This morning's Washington Post has an article about a decision that was handed down yesterday in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association.
According to Robert Barnes of the Post, the Supreme Court struck down a law that fined California video game retailers who sold violent video games to minors. "Video games deserve the same constitutional protections as books and movies..." Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion "that like protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas--and even social messages" that are guarded by the First Amendment... No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free floating power to restrict the ideas to which children are exposed."
So how does this relate to our reading of the Hunger Games? Are violent video games the moral equivalent of violent novels? Should a government be deciding what it's children read or how they play? To what extent does our government have an obligation to protect us from ourselves? What role should parents play in the selection of the entertainment that is consumed by their children?
For a link to the full Post article, see the resource section below entitled Readings on Adolescent Literature
Link to full Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-strikes-calif-law-banning-sale-of-violent-video-games-to-minors/2011/06/26/AGwtxenH_story.html
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