The Law: Profanity in Georgia

Under Georgia law, it is illegal to use "obscene and vulgar or profane language in the presence of a female or of a male under the age of 14." No mere remnant of the past, the law was enacted in 1968; now, by a 6-1 vote, the Georgia Supreme Court has upheld its constitutionality. The case at issue: an eleven-year-old girl went up to a car that had stopped in her neighborhood. "Have you ever been laid?" the driver asked. She immediately walked across the street, memorized the license, went home and wrote the number down. Traced, identified by the girl and convicted, Alvin Breaux appealed. The court found that the words used were not constitutionally protected free speech because they were "no essential part of any exposition of ideas and [were of] slight social value." Nor was "obscene and vulgar or profane" too vague, said the court; the law simply bans language that "would clearly offend a reasonable person's sense of decency." The court did not consider whether the legislature could have achieved its purpose, with fewer constitutional hazards, by directly banning sexual advances rather than by broadly proscribing filthy language. Breaux's one-year jail sentence stands.