A victory for free speech

In the Supreme Court’s second major free-speech ruling of the year, justices on Tuesday struck down as unconstitutional a federal law that criminalized the sale of images of animals being illegally harmed or killed.

The law was a politically expedient attempt by Congress to crack down on videos that glorified dogfighting and depicted animals being tortured and crushed to satisfy the disgusting sexual urges of a handful of freaks. But Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that such a ban cannot be enforced without ensnaring photos of out-of-season hunting. Some videos that attempt to educate Americans about animal cruelty also would be illegal under the law.

The 8-1 decision rightly held that the First Amendment prohibits government from declaring entire categories of expression illegal, no matter how offensive they might be to 99.999 percent of the population. The ruling follows the court’s correct January decision to void campaign finance laws that limit corporate and union spending on elections.

The urge to ban or limit that with which we disagree is a powerful one. The court’s latest decision probably won’t be enough to discourage aspiring tyrants from trying to control speech — it still happens on politically correct college campuses every day — but it should send a clear signal to the lower court judges and lawyers who defend this pap that the Bill of Rights means exactly what it says.