TV REVIEWS : Lively Debate Over ‘Violence, Morality’

Judging by the lively debate, “Violence and Morality: Obscenity, Hate Speech and the First Amendment,” airing immediately after Paul Yule’s “Damned in the U.S.A.” (at 7 and 10 tonight on cable’s Playboy TV), we haven’t progressed much beyond Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography--”I know it when I see it.”

Indeed, Stewart’s line is mentioned by moderator Cynthia McFadden to point out the subjectivity of imagery and speech, and her seven-member panel only reaffirms that the issue is in the eye of the beholder.

More important, the hourlong exchange demonstrates that the ideological debate isn’t simply between the right and the left, but also between the left and civil libertarians. To complicate the pot further, those on the right--such as former U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn--sometimes agree with a libertarian like ex-National Endowment for the Arts Chairman John E. Frohnmayer, who passionately argues that restrictions on speech that may harm others will corrode the First Amendment right to free speech.

Feminist lawyer Sheila Kuehl promotes this “harm-based analysis,” stating that free speech ends where women and other minority groups begin to be exploited. The rightist companion to this leftist perspective is offered by activist David Llewellyn, who says that communities, through their representatives, have the right to restrict speech considered harmful.

The banner of the reasonable center is held by civil rights lawyers Martin Garbus (who defended Yule and “Damned” in court against Christian fundamentalist Donald E. Wildmon) and Carol Sobel and professor Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who offers an ideal example of why all points of view, no matter how racist, have to be tolerated in the classroom. Just like a debate in a TV studio.