POSTPONED: The Case for Starting Prosecuting Pornography -- Again

Featuring:

• Gerard Bradley, Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame 

 

Cost: Members and Government Employees $10, Non-Members $20 

(All tickets at the door will be $20.)

CLE credit is being applied for, but is not yet approved. 

Recent months have seen a resurgence in calls for the Department of Justice to enforce obscenity laws as a means of reducing hardcore pornography. In December, several members of Congress sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr asking for increased enforcement, noting that legislative chambers in at least 15 states have adopted resolutions declaring pornography to be a public health crisis. Yet, the increased interest in certain conservative corners for prosecuting pornography is not without controversy. Vox, observing the lack of consensus among conservatives on the issue, published a story titled “There’s a conservative civil war raging – over porn”, and Matt Welch, an editor-at-large at Reason magazine, warned in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that “Conservatives are coming for your Pornhub.”

The Houston Lawyers Chapter welcomes Professor Gerard Bradley, who will make the case for enforcement of our obscenity laws. As he notes, prosecutions for trafficking in pornography have gone the way of the eight-track tape and the videocassette. Pornography is today ubiquitous -- so much so that one could compile a small library of books with that title. He asks, are these developments related? What should be the role of criminal prosecution in tackling a phenomenon with which so many millions of people are involved, and which now enjoys considerable social approval? Can criminal law and its enforcement productively contribute to remedying such a widespread cultural problem? Or would such prosecutions be another failed experiment, like Prohibition? Professor Bradley argues that, although a powerful cultural force such as pornography must be stymied chiefly by cultural counter-force, that counter-force includes an indispensable, strategic—though still secondary—role for criminal prosecution of those who produce and distribute pornography.