The Real Evil ...

(abridged edition)

Is that devil loathsome fear.

In our horror at the prospect of a triple-X porn store in our midst, we fail to venture forth to even imagine better solutions for an increasingly common problem: how to protect the free flow of expression and ideas, on the one hand, and women and children and the integrity of neighborhoods, on the other hand. Didn’t one of the greatest leaders in our history once declare, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!”

A hip-hop club and bar could not be stopped from doing business at 135 King Street and utilizing the entire 6,000 square feet based upon the assumption that its content alone causes bad secondary effects, but many justifiably claim adult establishments can be.

This is so because the Supreme Court’s City of Renton opinion (written by the same justice that would uphold laws criminalizing homosexuality) says that bad secondary effects flow from the pornographic content of an adult establishment inevitably as light from the sun.

The truth is that the content of adult establishments do not cause secondary effects anymore than hip-hop music in clubs and bars. What really makes the difference is how adult establishments and hip-hop clubs and bars are managed and operated.

Nonetheless, many of us seem all too eager to zone adult establishments out of town based upon the content of the materials they sell, alone. Just because the Supreme Court states that a law is constitutional does not make it right. The Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” laws for decades.

The City’s Memorandum to the City Council justifying the zoning proposal states that the issue here is size. But this is not a big box issue; Cap Video has no plans to expand the size of the existing structure, which really is no larger, and may be smaller, than many establishments nearby.

A far smaller triple-X porn store at 135 King Street, however, would still be allowed. So, what does the zoning law and other proposals accomplish? Not much really unless they become the first step of a progressively more repressive agenda. As one leading council member stated in the last city council meeting, “We should not stop now.”

If history is to be consulted as our guide, yes, no doubt, these measures will be the first step. The tyranny of the majority in a democracy never successfully starts out looking like what it is. It begins by preying upon the people’s most noble sentiments to protect what the public believes to be most vulnerable, be it women and children, public morality and decency, the integrity of neighborhoods, or our sacred “American way of life.”

The goal will become banishing a certain type of adult content entirely because implies that certain types of offensive and harmful sexual conduct should be tolerated, if not accepted and celebrated. But the second step shall be merely to put all of our pornography in places where pedestrian residents and customers of downtown Northampton are highly unlikely to travel, and thus be less likely to consider the merits of its “bad” message for themselves. Oh my …!

Dear City Citizens and Council Members please be free to counter with speech and ideas the speech and ideas that you find offensive and harmful, but by making it far less likely for pedestrians like me to incidentally consider certain ideas and expression, you now embark upon censorship of ideas and expression based upon what you alone deem to be without merit. No, I should have the right to judge for myself, thank you.

Moreover, as a practical matter, enactment of the pending zoning ordinances will no doubt sooner or later prompt litigation by Cap Video or another adult retail vendor intent upon expanding into our community. These measures in practice prove most successful with respect to spawning litigation that makes lawyers, like me, rich.

I say, let’s put off the proposed zoning ordinance until the parties have exhausted themselves on negotiations. After all, what’s the rush? Adult establishments are not grandfathered – protected from subsequent zoning by the City – under Massachusetts law.

With all of the diversity of opinion in America there are few things that we, the people, including pornographers, seem to agree upon, aside from opposing taxation without representation and making lawyers rich for no good purpose.

And there lies the common ground from which the City and Cap Video can begin to negotiate a solution that addresses their respective concerns and interests.

The City could begin, as I have suggested before in The Real Challenge, by asking Cap Video to comply with a licensing scheme similar in certain respects to the licensing scheme applied to bars. It could also ask if Cap Video would invest in that area of King Street in a manner that would advance the City’s hopes and dreams for that area.

If Cap Video had a vested interest in protecting, if not improving upon, the quality of life in the same neighborhood, it would be far less likely to tolerate a drop in the quality of life and the irresponsible management of its adult establishment located in the very same area. But, to my knowledge, the City leaders have not engaged Cap Video in a discussion of this nature.

John Lennon once wrote the song, “Imagine,” expressing for an entire generation our inner most desires. Yes, with all the intellect and creativity we have to draw upon, imagine the difference we can make here and now, just by refusing to repeat the same old litigious insanity … Yes, sweet Northampton, Imagine. For with respect to that effort, at least, I say we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

Yours/AC