Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the Right to Read ; No. 1; Pornography

<v Announcer>This is Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies <v Announcer>on the Right to Read. This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems of Oklahoma <v Announcer>and supported in part by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National <v Announcer>Endowment for the Humanities. <v Announcer>The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of <v Announcer>either this station or the sponsoring agencies. <v Speaker>[Jazzy music plays] <v Narrator>The frankest, most explicit movie on this subject you'll ever hope to see <v Narrator>opening soon at theaters everywhere. <v Woman>Andrea is like no one you'll ever meet. <v Woman>But she's like every woman you'd like to meet. <v Narrator>This book says it all beyond your wildest imagination. <v Narrator>It shows you how to do things you've only dreamed of doing.

<v Advertiser>Because of the sensitive nature of this film, we are unable to reveal its name in <v Advertiser>our advertisements. Call this number for the shocking details. <v Narrator>Is this what the United States Supreme Court had in mind when they gave local communities <v Narrator>control of pornography in 1973? <v Narrator>X-rated movies at the neighborhood theaters, girlie magazines at the supermarket checkout <v Narrator>stands? Did those nine men in Washington mean to open the floodgates of obscenity <v Narrator>in cities from New York to California? <v Narrator>Is this what has happened during the past two years? <v Narrator>From the offices of many Oklahoma district attorneys, from the homes of outraged parents, <v Narrator>comes a resounding yes. <v Narrator>According to these forces, court decisions have tied the hands of law in fighting

<v Narrator>pornography, and indecency now holds the upper hand in films, books <v Narrator>and magazines. <v Narrator>But what about the other side of the coin? <v Narrator>The people who feel that the court decisions have done nothing more than reinforce <v Narrator>American democracy? And what about the growing number of Americans who no longer worry <v Narrator>about pornography and perhaps find the whole controversy surrounding it a little silly? <v Narrator>To them, pornography, though distasteful, has a place in any free <v Narrator>society. These Americans, many of them Oklahomans, might never <v Narrator>want to look at dirty books or go to high priced porno movies, but they have no objection <v Narrator>if their neighbors want to. <v Narrator>The controversy between these two groups is what this program is all about. <v Narrator>For years, pornography has been making headlines. <v Narrator>Now it's time to ask some serious questions about how Oklahomans really feel about the <v Narrator>subject of adult access to pornography. <v Woman on the Street>I think it's a very poor influence inso far as children are concerned.

<v Woman on the Street>It's an influence they can well do without. <v Woman on the Street>It's setting a fairly poor example for them. <v Man on the Street 1>If you want to go see, you go see it. <v Man on the Street 2>Well, I feel that you can't suppress it or that if you do suppress it, you're you're <v Man on the Street 2>asking for trouble. Because it's like putting a lid on the pressure cooker. <v Man on the Street 2>After a while, it's gonna explode. <v Man on the Street 3>Oh, I think it's ridiculous. <v Man on the Street 3>Most definitely. The police should be much more strict, much tougher than they are. <v Man on the Street 4>Don't the police have other things to do besides go around looking for people who are <v Man on the Street 4>looking at nude bodies? <v Man on the Street 5>And I just think it's too expensive, you know? <v Man on the Street 6>Definitely leads to increase in crimes of passion. <v Man on the Street 6>I think it should be regulated. There should be certain places where you can get <v Man on the Street 6>pornography, just like you can get a drink or other vises. <v Woman on the Street 2>Oh, wow. It's boring. <v Announcer>To begin with, pornography is not new. <v Announcer>Pornographic drawings can be found in many ancient cultures. <v Announcer>The centuries old religious Kamasutra of India as a pornographic classic <v Announcer>and the biblical song of Solomon is not only a glorious tribute to the love of God, but

<v Announcer>in the eyes of many, erotic literature. <v Announcer>The urge to create pornography seems to be even older than the urge to repress it. <v Announcer>Fifty years before the first recorded obscenity case in the United States, Benjamin <v Announcer>Franklin was writing pornographic essays for the private enjoyment of his friends. <v Announcer>As might seem obvious from this example, sexual pornography is not always occupied the <v Announcer>same worrisome place in the American consciousness as it does now. <v John Pickard>Concern over pornography is simply the latest <v John Pickard>in a series of overriding concerns in, let's say, American <v John Pickard>civilization. And these concerns have had different historic phases. <v John Pickard>The earliest phase in the United States was in the area of <v John Pickard>heresy and blasphemy. The church then carried out the suppression of these <v John Pickard>ideas that it felt dangerous. <v John Pickard>Later, after the revolution, after the establishment of a national state, <v John Pickard>if the state felt attacked, it tended to suppress ideas

