Washington- There comes a time in every man’s life when they have to stand up on their own two feet and do what they feel is right. For Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia’s personal lapdog, that moment came this week. If there was one certainty in the world, it was that whatever Scalia thought, Thomas would echo. There might have been times when even Chief Justice William Rehnquist would shake his head at a position that Scalia took, but not Thomas, until of course yesterday. And just what was it that caused this schism? Why porn off course.

Surprisingly enough, Thomas was on the right side of this decision, but more remarkably, he was the deciding vote in the 5-4 ruling. Leaving the safety and comfort of his cohorts, Scalia and Rehnquist, and joining another usually conservative voice, Anthony Kennedy, in protecting free speech, no matter how much one might abhor what is being said. His actions suggested that he might actually believe that the First Amendment is one of the fundamental principles that makes our country unlike almost any other in the world, what a novel concept for Thomas.

Of course, for those who don’t like this notion of freedom of speech, there will be the usual diatribe, saying that we are forcing pornography on our children, which is absolutely untrue. What the Court said, was that software could be used to block porn, or that setting up a strictly kids safe Internet domain like the current .kids.us, would be perfectly legal, and that even requiring libraries and other public Internet outlets of have filters is fine. Kennedy even went as far as saying that the government could still enforce existing obscenity laws if they wanted to, but what they can’t do, is make it illegal for adults to share material with other adults.

Children are hurt every day by cars, but we don’t ban adults from driving, we merely try to do a better job of protecting them. We don’t even ban guns that kill children, instead we try to teach gun owners to be more responsible. Yet for some reason, people who don’t like pornography, explicit lyrics in songs, suggestive adult material on the radio, or over-the-hill pop stars exposing a breast on television, argue that access to that type of material should be denied to responsible adults, rather than requiring those adults with children to have to learn about personal responsibility. Wisely the Supreme Court said no, children can and should be protected, but adults can and must be able to live in an adult world.

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart, in trying to explain what was obscene, said, “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.” In 2004 Justice Clarence Thomas went a step further suggesting that not only did he know what pornography was, he wanted to be able to see it. As John Aschroft is finding out, American’s will let you strip them of a lot of basic civil liberties, but you don’t mess with a man’s porn, especially if that man is a Supreme Court Justice of the United States.