Morality and Censorship

Our second client was a bit odd. He was approaching a century of age and decided to write his memoirs. Some scenes were explicitly detailed. This raised some questions in our minds. What would our liability be in terms of the legal and moral ramifications of typing someone else's work?

A few years ago at a local convention, I witnessed a debate between Orson Scott Card and a lady from the audience. It went something like this:

Mr. Card: "It might be our first amendment right to put sex on television, but we have an ethical responsibility not to go too far."

Lady: "I don't understand the objection to sex on television when violence is so rampant on television."

Mr. Card: "Are you saying there shouldn't be violence on television? Isn't that just more censorship?"

Lady: "No. I'm saying, I'd much rather watch a couple making love than watch a graphic murder."

Mr. Card: "Well, I can agree with that. Would you agree, we probably wouldn't want to witness the act of defecation on prime time television?"

Lady: "Of course, I agree with that, but only because there would be a limited market for that kind of television. It wouldn't sell."

That was no lady; that was my wife. When we lived in a major metropolitan area on the east coast, she managed the secretarial staff of a high profile law office. She strongly believed (and still does) that market and societal pressures will regulate morality without the intervention of the legal system. Mr. Card, who once wrote of a disembodied head obsessed with the remembered relief of urination, argued that we, as writers, bear some individual responsibility but agreed that the legal system needn't be involved.

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Last Revised: 02-Dec-97

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