<v John Pickard>on the basis of sedition or treason, or even at the <v John Pickard>latest phases, un-American activities. <v John Pickard>And this sort of a focus on a particular area that is controversial <v John Pickard>is now with us in the form of overriding concern with pornography. <v John Pickard>Already we can see another area emerging. <v John Pickard>First, the term pornography of violence is coming into use. <v John Pickard>Perhaps violence itself will now take the place of pornography. <v Announcer>That was John Pickard from Central State University expressing what is beginning to be a <v Announcer>popular notion among many American intellectuals. <v Announcer>That notion that pornography is just one of a series of many American concerns is <v Announcer>backed up in this discussion between OSU professors Peter Rollins and the LOOKI. <v Professor 1>The general animus of those who wish to set up standards of repression <v Professor 1>or restriction or censorship - the general motivation is they are, <v Professor 1>according to themselves, aware of the values by which we should live.

<v Professor 1>And it is their job to make sure that these values are upheld and preserved <v Professor 1>and that certain things work as an acid to break them down. <v Professor 2>But now, doesn't that really sound rather silly when you apply consistently? <v Professor 2>Because most people, I would suppose, would imagine face to face <v Professor 2>intercourse between husband and wife as not being immoral, and <v Professor 2>certainly not illegal, what have you. <v Professor 2>And various other forms of embrace, kisses which might last a minute, you <v Professor 2>know, there have been films that have been censored because the kiss last too long. <v Professor 2>Things like that wouldn't normally be regarded as immoral, but they're requently <v Professor 2>classified into the realm of pornography. <v Professor 2>But things which obviously are out and out regarded as immoral - <v Professor 2>one person shooting another, killing another, beating another over the head with a brick <v Professor 2>or whatnot, which are frequently shown in, you know, John Wayne films all the way through <v Professor 2>to something else - are relished in all the time. <v Professor 2>Now, if you're really consistent in applying the principle that you are

<v Professor 2>not going to show what is regarded as bad, well, we violate that all over the <v Professor 2>place. You can't take that principle seriously. <v Professor 2>You have to say, well, that's obviously not what you mean. <v Professor 2>You must mean something else. But it's never very clear what is meant by this. <v Announcer>Well this somewhat historical approach the importance of pornography is under violent <v Announcer>attack from other Americans. <v Announcer>They claim that pornography, whether airbrushed playboys or hardcore imports, <v Announcer>must occupy a special place because of the harm they believe it wreaks on society. <v Singer>"Let me entertain you, let me make you smile. <v Singer>Let me do a few tricks. <v Singer>Some old and some new tricks. <v Singer>I'm very versatile."

<v Announcer>The further one is removed from real pornography, the more permissive he is likely to be. <v Announcer>Those are the words of Monsignor Joseph Howard, executive secretary of the now defunct <v Announcer>National Office for Decent Literature. <v Announcer>Monsignor Howard believes that only those who never come in contact with pornography can <v Announcer>call it harmless. That view is shared by Oklahoma City Baptist Minister Jack Courtney. <v Jack Courtney>For years, literary people, good judges, <v Jack Courtney>lawyers, educators have told us that good literature <v Jack Courtney>lift up people or elevates people. <v Jack Courtney>I believe that it's logical to conclude that it's good literature if it lifts up <v Jack Courtney>people and elevate them. <v Jack Courtney>That bad literature, literature which appeals to the <v Jack Courtney>base nature of an individual will have the opposite <v Jack Courtney>effect. It will tend to depress the goodness <v Jack Courtney>in man. Since pornography appeals to the base nature

