R. V. Glad Day Bookshops Inc. - Significance

Significance

The case was symbolic for pornography advocates, who at the time were trying to demonstrate that the arguments of anti-porn feminists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin were antithetical to women's interests. They have claimed that MacKinnon had provided some of the arguments for new obscenity law in Canada - but the law disproportionately limited the voices of gay and lesbian writers, and even led to the impounding of two titles written by Dworkin. MacKinnon and Dworkin have denied these claims and stated that the new interpretation of the law, introduced by the Butler decision (R. v. Butler, 1 S.C.R. 452 (Supreme Court of Canada)), actually declares that the obscenity law was unconstitutional if used to restrict materials on a moral basis, but constitutional if used to promote sex equality. Thus, the decision makes it illegal to censor material on basis of explicit homosexual content, but such material could be censored if it could be shown to harm women. As for the impounding of Dworkin's books, two titles were in fact held temporalily for inspection in 1993, but this was done according to Canadian custom's pre-Butler procedures as the new procedures introduced by Butler were not implemented by the customs yet.