Poet, Author Protest Law Banning Radio ‘Indecency’

Poet Allen Ginsberg and author Quincy Troupe protested today implementation of a new law which would ban “indecency” on public radio 24 hours a day.

The writers, along with executives of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Foundation and PEN, an international writers’ organization, said they have protested to the Federal Communications Commission in response to a law passed by Congress in 1988.

The law, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), would extend the existing 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. restriction on indecent materials to protect children of 12 years and younger to a 24-hour ban to protect all young people under 18.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington halted implementation of the law pending an appeal by broadcasters and First Amendment advocates. The case has since been forwarded to the FCC for public comment.

“Pseudo-religious legal interference with my speech amounts to setting up a state religion much in the mode of an intolerant Ayatollah (Khomeini) or a Stalinoid bureaucratic party line,” said Ginsberg, poet laureate of the beat generation.

“Those who want to extend the Helms amendment to ban this mystific ‘indecency’ on the air 24 hours a day cannot deny they are trying to censor art and socially relevant speech,” Ginsberg said. “Broadcasting censorship of my poetry and the work of my peers is a direct violation of our freedom of expression.”

Troupe, whose latest book is an autobiographical collaboration with jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, said the legislation “conjures up images of book burnings and repression.”