<v Jack Courtney>of an individual, a nature which I believe is affected, <v Jack Courtney>has a bent towards the end and that which is wrong and evil, then <v Jack Courtney>it is going to encourage the promotion <v Jack Courtney>of crime, whether it be in the moral area <v Jack Courtney>or in other areas. <v Announcer>Moral decay, the impact of pornography on juveniles, its contribution to sadistic <v Announcer>crime, its general impression of immorality - all of these are cited by those <v Announcer>who wish to suppress pornography. <v Announcer>But one by one, each of them was refuted by a presidential commission on pornography <v Announcer>appointed by President Lyndon Johnson. <v Announcer>This blue ribbon panel concluded that there is, and we quote, no evidence that exposure <v Announcer>to or use of explicit sexual material plays a significant role <v Announcer>in the causation of social or individual harms such as crime, delinquency, <v Announcer>sexual or non-sexual deviancy. <v Announcer>The commission's findings were overwhelmingly rejected by both Congress and President

<v Announcer>Richard Nixon. But another Oklahoma City Baptist minister, Reverend Gene Garrison, <v Announcer>says he has come to believe they are true, even though the report surprised him at the <v Announcer>time. <v Gene Garrison>I have frankly searched somewhat diligently at time to find some statistical <v Gene Garrison>evidence that pornography is related to the incidence of sex crimes <v Gene Garrison>and violence. To my knowledge, there has never been a study <v Gene Garrison>to substantiate this. I would think that there would be, you see, and I think the <v Gene Garrison>average mind does. I mean, you just draw some conclusions that if a person looks <v Gene Garrison>at at the naked human body or <v Gene Garrison>pictures of of sex acts, that that person is going to be <v Gene Garrison>motivated to go out and do something violent or to do something, um, <v Gene Garrison>sexually. As I said, I have not found and I have really looked at times <v Gene Garrison>because I have preached on issues related to this matter and I have done papers <v Gene Garrison>on them and I have never found anything to substantiate that.

<v Speaker>[Upbeat music plays] <v Peter Rollins>There are many ways to restrict circulation of books, <v Peter Rollins>of films, of ideas other than strictly judicial <v Peter Rollins>or legal processes. Boards of supervision, boards of examination. <v Peter Rollins>Now, what in particular case occurred in Stillwater when Last Tango <v Peter Rollins>in Paris was here? There had been a gentlemen's agreement <v Peter Rollins>not to bring X-rated films into Stillwater. <v Peter Rollins>A few new theaters had been constructed and their business was not going <v Peter Rollins>very well. They brought this film in. <v Peter Rollins>They had a tremendous audience. They also had a set of picketers outside <v Peter Rollins>complaining about the intrusion of this film into the community. <v Peter Rollins>And what happened was judicial proceedings were not <v Peter Rollins>initiated by the district attorney because he felt that this was a waste of his staff

<v Peter Rollins>time and effort. However, new gentlemen's agreement was engaged in <v Peter Rollins>between the mayor and the distributor to keep X-rated films out of this particular <v Peter Rollins>town. And there has not been another X-rated film in this particular town <v Peter Rollins>since then. <v Announcer>Oklahoma State University Professor Peter Rollins has just given a classic example of how <v Announcer>most censorship is handled in this country - through community pressure. <v Announcer>Nearly all small Oklahoma towns have strict anti-obscenity laws on the books. <v Announcer>But according to a survey by Oklahoma City University Professor Duane Cummins, these <v Announcer>statutes rarely need to be enforced. <v Announcer>Bookstores, for instance, tend to exercise a form of prior censorship. <v Announcer>Books or magazines, which might be offensive are simply not stocked. <v Announcer>Or in the case of soft-core magazines like Playboy or Penthouse, they <v Announcer>are hidden under the counter and must be requested by the customers. <v Announcer>The same is true of movie theaters. X-rated movies may try to come to a town like <v Announcer>Stillwater, but they are soon driven out by community pressure. <v Announcer>Newspapers, radio, and TV stations often refuse to carry advertising for pornographic

<v Announcer>books or films; even in large cities like Oklahoma City. <v Announcer>A major newspaper will not print advertising for X-rated movies. <v Announcer>All of this is accomplished without ever calling on the law, although the threat of legal <v Announcer>prosecution is always present. <v Announcer>As one resident of Woodward, Oklahoma puts it, many of our laws are not written. <v Announcer>They are just felt like a sixth sense. <v Announcer>This kind of community pressure is the most effective, least costly and in many ways <v Announcer>the best form of censorship. <v Announcer>But something is going wrong with the idea. <v Announcer>Community pressure no longer seems to work in our big cities and it is even beginning to <v Announcer>fail in places like Woodward and Stillwater. <v Announcer>Oklahoma City University Professor Peter Dement points to the changing meaning of <v Announcer>community and explaining what is happening. <v Peter Dement>Most often you find that communities in the past <v Peter Dement>have been able to run their own show without law. <v Peter Dement>The average community was small, reasonably <v Peter Dement>cohesive. Most people belong to the same church or belong to

