The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports passage of House Bill 1239, which strengthens existing laws designed to protect children from obscenity.
Current law in South Dakota prohibits the distribution of material “harmful to minors,” which is defined as material that “predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors; is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors; and is without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
Unfortunately, the same statute includes an exemption clause that says distribution of obscene matter is not illegal if it “occurs in the course of…school, college, university, museum, or public library activities…” The practical effect of this exemption is to shield many taxpayer-funded institutions from having to comply with standards that would be applied to any commercial establishment. There is no coherent public policy rationale for protecting children from harmful materials in a commercial context, while exposing them to obscenity in places that parents should be able to trust, such as schools and libraries.
The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear the federal constitution does not contain within it a right to distribute obscenity: “This much has been categorically settled by the Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment” (Miller v. California, 1973).
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has urged the faithful to “work together for laws and for a culture that remove pornography from its prominent and privileged place and counter its numerous injustices…” HB 1239 furthers this goal by helping shield children from toxic material that harms their spiritual and psychological health.