Showdown on County Anti-Smut Law Put Off

A showdown vote on a hotly debated anti-pornography ordinance was postponed Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, as supporters of the measure vowed to step up their lobbying efforts.

The delay, which will keep the month-old controversy alive, came in the wake of an opinion by the board’s top attorney that the measure would be an unconstitutional impairment of free speech.

The county Commission for Women, which drafted the ordinance and recommended it to the board last month, on Tuesday asked for time to respond to the long legal opinion of County Counsel DeWitt Clinton, which was issued late last week.

Prototype Struck Down

The proposed ordinance, patterned after an Indianapolis law that has been struck down in federal court, would declare that pornography is sex discrimination and give women rights to file lawsuits to halt distribution of materials they find degrading.

Supporters say the ordinance would help combat increasing violence against women, which they attribute in part to the submissive, “dehumanized” way women are often depicted in pornographic materials. But many feminists and civil liberties groups warn that the ordinance amounts to censorship that could easily be used to block a wide range of controversial materials, including feminist publications.

Supervisor Pete Schabarum said he could not support “by any stretch” an ordinance with the legal deficiencies cited by Clinton. On his motion, the matter was referred back to the commission “with the intent they make changes that would meet the test of constitutionality and be enforceable.” The matter is scheduled to return to the board May 28.

Dana Requested Delay

Supervisor Deane Dana, who is out of the country, had asked that the vote be delayed until his return.

While many proponents and opponents had gone to the meeting to speak, the board heard only from the chairman of the Commission for Women, who at one point urged the board to adopt the ordinance without changes.

The delay was immediately criticized by opponents of the ordinance. Carol Sobel, an associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “I find it difficult to see the need for time to study it. They know what is wrong with the ordinance . . . . The issue of legality has been settled by the county counsel.” The ACLU has said it will immediately file a lawsuit to block the ordinance if it is adopted.

Betty Brooks, leader of a newly formed coalition of feminists that has described the ordinance as a “dangerous and misguided strategy,” said after the vote, “We don’t want it rewritten. We want it stopped.”

But feminist attorney Gloria Allred attacked Clinton’s critical legal analysis as “a defense of pornography” that ignored many of the arguments made by supporters of the measure. Despite growing criticism of the ordinance, Betty Rosenstein, a member of the Commission for Women, said the panel is not retreating from its support of the ordinance.