<v Peter Dement>a church. People who ran the town were familiar with each other <v Peter Dement>and shared common viewpoints, especially about sex and things of that sort. <v Peter Dement>Now the problem came when the small community disappeared <v Peter Dement>and in its place, the dominant structure, social structure in the country <v Peter Dement>became much more massive. <v Peter Dement>What was really happening is that the large community was was in fact <v Peter Dement>a multiplicity of communities and <v Peter Dement>it defied the old means of social control <v Peter Dement>because no longer did you have a consensus about how things ought to be. <v Peter Dement>You had a multitude of ways of expressing a multitude of ways of thinking. <v Peter Dement>Consequently, those people who maintain the old notions <v Peter Dement>of what was proper and what was not sought <v Peter Dement>means outside of their own community to exercise

<v Peter Dement>control. And the result of that was law. <v Peter Dement>So the laws that we have today and increasing numbers and increasing attempts <v Peter Dement>to make law stem from inability of elites <v Peter Dement>to control in a community that is uncontrollable because there is no <v Peter Dement>longer a community at all. <v Speaker>[Jazzy music plays] <v Announcer>"I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." These plaintive words were uttered <v Announcer>by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 as he wrestled with a thorny problem <v Announcer>of defining pornography and its relationship with the law. <v Announcer>Since that time, the court has basically decided on a three prong legal test for <v Announcer>pornography. Taken as a whole, the material involved must appeal to <v Announcer>the prurient interest, be patently offensive, and lack serious literary, <v Announcer>artistic, political or scientific value.

<v Announcer>All three of these parts must be present for the material to be judged pornographic. <v Announcer>That unwieldy definition doesn't bear much resemblance to the simple dictionary <v Announcer>definition of pornography as something calculated to arouse sexual desire. <v Announcer>And most attorneys find it so difficult to apply that pornography cases simply stacked up <v Announcer>on the Supreme Court docket. <v Announcer>But that wasn't all. Oklahoma City attorney Steve Swenson says the court complicated <v Announcer>matters still further with their controversial community standards ruling in 1973. <v Steve Swenson>At the present time, the court <v Steve Swenson>interprets the law through a case called Miller vs. <v Steve Swenson>California, which did away <v Steve Swenson>with the standard of the- national <v Steve Swenson>standard of pornography. <v Steve Swenson>And now each community is allowed to apply their own standard <v Steve Swenson>of values to what they consider pornography. <v Steve Swenson>The court has never defined exactly what they mean by community. <v Steve Swenson>They have indicated that it does not mean a national standard.

<v Steve Swenson>It may, at some times, be validly <v Steve Swenson>enforced to use a standard of a city or <v Steve Swenson>county or a state. And there are decisions in the books where all three of those <v Steve Swenson>communities have been used by the court in their instructions to the jury. <v Steve Swenson>It's a game that the court <v Steve Swenson>plays, that there is no way of being intellectually precise. <v Steve Swenson>And it is one of those situations in the law where you don't <v Steve Swenson>know whether you've committed the crime until after it's already been done. <v Announcer>So that's where the legal situation stands now. <v Announcer>But it's a pretty shaky stand. <v Announcer>For in tossing the hot potato of pornography back to the local community, the Supreme <v Announcer>Court raised more questions than it answered. <v Announcer>The 1973 Miller decision opened a veritable Pandora's box of questions. <v Announcer>The most ticklish of words, says LSU Professor Peter Rollins, is the question, "what <v Announcer>is a community?"

