I Say Lock ’Em Up, Spank Them, and Send Them Home

The conviction of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, like that of porn star Harry Reems a few months before, sent shudders through American civil libertarians. Reems especially was thought to have received unfair treatment: he was prosecuted under a conspiracy law, when he had merely performed before a camera, in all innocence, a few routine unnatural acts, leaving the real scheming to the producers and distributors. Both Reems and Flynt also got the sympathy that often attaches to those who have the misfortune to be punished under old laws seldom invoked.

Some of their defenders, not content to seek redress for the two individuals, warned of dire consequences to the whole Republic. “Today Harry Reems, tomorrow Helen Hayes,” said Warren Beatty. (As of this writing, Miss Hayes is still on the streets.) A group of well- known liberals signed an ad on behalf of “Larry Flynt: American Dissident,” although Harper’s editor Lewis Lap- ham, having tardily made the acquaintance of Flynt’s product, withdrew his name, and others questioned the propriety of Flynt’s attempt to ride the coattails of Solzhenitsyn.

JS

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Joseph Sobran

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The conviction of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, like that of porn star Harry Reems a few months before, sent shudders through American civil libertarians. Reems especially was thought to have received unfair treatment: he was prosecuted under a conspiracy law, when he had merely performed before a camera, in all innocence, a few routine unnatural acts, leaving the real scheming to the producers and distributors. Both Reems and Flynt also got the sympathy that often attaches to those who have the misfortune to be punished under old laws seldom invoked.

Some of their defenders, not content to seek redress for the two individuals, warned of dire consequences to the whole Republic. “Today Harry Reems, tomorrow Helen Hayes,” said Warren Beatty. (As of this writing, Miss Hayes is still on the streets.) A group of well- known liberals signed an ad on behalf of “Larry Flynt: American Dissident,” although Harper’s editor Lewis Lap- ham, having tardily made the acquaintance of Flynt’s product, withdrew his name, and others questioned the propriety of Flynt’s attempt to ride the coattails of Solzhenitsyn.