June 30, 2022, 11:59am
In another example of this country being thrust back into the past, two books are currently on trial in Virginia for obscenity: Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir Gender Queer (“This heartfelt graphic memoir relates, with sometimes painful honesty, the experience of growing up non-gender-conforming.” –Publisher’s Weekly) and Sarah J. Maas’ fantasy novel A Court of Mist and Fury.
The ACLU points out that in the 1973 case Miller v. California, the Supreme Court “set the high constitutional bar that defines obscenity — a narrow, well-defined category of unprotected speech that excludes any work with serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
Of course, given the state of the current court, we have to assume that the majority full-fascist court will rule on any case that appears before it in the most damaging and backward way possible. We can only hope that the Virginia court will do as the ACLU has requested and dismiss both cases. Here, the organization lays out the chilling consequences of a victory for the plaintiff:
If the court ultimately determines that the books are indeed obscene, anyone who sells or even lends the books in Virginia could face criminal prosecution, regardless of whether they had prior knowledge of the obscenity proceedings. This would impact all independent bookstores and other distributors in the state of Virginia, even if they have no knowledge that a book has been so much as challenged.
And somehow, against all odds, this month continues to get shittier!