<v Peter Rollins>This has been the most difficult thing in applying the Miller decision. <v Peter Rollins>It basically said that communities could bar from <v Peter Rollins>their areas things which were objectionable to the mores of that particular community. <v Peter Rollins>Well, then the question becomes by community, do we mean the university campus? <v Peter Rollins>Do we mean the non-campus portion of the town in which <v Peter Rollins>the campus exists? <v Peter Rollins>Do we mean the county or the state or the region or <v Peter Rollins>the hemisphere? What- what do we mean? <v Peter Rollins>Definition? What is the community? <v Peter Rollins>Is the community a small town of 300 people in Oklahoma? <v Peter Rollins>Or is the community Tulsa or Oklahoma City? <v Peter Rollins>A different sort of community entirely, and different sets of values. <v Peter Rollins>Or perhaps a community so complicated that you could not say, these are its <v Peter Rollins>values. <v Announcer>Part of the problem may be that community standards change, even within an identifiable <v Announcer>community. Many attitudes are in a state of constant flux.

<v Announcer>And what is dirty one year may be acceptable two years later. <v Announcer>A recent case in point is this summer's decision allowing nude dancing and Oklahoma City <v Announcer>clubs. Ten years ago community pressure might have kept the clubs from opening. <v Announcer>Three years ago successful prosecutions were the rule. <v Announcer>But by 1975, a public attitude survey showed 64 percent of Oklahoma <v Announcer>City residents did not consider nude dancing in a private club to be offensive. <v Announcer>Attorney Steve Swenson, who commissioned that survey, says it all means that no lasting <v Announcer>legal definition of pornography is possible. <v Steve Swenson>There does not seem to be any way to get a definition that will be lasting or universal. <v Steve Swenson>But you should be aware also that this is not <v Steve Swenson>peculiar only to the question of obscenity. The whole history of the law <v Steve Swenson>is full of situations which were at one time illegal <v Steve Swenson>or criminal and later were not. <v Steve Swenson>The law follows generally a pattern of about 10 years <v Steve Swenson>behind contemporary community standards, and I feel that in most respects

<v Steve Swenson>the application of the law is an application of standards that were <v Steve Swenson>in effect 10 years ago. <v Speaker>[Jazzy music plays] <v Announcer>In any discussion of pornography, the issue of privacy eventually surfaces. <v Announcer>The traditional view is that society as a whole will benefit from repressing <v Announcer>pornography and therefore it is society's business to censor what its citizens read <v Announcer>or see. But as the controversy rages over whether pornography is actually <v Announcer>harmful, more and more people are beginning to believe that the decision to view <v Announcer>pornography should be a private one. <v Announcer>Oklahoma City University Professor Peter Dement says it's simply a question of democracy. <v Peter Dement>I'm a firm believer that the First Amendment did <v Peter Dement>prohibit law from entering the bedroom and the <v Peter Dement>private area of people's lives. <v Peter Dement>And as long as I believe that, I think anything that- that permits law

<v Peter Dement>to be there is unconstitutional and ought to be challenged. <v Peter Dement>I think you sacrifice, necessarily, democracy if you want to <v Peter Dement>imply impose this kind of arrangement. <v Peter Dement>It's a total sacrifice, seems to me. <v Peter Dement>You either have democracy or you do not have democracy. <v Peter Dement>Yes, we're going to have times when we're going to be upset. <v Peter Dement>Yes, they're going to be times when people don't like what other people are reading, <v Peter Dement>doing and saying. But it is not my right to impose <v Peter Dement>what I think is disgusting or- on another, nor is it the right of another <v Peter Dement>to prohibit me from viewing and seeing - as <v Peter Dement>long as I harm no one else - from viewing what he may or she may <v Peter Dement>consider disgusting and pornographic. <v Announcer>This view is obviously not accepted by all Oklahomans. <v Announcer>As we mentioned earlier, the question seems to hinge on how harmful you feel pornography <v Announcer>is to those who view it.

<v Announcer>Those who believe that access to pornography leads to crime feel a responsibility to <v Announcer>limit its availability for the same reason that machine guns are illegal. <v Announcer>Some who believe that pornography is harmful only to the individual would still want to <v Announcer>limit it in the same way that drugs are available only by prescription. <v Announcer>But others who agree that pornography may be damaging to the individual believe, along <v Announcer>with Peter Damon, that society cannot and should not attempt to censor the private <v Announcer>desires of its citizens. <v Speaker>[Upbeat music plays]. <v Announcer>We've looked at the still unsettled question of what harm there might be in pornography <v Announcer>itself, but how much harm to society might there be in trying to suppress it? <v Announcer>Baptist Minister Gene Garrison says a great deal of harm. <v Gene Garrison>I don't think that it's harmful enough to justify censorship because <v Gene Garrison>to me the dangers involved in censorship far outweigh <v Gene Garrison>the dangers of pornography. Therefore, I have my own personal

