“Free speech: We’ve had it so long, we take it for granted. People don’t realize it can be lost. It doesn’t happen all at once; it happens magazine by magazine and movie by movie.”
—Larry Flynt

The courts have ruled repeatedly that pornography and obscenity are not synonymous. Yet a new bill introduced by Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Illinois Representative Mary Miller proposes to rewrite the definition of obscenity to make it so incredibly vague and subjective that it will allow the government to dictate what you can or cannot view in the privacy of your own home and criminalize material it deems offensive.

The objective of this bill, the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), aligns directly with the extreme-right Project 2025 mandate to outlaw pornography and imprison those who produce or distribute it, even classifying teachers and public librarians who “purvey” what the government decides is pornography as registered sex offenders.

My husband became a warrior for free speech, standing trial after trial and fighting for people’s First Amendment guaranteed right to read so-called offensive material like HUSTLER. He would decry current efforts to erase protected expression, warning, “When Hitler first came to power, before he started exterminating the Jews, censorship was at the top of his agenda. He didn’t start with the classics; he started with garbage nobody wanted to read. It eventually led to Voltaire and Shakespeare.”

Leaders of the Future of Free Speech wrote in response to the IODA, “First Amendment protections are their most vital when they shield controversial, uncomfortable expressions. Because the Supreme Court has consistently held that expression may not be banned simply because it offends, shocks or challenges mainstream sensibilities, that principle allowed civil rights movements, reproductive freedom advocates and LGBTQ communities to speak, publish and organize.”

Larry Flynt asked, “What’s more obscene, sex or war?” I would add, What’s more obscene, sex or losing your right to free speech?

Liz Flynt
Publisher