Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

An interesting story in the Boston Globe about an effort by Robert Joyce, a Boston attorney and conservative activist, to prevent the distribution of the Boston Phoenix alternative weekly in the city’s West Roxbury neighborhood due to the paper’s adult personals. This is a fascinating story dealing with two equally compelling interests: traditional morality and the First Amendment.

Joyce has received some heat for his effort, with allegations that he is really attempting to have the Phoenix banned because the paper supported the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling authorizing same-sex marriage. (Joyce was a vocal opponent of the ruling, and tried to defeat a state senator who supported the ruling in 2004.) I don’t buy the argument that he’s trying to retaliate against the Phoenix due to the paper’s progressive politics: if he opposed papers with progressive editorial views, he’d try to ban the Globe as well.

Joyce has a right to petition stores to stop distributing the Phoenix: contrary to some of his critics, he is not an extremist merely because he has some socially conservative views. Having said that, I don’t see his effort having any real long-term success, because West Roxbury is no longer a "conservative" community. For years the neighborhood was considered one of the more conservative areas of Boston, but the region has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. In the 2006 gubernatorial election, West Roxbury supported Deval Patrick by a huge margin! If West Roxbury’s residents were still hardcore right-wingers, they would have backed Kerry Healey in overwhelming numbers.

Even if one thinks Joyce’s effort is silly, one must concede that he has a right to be silly. He is right to be concerned about young children possibly being exposed to inappropriate content. His effort will likely fail, because most West Roxbury residents probably regard him as a crackpot crusader, but his concerns are not illegitimate.