Ugly Lyrics, Beautiful Principle

In this country these days, the battle for free expression almost always is fought on uncomfortable terrain.

Not so long ago, matters were otherwise. The expression of unconventional--or merely unpopular--political beliefs often was proscribed on a variety of pretexts. Within living memory, “Ulysses” was routinely seized by federal customs agents.

The First Amendment is not a promissory note on some ideal future, but an active charter of living rights. It is the basis of all the freedoms we esteem necessary. That basis is nourished by a broad--and, in the end, not particularly burdensome--tolerance of even obnoxious speech, including the misogyny of the rap group 2 Live Crew. Acceptable restrictions on speech are few and of convincing necessity: national security--as in reports on the sailing of troop ships in wartime; the classic shout of fire in a crowded theater--essentially because it constitutes a false report of hazard; malicious libel.

The perilous absurdity of any other approach was clear Wednesday, when a six-member Florida jury convicted a record-store owner of criminal obscenity for selling an album by 2 Live Crew. The judge told the jurors, all of whom were white, that they were entitled to convict the store owner--who, like all the members of the group, is black--if they found the recording obscene because it appeals to “morbid, shameful interest in sex.”

Does anyone doubt that a prosecutor could find six people in any state of the union who would agree that such a subjective definition of obscenity precisely describes Molly Bloom’s celebrated monologue? That is why the U.S. Supreme Court wisely has rejected such a standard and why the verdict in the 2 Live Crew case must be overturned on appeal.

Art and other forms of expressive speech are the indispensable allies of thought and belief. Their sanctity against intrusive state power is the only real guarantor of genuine liberty. To argue that such intervention must be prevented--even in this case--is not to suggest anything more extraordinary than the notion that liberty of conscience and expression makes free men and women of us all.