Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 11, 1990 TAG: 9007110436
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/7 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The new NEA guidelines on obscenity, released Tuesday, appear to offer a much more vague standard than a previous definition of obscenity imposed on the NEA by Congress last fall.
Lawyer Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment specialist representing the New School for Social Research in a lawsuit challenging the obscenity restrictions, said the Supreme Court standard "is a possibly useful step forward, but certainly a confusing one, since the NEA seems to continue to insist that the original language be sworn to."
In a letter to the U.S. attorney's office sent Tuesday, Abrams asked whether the Supreme Court definition may be substituted for the Congress-imposed definition when artists sign contracts accepting NEA grants.
Abrams also asked that NEA Chairman John Frohnmayer be made available for a deposition July 18 to answer questions about how the new guidelines should be interpreted.
Alan Taffet, the U.S. attorney representing the NEA against Abrams, said the federal agency will ask that the complaint be dismissed.
The NEA's moves follow its denial of grants to four performance artists whose work has a strong sexual content.
The definition of obscenity imposed by Congress last fall barred the NEA from funding work that in the NEA's judgment "may be considered obscene, including . . . depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts and which, when taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
But NEA spokesman Josh Dare said under the new definition, "Whether or not a photograph is homoerotic and obscene, for example, will be determined based on the standard set forth by the Supreme Court."
That standard defines as obscene any work that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find appeals to prurient interest; that depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and that, on the whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The New School filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of the obscenity guidelines.
Abrams said that if the NEA had offered the Supreme Court definition to begin with, rather than the Congress-imposed definition, "Certainly there would have been much less controversy and less concern that people were being asked to sign away their First Amendment rights. Now we have a situation of some confusion."
by CNB