City of Houston library officials have returned Jenna Jameson’s “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale” to the shelves of public libraries, Local 2 reported.
The Houston chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the city last week saying the book's removal violated the First Amendment's free speech guarantee, according to the report. The ACLU said the decision to remove the book also violated due process.
"This book has a lot of literary merit,” Randall Kallinen, the president of the Houston ACLU, told Local 2. “This is about the biography of a woman in a certain industry, it is the porn industry, and it is not a pornographic book by any standards.”
Last month the library ordered its 12 copies removed from circulation after a complaint about nude photos in the book. HarperCollins, a company owned by Rupert Murdoch and his News America Corp., published the book. The complaint made its way first to a city council member, prompting Mayor Bill White to demand that it be banned.
A city library committee reviewed the book and ruled against the mayor, saying the book should be returned to the open shelves in the Fine Arts section.
As of Friday afternoon, all of the copies of the book were checked out and there was a 40-person waiting list, according to Local 2.
At the mayor's request, the book was placed in the library's closed stacks and only made available by request.
“If you've seen the pictures in the book, you'll know what we're talking about. You wouldn't show them on your television station, so he was trying to balance those community concerns with the interest of people who want to have access to the book," Frank Michel, Mayor White's spokesman, said in the report.
