Mail, Obscene Language
From the book The Clergyman’s Hand-book of Law, about Mail, Obscene Language (1): Under the United States postal laws against sending “obscene, lewd or lascivious” books or papers through the mail, a person can not be convicted without proof that the matter is obscene, lewd, and lascivious, as the word “or” should be construed to mean “and.” Also, the court held that a newspaper article on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception written in coarse and obscene language that offended the religious sentiments of the people, but had no tendency to induce sexual immorality, did not render the newspaper unmailable nor the publisher guilty under the United States statutes. The court says: “Those parts of the article most relied upon to sustain the charge, though ostensibly a discussion of a religious subject, are couched in language not quite suitable for insertion in a judicial opinion, however well adjusted to such applause as might be expected from taste of a certain degree of degradation.”753
Resources
Notes and References
- Charles M. Scanlan, The Clergyman’s Hand-book of Law. The Law of Church and Grave (1909), Benziger Brothers, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago
See Also
- Religion
- Church