Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy

Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy

Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy
Author	Marjorie Heins
Original title	Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Censorship
Published	1993
Publisher	The New Press
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	240
ISBN	978-1-56584-048-5
OCLC	27684873
Preceded by	Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence
Followed by	Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth

Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars is a non-fiction book by lawyer and civil libertarian Marjorie Heins that is about freedom of speech and the censorship of works of art in the early 1990s by the U.S. government. The book was published in 1993 by The New Press. Heins provides an overview of the history of censorship, including the 1873 Comstock laws, and then moves on to more topical case studies of attempts at suppression of free expression.

The book argues that artists have been scapegoated by those advocating censorship, as a method of deflecting debate away from the suppression of human rights. The author asserts that censorship of works deemed obscene has been used as a tactic throughout history to suppress women's rights. Heins argues that even if the perceived negative impacts of pornography, hip hop music, and violent films were factually accurate (and she asserts they are not), the ends would not justify the means of degrading the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. She emphasizes that education should be used to help guard against potentially dangerous notions, instead of censorship and suppression of dissent.