obscene materials

The Comstock laws prohibited the mailing of “obscene” materials, including contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs or devices, sex toys, and anything the most extreme prudes of the era might deem pornographic.

California, the justices said obscene materials are not automatically protected by the First Amendment, and offered three criteria that must be met for being labeled obscene: whether the work, taken as a whole, appeals to “prurient interest,” whether “the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law,” and whether the work lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Tennessee criminalized publishers that provide “obscene” materials to public schools.

Rogers said she’s confident Indiana’s school libraries don’t offer obscene materials, but she’s seen reports that some districts have moved certain titles to higher age groups or required parental approval to check them out.

One of the most frightening aspects of Tuesday’s oral arguments was that both Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. invoked a statute adopted in 1873, the Comstock Act, which prohibits shipment of obscene materials and contraceptives through the mails or by common carriers.