Injunction sought to curtail obscenity law

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A coalition of Internet content providers and free-speech advocates has asked a U.S. District Court judge to issue a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing an updated obscenity law as it applies to broad-based online communications.

The groups told Judge Rya W. Zobel that a new law aimed at protecting children from online sexual predators effectively bans anything that may be considered "harmful to minors," including material that adults have the right to view.

Supporters say the new law closes a loophole that led the Supreme Judicial Court to overturn the conviction of a man accused of sending sexually explicit instant messages to someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

The SJC found that the old state law that imposed criminal penalties for disseminating material harmful to minors did not cover electronic communications.

The new law was passed quickly by the Legislature after the SJC's February ruling. It added instant messages, text messages, e-mail and other electronic communications.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Association of American Publishers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and others filed a federal lawsuit in July challenging the new law.

The coalition is not asking to stop the state from enforcing the law as it applies to sexual predators or others who use the Internet to send harmful material to minors; rather, it specifically cited material about contraception, pregnancy, literature and art that adults have a First Amendment right to view.