Attorneys for Larry Flynt’s Hustler pornography empire are challenging Ohio’s new sex-offender registration requirement for people convicted of pandering obscenity, according to a story reported on Onenewsnow.com

Earlier this year Ohio’s version of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act went into effect. This act requires those convicted of sex offense-related crimes, which includes selling hardcore pornographic material, to register as a sex offender for 15 years.

A woman who manages a Hustler store in downtown Cincinnati is bringing suit against the Ohio attorney general. She claims that the registration requirement is unconstitutional, and that it violates her rights of free speech and privacy. The lawyer for this mother of two claims that although his client has not been convicted or charged with anything, she is “frightened.”

“In Ohio, pandering obscenity is a felony,” says Phil Burress, president of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It’s one of only five states where, if you sell an X-rated, hardcore videotape…you can be charged with a felony and spend a year in jail. Burress also believes that the manager’s claim that she has no way of knowing what constitutes “obscene material” is not credible.

The Supreme Court has ruled that any depiction of actual or simulated sexual activity or full frontal nudity constitutes obscenity.

Burress also believes that the motivation behind the lawsuit against the Ohio attorney general has a lot to do with a planned expansion of the Cincinnati Hustler store having been put on hold due to the sex-offender registration requirement. It is his position that Hustler fears that it will not be able to find anyone to work in its store if its employees are prosecuted for violating Ohio’s obscenity law and would therefore have to register as sex offenders.

Burress does not see the merit in the lawsuit, and offered his thoughts on the fears described by the shop manager’s attorney. “Let’s put this into perspective: Is there anyone else who’s afraid of being convicted for selling obscenity?” says Buress. “No. These are the only people in Cincinnati who know what they’re selling…is prosecutable under Ohio law….[So] stop selling material where you could be prosecuted for selling obscenity. Get a job somewhere else.”