7-Eleven’s Ban on Playboy Magazine

Although I have, unfortunately, passed the time when Penthouse and Playboy are of interest to me, I am not too old to recognize a basic threat to freedom of speech.

The decision to take these magazines off the behind-the-counter-shelves of 7-Eleven stores was undoubtedly motivated by an attempt to appease factions wanting to impose their particular brand of morality on everyone else.

Recent news stories have shown that “protectors of the public morals” have objections to many of our most popular books and movies--”On Golden Pond” being an example of how far these objections go.

Although hundreds of thousands of our young men have died protecting our basic freedoms, it appears that many are now content to sit idly by and let our hard-earned freedoms be quietly taken away from us.

Why all this fuss over a questionable thing like “girlie magazines”? Well, if we don’t protect “girlie magazines” (as uncomfortable as that may be for some people) it will be much harder to protect “objectionable” books and movies--and, yes, even newspapers--when attention eventually turns to them.

CAL A. MASTERSON

Los Angeles