The Freedom to “Groom” Act – 

Tomorrow, Thursday, February 15 the New Jersey Senate Education Committee is holding a hearing on S2421 misnamed “The Freedom to Read Act.” The proper title for the intent and actions of this bill is “The Freedom to Groom and Sexually Exploit Children Without Fear of Prosecution.” The following is an analysis and opinion from the New Jersey attorney regarding the unconstitutionality and violation of federal law regarding this proposed legislation.

By Rob Kovic, Esq.

A major issue in New Jersey, and all throughout the United States, is the inclusion of sexually explicit material in our schools as part of a woke “curriculum”, compliments of the Democratic Party and their liberal bedfellows. NJ’s liberal legislature has been doing everything possible to ensure that their goal of early-aged woke indoctrination and neutralizing parental rights happens as fast as possible. Most rational people who have ever reviewed the school curriculum material say that it is nothing but obscene. The U.S. Supreme Court would also seem to agree.

Our legislature is making or changing laws and sending out directives to make sure that what they are doing to our children and our families is “legal” and insulates school personnel and school boards from any criminal and civil penalties. Let’s take a look at what NJ is doing.

First, below is NJ’s obscenity statute in our criminal code, in part.

According to New Jersey Statute 2C:34-3 entitled Obscenity for Persons Under 18 the statute read as follows:

2C:34-3. Obscenity For Persons Under 18.   

a. Definitions for purposes of this section:

(1)  “Obscene material” means any description, narrative account, display, depiction of a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity contained in, or consisting of, a picture or other representation, publication, sound recording, live performance or film, which by means of posing, composition, format or animated sensual details, emits sensuality with sufficient impact to concentrate prurient interest on the area or activity.

(2)  “Obscene film” means any motion picture film or preview or trailer to a film, not including newsreels portraying actual current events or pictorial news of the day, in which a scene, taken by itself:

(a)  Depicts a specified anatomical area or specified sexual activity, or the simulation of a specified sexual activity, or verbalization concerning a specified sexual activity; and

(b)  Emits sensuality sufficient, in terms of the duration and impact of the depiction, to appeal to prurient interest.

(3)  “Specified anatomical area” means:

(a)  Less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttock or female breasts below a point immediately above the top of the areola; or

(b)  Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if covered.

  (4)  “Specified sexual activity” means:

(a)  Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal; or

(b)  Any act of human masturbation, sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse; or

(c)  Fondling or other erotic touching of covered or uncovered human genitals, pubic region, buttock or female breast.

(5)  “Knowingly” means:

(a)  Having knowledge of the character and content of the material or film described herein; or

(b)  Having failed to exercise reasonable inspection which would disclose its character and content.

(6)  “Exhibit” means the sale of admission to view obscene material.

(7)  “Show” means cause or allow to be seen.

b. Promoting obscene material.

(1)  A person who knowingly sells, distributes, rents or exhibits to a person under 18 years of age obscene material is guilty of a crime of the third degree.

(2)  A person who knowingly shows obscene material to a person under 18 years of age with the knowledge or purpose to arouse, gratify or stimulate himself or  another is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the person showing the obscene material is at least four years older than the person under 18 years of age viewing the material.

c. Admitting to exhibition of obscene film.

(1)  Any person who knowingly admits a person under 18 years of age to a theatre then exhibiting an obscene film is guilty of a crime of the third degree.

(2)  A person who knowingly shows an obscene film to a person under 18 years of age with the knowledge or purpose to arouse, gratify or stimulate himself or another is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the person showing the obscene film is at least four years older than the person under 18 years of age viewing the film.

d. Presumption of knowledge and age.

The requisite knowledge with regard to the character and content of the film or material and of the age of the person is presumed in the case of an actor who sells, distributes, rents, exhibits or shows obscene material to a person under 18 years of age or admits to a film obscene for a person under 18 years of age a person who is under 18 years of age.

According to this statute, teachers, school administrators, and/or school board members would be exposed to criminal liability for exposing our children to what we are now being told is “educational material”. Yet, at no public-school board meeting that I know of has any teacher, administrator, or board member explained to any parent the redeeming educational value of teaching children, many of which have not yet even reached puberty, the value of masturbation, shaving genitalia and anal intercourse as presented in many of these materials.

Now, NJ Senators Andrew Zwicker and Theresa Ruiz have introduced Senate Bill 2421 deceptively entitled the “Freedom to Read Act” to insulate their woke soldiers from legal ramifications for giving children access to these obscene materials. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that obscenity is a category of speech unprotected by the First Amendment.  In the case of Miller vs. California, in I973, the Court reaffirmed that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and formulated a test for obscenity that continues to be used today.  The Court said that the basic guidelines must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

According to Miller, in order for material to be obscene it must be patently offensive under the law prohibiting obscenity. The Court gave an example of this and said that a law could define this as: “(a) Patently offensive representations or depictions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated; (b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.

In Ward vs. Illinois, the Supreme Court held that the law did not need to provide an “exhaustive list of the sexual conduct” that would be patently offensive. The Court said that it was sufficient that a law included some of the examples included in the Miller case.

If our legislature was so sure about the “positive quality” of the obscene material being presented in our schools, why do they need to insulate teachers and administrators from legal liability? They argue that they “want to protect teachers, librarians, administrators from harassment of parents”. If these individuals are being genuinely “harassed”, they can file a complaint with local law enforcement. This Bill cannot protect anyone from being “harassed”. And again, parents are the enemy of the state.

Welcome home Uncle Sam and Big Brother… uh, I mean … mom and dad.