SMH Letters Page

These letters were on the SMH letters page. I couln't work out how to permanently link to just this section. I wanted to put this up to show I wasn't the only person online who didn't like what I was seeing.

Oh my God! You laughed when they killed Kenny?

I am astounded that our legal system can convict someone of child pornography when the "people" involved are cartoon characters ("Internet parody of Simpsons is child porn: judge", December 9). If the point of these laws is to protect children from exploitation and abuse, how is that served by this ruling?

The judge said that, "had the images involved real children, McEwan would have been jailed". Certainly, but surely the point is they were not real children. Will we, the audience, now be prosecuted for watching child abuse when Homer grabs Bart by the neck?

This ruling in effect says people can be liable for crimes against imaginary victims. It would be laughable were the implications not so sinister.

Victor Peroni Bondi

Justice Adams's decision shows more of the attitudes that halt progress in this area by labelling everything child porn, instead of looking at the defendant's intent. Does he get off on child porn? Or is he just another bored kid on the internet looking for some shock humour?

It's time we stopped giving in to mass hysteria over child porn and looked at the issue with logic and common sense.

Kieran Adair St Ives

Lawyers and journalists will be celebrating Justice Adams's decision to grant personhood to fictional and imaginary characters. Will the courts now deal with cases of fictional and imaginary theft and violence? Will South Park's Kenny seek justice in NSW? What a farce.

Eighty years ago Bertrand Russell said "in the practice of the courts" obscenity means "anything that shocks the magistrate". Justice Adams must be very easily shocked.

Patrick Spedding East Bentleigh (Vic)

Justice Adams's judgment has criminalised tens of thousands of Australians, many of them children, and many of them my friends. Who would have thought every one of them was a child pornographer?

Matthew Bennett Queanbeyan

It seems we no longer need to fear reds under the bed. It's the peds under the bed that are coming to

get our children, judging by three news stories.

The first told of a man being charged with publishing child-abuse material in Queensland, due to him republishing a video of a man swinging a baby ("Charge for sharing shaken baby video", December 9); the second of the Simpsons characters depicted in sexual acts being ruled as child pornography; and the third of Wikipedia being blacklisted by a British online child pornography watchdog because of an article that featured a 1976 album cover of a young girl with her genitalia obscured by a teardrop ("Wikipedia added to child pornography blacklist", smh.com.au, December 8).

I'd better find my copy of Nirvana's Nevermind, which features the famous photo of the naked baby in the swimming pool (no obscuring going on here), and burn it before the police come and arrest me, too.

Richard Bolt North Balgowlah

Perhaps Queensland police should consider charging Australia's Funniest Home Videos with child abuse violations. Not only does this show depict images of children slamming into brick walls and being bashed about the head by playground equipment, but it does so under the banner of comedy.

How far has our society sunk that we find children in pain a source of amusement?

Rebecca Cusack Woonona