappy with the decision, the FCC then filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, seeking to restore its power to penalize networks airing indecent speech, even once, and even if it doesn’t describe a sexual act.
FCC members have stated, "Given the core meaning of the 'F-Word,' any use of that word or a variation, in any context, inherently has a sexual connotation. The 'F-Word' is one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language. Its use invariably invokes a coarse sexual image."
Tim Winter, head of the Parents Television Council said, “Make no mistake what this is about, the networks are suing for the right to use the f-word in front of children during prime-time broadcast television.”
The high court has previously defined “indecent” language as speech which “depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities and organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.”
What the Supreme Court fails to take into consideration is that in general, communities tend to have a diverse composition and are made up of people of all ages and walks of life. To regulate decency and morality solely based on the fact that there are children in the community is discrimination against those who have no children and represses the right to free speech and creative expression on the part of broadcasters and their on-air guests.
Neil Rogers, a popular South Florida radio talk show host who regularly incorporates recorded comedy bits, has been restricted by station management from even playing fart sounds, most likely because they fear being fined for depicting “excretory activities”. What used to be an outrageously irreverent and funny show has been watered down to its “decent” skeleton, in which Rogers is constantly debating which bits are acceptable or not.
But this whole argument is just a footnote in the “moral police’s” assault on free-thinking adults. Ironically, the puritanical Right is emphatically against “big government” interfering in people’s lives when it comes to taxes, or spending, or anything that might affect their bank account, but then hypocritically embrace government interfering in people’s personal lives, by their never ending campaign to regulate abortion, pornography, indecency, gambling, as well as the use of alcohol or any other activity they consider “unholy”.
The constitutional rights of the “Immoral Minority” are under siege, and the Supreme Court can finally do its duty in protecting the rights of all Americans by ruling against the FCC. The government has no business taking the place of parents, who have a host of new technological advances to block any programming they consider inappropriate for their children. But even before these advances were available to them, parents and prudes have always had the ultimate censorship tools at their fingertips, the channel changer, and the on-off switch.
William S. James, Card carrying member of the Immoral Minority
This intel first appeared on: http://www.fz2878.com
