Media Coalition Files Suit Against Indiana Registration Law 

-- Publishers Weekly, 5/8/2008 7:42:00 AM

Indiana booksellers will get their day in court. After the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression announced in March it would lobby against a new Indiana law requiring booksellers to register with the state if they sell "sexually explicit" material, the organization has joined with other members of the Media Coalition, in challenging the statute.

The law goes into effect July 1, 2008, and calls for any retailer who doesn't register with the state, but sells "adult" deemed content, to pay a $250 fine. (Content will be judged by the Secretary of State, to whom retailers will have to submit a detailed list of their inventory to be judged.) The Media Coalition is asking the court to declare the law unconstitutional on the grounds that it threatens First Amendment rights.

Media Coalition executive director David Horowitz said the law is in direct violation of the First Amendment. "This new law would force business owners to decide either to limit their inventory or be on a state list of ‘adult stores’ and pay a fee," he said.