Michigan's state Senate has approved a bill to ban motorists from showing sexually explicit content on vehicular DVD players if the content could be seen from outside the vehicle, with fines up to $10,000 on the first offense and possible jail on the third or more.
"At first, I thought it was ridiculous," said the bill's author, Sen. Alan Sanborn (R-Richmond), telling reporters he first heard of the issue when a mother called him about such an incident in 2004. "Then I started thinking about it and became outraged that a person would have to be subjected to that as a captive audience. Parents have a right to teach their kids about the birds and the bees, rather than getting a play-by-play from the car in front of them."
The incident in question is said to have involved a woman stuck in Interstate 96 traffic in the Detroit area with her two children when she spotted a porn film playing on a screen in the vehicle in front of hers.
The senator said the law would apply only if you could see or hear the material and were within 100 feet of it.
Sanborn told reporters he expects the bill to pass the lower House. But the American Civil Liberties Union's Michigan branch has criticized the Sanborn bill for not making a clear definition of sexually explicit material. "It's too broad and very troublesome," said legislative director Shelli Weisberg, who added to reporters that that leaves up for debate whether even a prime-time television show could be deemed offensive.
"Everyone has different opinions," she was quoted as saying. "One person's art is another person's sex."
Michigan already has laws banning the public display of "obscene" materials and disseminating sexually explicit material to children, but the latter applies to intentionally targeting children. Neither of those laws, Michigan State Police Sgt. Matt Bolger told reporters, could apply to so-called “drive-by” porn. His agency supports the Sanborn bill because it targets forcing others to watch what's inappropriate for children and might offend other adults.
The penalties for a first offense under the Sanborn bill would be $1,500 for a first offense and $5,000 for a second, but the third would incur a misdemeanor level charge and a maximum $10,000 fine and up to 93 days behind bars if convicted.