<v Gene Garrison>fears that unbridled pornography would <v Gene Garrison>lead to further moral decay and corrosion in our country. <v Gene Garrison>But my fear of that is offset by <v Gene Garrison>my fear of censorship, which to me is a violation of <v Gene Garrison>the principles upon which our nation was founded. <v Gene Garrison>And I would oppose censorship. I really would. <v Announcer>Attorney Steve Swenson is less concerned about the philosophical issues involved in <v Announcer>repressing pornography. He says pornography prosecutions are simply not worth <v Announcer>the amount of public time and money they take from more important cases. <v Steve Swenson>I do not think that the prosecution of pornography justifies <v Steve Swenson>the problems that it presents. <v Steve Swenson>To prosecute a case costs thousands of dollars. <v Steve Swenson>You have to tie up several lawyers, court clerks, <v Steve Swenson>sheriff's deputies, at least one judge, and usually several if there's <v Steve Swenson>a conviction and the case is appealed.

<v Steve Swenson>By the time it's over with, you have hundreds, even thousands of hours. <v Steve Swenson>Man hours of police time, attorneys' time, district <v Steve Swenson>attorney's time, court costs, court reporters expenses. <v Steve Swenson>And the average pornography case that's been prosecuted in Oklahoma County - the book <v Steve Swenson>cases - cost the state thousands of dollars. <v Steve Swenson>That they cost a more dear penalty in that <v Steve Swenson>the courts are already crowded and there is only a limited amount of time in which to try <v Steve Swenson>cases. And when you try pornography case, you have to put some other case <v Steve Swenson>aside. <v Speaker>[Upbeat music plays]. <v Announcer>The issue of whether pornography or censorship is more dangerous is probably the central <v Announcer>question in any serious discussion of limiting access to sexual materials. <v Announcer>Almost no one really likes pornography and very few would dismiss it as totally

<v Announcer>innocuous. The problem is whether we can rid ourselves of its age old presence <v Announcer>without restricting necessarily freedoms. <v Announcer>Reverend Jack Courtney says yes. <v Announcer>In fact, he claims it is essential that society not be exposed to the influence of <v Announcer>pornography. <v Jack Courtney>I feel that it would have an overall degenerating effect upon that <v Jack Courtney>society. I think offensively that crime would be increased <v Jack Courtney>is rape against the person. <v Jack Courtney>Some of the crime even that are beginning to be spoken of today as <v Jack Courtney>crimes that do not bring any harm to individuals. <v Jack Courtney>And yet overall, these crimes would have a basis <v Jack Courtney>for generating effect on our society. <v Announcer>But Professor Peter Dement says he would not fear its presence even as all limits were <v Announcer>removed. <v Peter Dement>I'm willing to allow society to move beyond <v Peter Dement>what I experienced as a youth, and I'm not going to be afraid of it because I have <v Peter Dement>ultimate trust in the dynamic of people being

<v Peter Dement>allowed freedom to make mistakes at times, but to to <v Peter Dement>change. I think that in some they're going to end up <v Peter Dement>healthier, better people. <v Peter Dement>And we're gonna live in a better society. I'm optimistic. <v Peter Dement>I'm very optimistic. <v Announcer>Wherever you stand on this issue, there is still a final important point to consider on <v Announcer>how decisions are made in Oklahoma. <v Speaker>People who do not voice their opinion are left out. <v Speaker>If a vocal minority feels very strongly about something even organises <v Speaker>itself well, if it gets itself press exposure, it can frequently <v Speaker>carry a weight against a indifferent or uninterested majority. <v Speaker>We have come back full circle to the community. <v Speaker>How do we make community decisions here in Oklahoma? <v Speaker>Is there even a community? <v Speaker>And if there is, should control of pornography be in the hands of that community as a <v Speaker>whole? Or does it justly belong with the individual member of that society?

<v Speaker>The courts, the legislature, the colleges have proved they cannot answer those questions <v Speaker>for us. It is our decision because it is our society. <v Speaker>This has been Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies <v Speaker>on the Right to Read. This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems of Oklahoma <v Speaker>and supported in part by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National <v Speaker>Endowment for the Humanities. <v Speaker>The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of <v Speaker>either this station or the sponsoring agency.