By Richard Strohk
Special to YNOT

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – In a shocking display of contempt for the U.S. Constitution and individual liberty, Wisconsin’s Third District Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court’s disorderly conduct conviction of a man who was merely exercising his right as a citizen to innocently enjoy the consumption of pornography in a public library.

American patriot and heroic civil rights warrior David Reidinger challenged his conviction, which stemmed from a bunch of spoiled, nosey college brats prying into Reidinger’s viewing choices as he was minding his own business, just watching a little harmless porn on a computer at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire library.

These students claimed they were trying to study and were disturbed by Reidinger’s porn viewing — but anyone who has met a modern college student knows this is a lie, because those little shits never “study” anything, except maybe the number of likes their latest duck-faced selfie has received.

After several of the slackers ganged up to rat out Reidinger, a couple of jackbooted campus cops came around to “investigate.” According to court documents, these two agents of governmental oppression then “met with the complaining students,” who “showed the officers a picture they had taken of Reidinger’s computer screen that showed open pornographic images.”

So these little pukes not only looked over Reidinger’s shoulder, but they took pictures without his permission? Where are the charges against them? Can they at least be sued for violating the copyright of the porn studio that produced the footage?

At any rate, one of the cops then allegedly “observed Reidinger watching pornographic material on the computer for approximately 30 seconds,” before forcing Reidinger to close his browser and come with the cop into a nearby stairwell so they could “discuss the matter.”

Isolated in this coercive environment, without the benefit of legal counsel, Reidinger was told his pornography viewing was “causing a disturbance.” Reidinger responded by observing he was merely exercising his constitutional rights.

The following day, Reidinger was cited for disorderly conduct under Wisconsin Administrative code § UWS 18.11(2) and fined the outrageous sum of $295 — which must be at least 20 times what he’d pay for the same videos on DVD.

After being found guilty of the violation in circuit court, Reidinger appealed, citing two cases, Stanley v. Georgia and Reno v. ACLU, in support of his argument that his activities in the library were protected by the First Amendment.

Incredibly, the appeals court totally ignored Reidinger’s claims and chose to read the case law for itself, which might be proper procedure, but still strikes this occasional library-masturbator as profoundly biased and unfair.

At any rate, the court decided neither case “establishes a First Amendment right to view pornography in a public library or any other public place,” which sucks for Reidinger, seeing as how he also “does not cite any other authority in support of his position.”

OK, so maybe Reidinger’s legal argument wasn’t completely airtight, but what about this whole notion of disorderly conduct? It’s not like the guy started a riot anywhere other than in his pants. So, what’s the big deal?

“The State need not prove that an actual disturbance resulted from Reidinger’s conduct, only that the conduct was of a type that tended to cause or provoke a disturbance,” Judge Thomas Hruz wrote for the court. “Reidinger does not contest the findings of his having committed disorderly conduct. Rather, he raises an as-applied challenge to his citation, asserting his conduct was protected by the First Amendment.”

By this disturbingly low standard, anybody who jerks off to anything while sitting in a public library could be found guilty of disorderly conduct, even if the book is a classic like Fanny Hill or Tropic of Cancer. This may well be a proper reading of the law, but it will send a chill down the spine of anybody who has ever slipped one hand inside their pants while standing in the periodicals section.

Even Judge Hruz, a man whose last name cannot be pronounced in English, recognizes the chilling effect his court’s ruling in this case could have on hardworking — and hard-jerking — Americans. In the same breath, however, the judge rationalizes the decision by relying on notions of the greater good which could have come straight from Mr. Spock.

“While such laws may have the incidental effect of limiting certain speech, it has long been recognized that there is a valid countervailing interest in preserving public order,” Hruz wrote. “In this case, as the State points out, there was ample evidence that Reidinger’s public viewing of pornography at the library was indecent or otherwise disorderly and that it tended to provoke a disturbance.”

I’m sure this decision won’t mean much to people who don’t watch porn in their local public library, but to those of us who can’t watch porn at home (whether because our mother is always hanging around or our wife will file for divorce and absolutely ruin us financially) and who live in towns where all the old adult video stores with viewing booths have gone out of business, it’s a major blow to our ability to watch others deliver a major blowjob.

We simply can’t take this kind of oppression lying down, people — mostly because if we lie down at the library, they’ll probably charge us with vagrancy.

Richard Strohk is a freelance journalist, political activist and staunch masturbatory rights advocate who lives in the Milwaukee area but generally frequents the Muskego Public Library these days because all the libraries in Milwaukee are run by anti-porn fascists.