City Blocks Porn Referendum

Despite mounting pressure from local women's groups, the Cambridge City Council decided for the second time in a week to keep an antipornography question off the November ballot.

The nine-member body voted 5-3 not to let Cantabrigians decide this fall in a non-binding referendum whether the production or sale of pornography should be a punishable offense in the city.

Representatives of a local women's group said Monday night they are prepared to take immediate legal action against the city for failing to place the issue on the November 5 ballot.

Acting on the advice of the city solicitor, Cambridge lawmakers opposed to placing the question on the ballot argued that the courts have already declared identical measures in other cities unconstitutional. But some officials said that Cambridge voters, not the city, should resolve the pornography issue.

The petition, which has already been signed and verified by the Cambridge Election Commission, defines pornography as the "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words." The ordinance, sponsored by the Women's Alliance Against Pornography, would permit a victim to seek civil damages against the maker, distributor, seller or distributor of anything deemed sexually dehumanizing.

Council Precedent

The city council claims that Cambridge statutes give them 20 days to decide whether a non-binding referendum should be on the ballot. However, the Alliance charges that local laws require the council to enact either the legislation, or place the issue on the ballot if 8 percent of the city's registered voters sign a petition.

In 1982 the city was involved in a similar dispute when it tried to keep a petition making Cambridge a nuclear free zone off the ballot. After the city later placed the issue back on the ballot, voters defeated the referendum.

Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55, who voted against the pornography referendum effort, said it would be a "frivolous action" for the city to let voters decide on an ordinance that has already been declared unconstitutional. Duehay cited a case three weeks ago where a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the unconstitutionality of an Indianapolis statute similar to the one proposed in Cambridge.

But City Councilor David E. Sullivan, who opposes banning pornography, said he would rather "err on the side of democracy" by placing the issue on the ballot.

"This city council must respect the position of thousands of Cambridge residents who signed the petition," the liberal lawmaker said, adding, "We cannot deny free expression to ensure free expression."

Sullivan said that certain, less liberal members of the city council might have voted against placing the question on the ballot because it might draw more feminists than usual to the polls.

Although they oppose bans on pornography, several groups, including the League of Women Voters, the Feminists Against Censorship Taskforce, and the Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women, supported placing the question before the city's voters.