California vs The Constitution
posted Saturday Jul 18, 2009 by Scott Ertz
The Governator has been all over the place with his political positions. He supports alternative fuel, but only the stuff the oil companies could sell easily. Now he is ok with games, so long as they are a) not violent or b) he is in them. I am, of course, talking about the California law that was to outlaw violent videogames. That law, of course, was found unconstitutional for many reasons, one of which being its First Amendment implications.
The law has made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, and while still waiting to hear the ruling, it has given videogame experts a chance to weigh in on the legality of it. Today's example is Robert Corn-Revere, a First Amendment Attorney. He says:
In seeking review, California is asking the Supreme Court to reverse 60 years of First Amendment jurisprudence and to hold that 'excessively violent' material-whatever that may be-'deserves no constitutional protection.' It is also asking the Court to relieve government from actually having to demonstrate the purported harmfulness of speech it seeks to regulate, but instead to defer to 'reasonable inferences' and legislative judgments.
If California is successful, it will open the door to regulate not just video games, but a wide range of speech that is currently protected under the First Amendment.
Being as no one expects this law to get by, except the Governator, I would guess we will not have to talk about this again. What do you think?
