Opinion: One Word Says it All and it’s all in the Emphasis
By Bradley Roemer
There was a lot to be upset with in Tuesday night’s Columbia County Board of Commissioners meeting. But I just want to focus on one part in this post. In fact, I want to focus on one word. To be even more precise, I want to focus on how that word was said. We’ve all been struck with it before “it’s not what you said so much as how you said it” and that argument surely rings true in this case. Because the tone is so important, I encourage you to watch a short segment of the meeting before continuing on:
(Go to 1:33:50 and listen to Karin Parham’s comments and the exchange between Ms. Parhamand Commissioner Trey Allen.)
At the end of Ms. Parham’s comments, Commissioner Allen attempts to embarrass Ms. Parham by catching her in a “gotcha” moment asking her specifics she was not prepared to speak about. The word emphasis I want to address comes in this part of the exchange. Mr. Allen begins to read the text of the First Amendment, interrupts himself to repeat with emphasis “Congress” and says “let me repeat that” before continuing to finish reading the text of the First Amendment.
The primary point I want to make here is that this is very clearly an effort on Mr. Allen’s part to suggest that the First Amendment does not apply to the Columbia County Library or the Board of Commissioners. I don’t know if this was done out of ignorance or arrogance but I do know it is utter nonsense. The Fourteenth Amendment made the states subject to the confines of the First Amendment and other Constitutionally protected rights (“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”). From a constitutional perspective, municipal and other local governments are administrative divisions of the states and therefore this applies to them as well. This was established in case law by Gitlow v. New York (1925). So that covers ignorance. To be honest, I am far more concerned that Mr. Allen even suggested the idea at all. Whether or not he was aware of the Fourteenth Amendment or Gitlow v. New York, why would any elected official think it beneficial to argue that they are not bound to respect the First Amendment? That’s ultimately what Mr. Allen was suggesting with that comment. He wants it to be okay for Columbia County to ignore the First Amendment. At least when it suits his preferences. Is this something we find acceptable from our elected officials? I find myself searching to find different ways to express this because of how disturbing it is. Mr. Allen tried to imply that the Columbia County Board of Commissioners is not bound by the restrictions of the First Amendment. I cannot emphasize enough how upsetting and frightening this is. Mr. Allen needs to be called out directly, openly, and frequently until he specifically retracts the implications of this statement and acknowledges that Columbia County is in fact bound by the restrictions of the First Amendment.
The secondary issue I want to address is the raging hypocrisy of Mr. Allen’s behavior. When attempting to embarrass Ms. Parham, he asked her about the language of the First Amendment and her familiarity with Roth v. United States (1957). Fair enough since they both apply to the matter under discussion. Except that he did not explain anything about how the latter might be relevant. The revealing moment in this comes a bit later in the meeting when Ron Battista spoke to the commissioners. Mr. Battista provided some context as to how case law strengthens, enforces, and extends the liberties protected in the Bill of Rights. When asked about case law and the definition of obscenity Mr. Allen could only reply with “I’m not a lawyer”. A fair response. Well, ish. He is the one who brought up the legal issue of obscenity by citing Roth v. United States. Since he introduced the issue, one might think he would be familiar with it. For our purposes, the most important thing this case did was help to establish a legal definition of obscenity as something that “…to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest.”
This language is still used in most legal definitions of obscenity, including the legal definition of the state of Georgia. When Mr. Battista asked Mr. Allen about the legal definition he could not answer and ultimately fell back on the standard and meaningless “I know it when I see it”. Since Mr. Allen’s opinion is irrelevant as a matter of legal principle, we should take a quick look at the Georgia statute so we’re all on the same page. The relevant section (GA Code § 16-12-80) reads:
b) Material is obscene if:
(1) To the average person, applying contemporary community standards, taken as a whole, it predominantly appeals to the prurient interest, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion;
(2) The material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; and
(3) The material depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined in subparagraphs (A) through (E) of this paragraph:
(A) Acts of sexual intercourse, heterosexual or homosexual, normal or perverted, actual or simulated;
(B) Acts of masturbation;
(C) Acts involving excretory functions or lewd exhibition of the genitals;
(D) Acts of bestiality or the fondling of sex organs of animals; or
(E) Sexual acts of flagellation, torture, or other violence indicating a sadomasochistic sexual relationship.
It is important to note when applying this standard that just because you do not like it does not make it prurient, shameful, morbid, or obscene. And again, just because you do not like reading a description of something listed in subparagraphs A-E, does not mean it is “patently offensive.” As Ms. Parham mentioned during her comments, nothing in the library meets this legal definition of obscenity. I challenge Mr. Allen to find something that does. One last aside, the Georgia statue includes all three aspects of the Miller Test which Mr. Battista referenced and Mr. Allen was unable to comment upon.