What is the difference between obscene and profane

In the case, Johnson v. Quattlebaum , t he appeals court determined that the law was not too broad or vague, because it only prohibited unprotected fighting words and only applied to speech that was within hearing distance.

David L. Hudson, Jr. This article was originally published in and last updated in August Hudson, David L. Hudson Jr.

Updated August Profanity [electronic resource]. Want to support the Free Speech Center? Donate Now. Even with the Miller Test, there's no national standard for what classifies as obscene, and distinctions between protected expression and unprotected obscene expression vary among federal court districts.

If you're being profane, you don't need to worry about the Supreme Court it has no legal definition , but if you believe in an immortal soul, you might be in trouble. Later it meant blasphemy, sacrilege or taking the Lord's name in vain we just call that blasphemy now. Today, profanity is an expression that is specifically offensive to members of a religious group. The definition also extends to expressions that are scatological, derogatory, racist, sexist, or sexual. What is and isn't profane largely depends on the context and the company you keep.

For some, vulgarity is generally coarse or crude language. For others, it is more specifically the act of substituting a coarse word in a context where a more refined expression would be expected. In Memoirs v. Massachusetts , a plurality of the Court, in an opinion by Justice Brennan, articulated a new three-part test:. In the s, the Burger Court determined that the obscenity standard was too rigid for prosecutors. Therefore, in Miller v.

Slaton , changing his position on obscenity. The Miller test remains the leading test for obscenity cases, but it continues to stir debate. In its decision in Pope v. Obscenity prosecutions do, however, impose contemporary community standards, even though a distributor may transport materials to various communities. Thus interesting issues emerge when a defendant in California is prosecuted in a locale with more restrictive community standards.

This phenomenon has caused some legal experts and interested observers to call for the creation of a national standard, particularly in the age of the Internet. In Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union , several justices expressed concern about applying local community standards to the Internet as required by the Child Online Protection Act of For example, Justice Stephen G.

The Supreme Court has resisted efforts to extend the rationale of obscenity from hard-core sexual materials to hard-core violence. The state of California sought to advance the concept of violence as obscenity in defending its state law regulating the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The Court invalidated the law in Brown v.

Federal obscenity prosecutions increased during the George W. Bush administration. States continued to pursue obscenity prosecutions against hard-core pornography, but also occasionally against other materials. For example, in a comic book artist was convicted of obscenity in Florida, and in the owner of gay bar in Nebraska was successfully prosecuted for displaying a gay art in a basement.

Although obscenity laws have their critics, they likely will remain part of the legal system and First Amendment jurisprudence. While federal obscenity prosecutions waned during the Barack Obama administration, state obscenity prosecutions continue in the 21 st century.