Booksellers Join Legal Challenge to Indiana Registration Law

On Wednesday, May 7, booksellers joined book publishers, video and recording retailers, and an Indianapolis art museum in challenging a new Indiana law that requires any store that sells even a single "sexually explicit" book, magazine, video, or recording to register with the state and pay a $250 license fee. "Sexually explicit" is defined so broadly that the law could apply to bookstores that sell mainstream novels and other artistic works with sexual content as well as educational books about sexuality and sexual health.

"This law is a shocking violation of our national commitment to maintain bookstores as a forum for the free exchange of ideas," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. "We do not license bookstores in the U.S."

Elizabeth Houghton Barden, owner of Indianapolis' Big Hat Books, a plaintiff in the case, noted, "The law says Big Hat Books might be an 'adult' bookstore if we sell a single copy of Lolita. Being classified as an adult bookstore basically puts us out of business."

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Indianapolis, members of Media Coalition, an association of media trade groups based in New York, assert that the law will have a chilling effect on the sale of works that are protected by the First Amendment. Faced with the threat of having to register under a law that treats them as "adult" establishments, retailers will be forced to remove from sale almost all works with sexual content.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs hope that there will be a hearing on their motion for a preliminary injunction before the law goes into effect on July 1.

In addition to ABFFE and Big Hat Books, other plaintiffs in the case are the Great Lakes Booksellers Association; Boxcar Books and Community Center of Bloomington; the Association of American Publishers; the Entertainment Merchants Association; the Freedom to Read Foundation; the National Association of Recording Merchandisers; the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana Foundation; the Indiana Museum of Art; and the Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association.