John Merner Quotes
What we try to do is represent public opinion—and public opinion is anti oral sex.
On why Canadian customs officials banned the importation of an issue of Penthouse Magazine:
John Merner, Canadian Revenue Officer, Statement, April 1, 1977
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The sexism and classism in these few lines is a classic of the censorship literature.
As Prosecutor in the obscenity trial for Lady Chatterley's Lover:
The National Organization for Decent Literature was a pressure group made up mostly of Roman Catholic Priests. It was founded 1938, and ran until the late 1960s when changes in society had obsoleted their “values” and rigid concepts of “decency”.
The queen was a lot more sophisticated about the newspapers than politicians in the 21st century.
Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.
This is a very important quotation. The reason is that the Secretary General of the UN backed off and did not support the absolute right of freedom of speech and expression. He favored allowing exceptions. In this case a film was made that was not only intellectually an attack on Islam but it was done in such a manner that most orthodox Muslims were insulted and offended that their Prophet and religion were both insulted in a blasphemous manner. It was a film that was very much in poor taste, insensitive and gross. One major difference between freedom of speech as interpreted by most countries and the United States is that most other nations do not allow and defend hate speech and material that insults a people or their religion or is blatantly blasphemous. The U. S. however protects anyone who blasphemously attacks anyone or any group for any reason. There are a few other nations that protect free speech absolutely but Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, and India are considered major examples of democracy and freedom and yet they do not protect free speech absolutely. In most Muslim nations, whatever freedom of speech they might have does not apply to blasphemy where Islam is concerned. In most of the Arab nations, there is rank hypocrisy in that freedom of speech is tolerated and protected if there is a blasphemous attack on any other religion such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or Bhai. This kind of difference on human rights between the U. S. and the UN causes many Americans to oppose the US participation in UN operated courts and projects to protect human rights. Few Americans would favor being a part of an international court system where an American could be convicted of blasphemy for what he had written or said. Essentially, the Secretary General has taken a stand against the United States Constitution and the values of most Americans and many other people of the world like Denmark, or Norway. Offensive and insulting speech is the only kind of speech that needs protection. If speech offends no one, there is no need for its protection.
