Every time the ACLU does something halfway sensible than makes me inclined to applaud it, it turns around and goes off the deep end. It's now helping two state prison inmates file a class-action suit on behalf of the other 20,000 Indiana state prisoners to overturn -- get this -- a new policy that bars magazines and other printed materials that depict nudity or sexual conduct. It's true that authorities mostly want to keep Playboy and Hustler out of prison cells, but the poor dears will also have to deal with the hardship that:
The policy could prohibit sexually explicit letters and general circulation publications such as National Geographic magazine and daily newspapers, according to the complaint, which said the new rule violates the plaintiffs' civil rights.
"The policy is written so broadly that it includes within its prohibitions such things as personal letters between prisoners and loved ones and much of the world's great literature and art," said the complaint, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.
If prisoners like getting sex talk in letters from their loved ones, guess they should have stayed out of prison. And does anyone really think Shakespeare will be forbidden just because it might be a little racy in parts? How many inmates do you suppose have a hankering for "much of the world's great literature and art"? Geez.
Fort Wayne Observed is also on this story and links to a Toledo Blade account of the crime of one of the prisoners, who stabbed 19-year-old Cheryl Ann Felger 60 times and left her in a field in Adams County. As FWOb notes, "the death penalty was not an option" back then, in 1974. So the mope has been reading pornography for over 30 years and fantasizing about other women he'd like to interact with. And the ACLU-Indiana wants to help him keep it up.
