‘Against the (Bleep) Law’ : Television: Friday’s free-speech episode of the Fox courtroom drama created a problem--how to broadcast a comedian’s profane routine?

Twenty-six years ago this month, Lenny Bruce was convicted of violating an obscenity statute during one of his profanity-riddled performances in a New York comedy club.

Just last month, a Florida record store owner was convicted of selling a sexually explicit album by the rap group 2 Live Crew that had been deemed obscene by a federal court judge.

The more things change, the more ways some people find to “repress and censor and promulgate their own authority,” says Michael Butler, whose script for the “Against the Law” episode that airs Friday at 9 p.m. on Fox is an unabashedly vocal defense of the First Amendment--warts, swear words and all.

The “Contempt” episode of “Against the Law”--a series that dives face-first into the ethically charged cases of an outlandish, self-employed attorney named Simon MacHeath (played by Michael O’Keefe)--centers around the obscenity trial of an obnoxious comic named Rainey Folts (Tom Sizemore) who is busted for using a flurry of profanity during a stand-up routine in Boston.

The program was filmed using the actual words in dispute, which will be bleeped on the telecast to comply with Fox’s broadcast standards.

“In a sense, it is ironic that we have a show about free speech and we have to bleep the very words we are saying should be protected,” Butler said. “But we knew we were up against that going in and I think the point is worth going for even with those constraints.”

In the episode, the comedian Folts is portrayed as a nihilistic, confrontational gadfly, much like Lenny Bruce, although the content of his act lacks the maturity and bite that Bruce’s social critiques possessed. In many respects, Folts’ shtick has more in common with Andrew Dice Clay. The merits of Folts’ performance, however, are immaterial, Butler said. He is merely a catalyst for his attorney to come to the realization that the principle of free speech is under attack and must be defended as a cornerstone of democracy.

Butler speaks from profound personal wounds. During the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts, both his father, screenwriter Hugo Butler, and his mother, writer and actress Jean Rouverol, were blacklisted. Unable to find work and unwilling to face the wrath of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had subpoenaed his father, Butler’s parents moved their family to Mexico in 1951.

“The fact that my parents were blacklisted and that I grew up in an era in which it seemed that all of our First Amendment rights were in danger,” Butler said, “I know how it feels to be vilified, to experience the formidable odds of repression that societies are capable of. I lived in tremendous fear during those years.”

As his career as a screenwriter has become more secure, Butler, who co-created “Against the Law” and has written the screenplays for the Clint Eastwood movies “The Gauntlet” and “Pale Rider,” said that writing about issues central to his own experiences and beliefs has become increasingly important.

One of the intricacies of the free-speech issue that “Against the Law” explores is that the actual performance of the allegedly obscene material is relevant to the issue of what constitutes “speech.” In the episode, as in the 2 Live Crew trial, the prosecution asks a policeman to read a transcript of Folts’ comic routine. He reads it badly, flubbing the words and draining the act of any humor or poignancy. Folts objects to the butchering of his work, insisting that the exact words and the manner in which they are spoken make all the difference, transforming the foul language into his own form of self-expression.

But, of course, you can’t hear these words on network TV.

Peter Chernin, the president of the Fox Entertainment Group, denied that the broadcast standards of network television constitute censorship. Since broadcast television is beamed free into everyone’s living room, he said, programmers have an obligation to be sensitive to “community standards” in regard to language, sex and violence. The “Against the Law” episode, he said, advocates the right to free speech among adults who pay for the right to listen to that speech in a night club, and he sees no irony or hypocrisy in Fox’s advocating such a position while bleeping the dirty words.

“This is a current issue and I think a very good issue for a show on this network,” said Chernin, whose company has come under attack in the past few years for pushing the boundaries of “broadcast standards” with such series as “Married . . . With Children” and “In Living Color.” “And it fits in to where we have been trying to move the show. We’re trying to make it more topical and have more fun with it.”

“Against the Law,” is a show that in some ways has been as embattled as the First Amendment. Butler created it with David Manson, who has produced such feature films as “Birdy” and “Bring on the Night.” But after so-called “creative differences” with Fox, Manson quit as executive producer.

Butler, who said that Fox rejected the first five story lines he and Manson presented to them, still serves as a consultant to the show, but he is no longer involved on a daily basis. The free-speech episode was originally scheduled to kick off the series last September, but Fox wanted some restructuring and reshooting of the story, Butler said, which forced the postponement.

“What interested us was to produce what William James might have dubbed entertainment of the educational variety,” Butler said. “I’m frankly not sure that the network would have been unhappy if we left out the educational part.”

So far the series has explored such issues as jailhouse snitches and capital punishment. An upcoming episode deals with a case of eco-terroism seemingly lifted straight from the diary of the radical environmental group Earth First.

“It wasn’t a repudiation of quality or issues or education or anything like that,” said Chernin, who insisted that he still greatly respects Manson and his staff. “It was just that we didn’t see eye to eye.”

Dan Blatt, an attorney and the producer of such TV and feature films as “Common Ground,” “Raid on Entebbe” and “The Boost,” is now the executive producer.

None of these comings and goings and differences of opinion have helped the series win any fans. Airing Sundays at 10 p.m., “Against the Law” was often the lowest-rated of any prime-time show each week.

But Chernin said that Fox believes the series is too “wonderful” to simply write off and decided to move it to Fridays at 9 p.m. to see if it can attract a broader audience.