Louis Sirkin is arguably one of the most decorated first amendment attorneys currently working. Made famous by his defense in the case of Robert Mapplethorpe and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati in 1990, Sirkin has also defended many adult industry workers – some giants like Larry Flynt of Hustler – against those that would make their expression unavailable to the public, or worse, throw them in jail for creating it. Since the mid-1970s, the Cincinnati native has worked tirelessly to protect free speech, both federally and in the very jurisdiction where Flynt was first arrested, tried, and convicted back in the ‘70s.

Sirkin, like any old soldier, has plenty of war stories, of course. Like how he and Jerry Springer joke that they got their start on the same case: Springer, former lawyer and city councilman, resigned and eventually launched his hit TV show when he was accused of being involved in a massage parlor business; Sirkin worked on his defense, and the prosecutor went on to become the judge presiding over the Mapplethorpe case. But however much history, anecdotes, and case law Sirkin can rattle off (not to mention his extensive list of honors and awards), the message that comes across is always the same: to him, the first amendment is sacred – no matter who’s doing the talking.

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SH: Now, what is it about Cincinnati? All this stuff seems to go on there, as far as obscenity cases, and as was just demonstrated, so many of the big cases that have come through in the past ten years or so have been out of there.

SIRKIN: Well, aside from what one of my daughter’s law professors at Ohio State University used to believe – that there was something in the water here – [Both laugh] I’m not really sure, where the attitude started. At least in my growing up and adult life until the Kennedy administration, there was a lot of illegal gambling, a lot of prostitution that took place over in northern Kentucky, and it became sort of Cincinnati’s playground. So, you know, we live and work in Cincinnati, but we play in Northern Kentucky. So the attitude of Cincinnati being this wholesome place, began to develop. And then in the sixties, Cincinnati created its own Anthony Comstock, in a guy by the name of Charlie Keating. He formed an organization called Citizens for Decent Literature. Really became sort of a censorship group here in Cincinnati and had a tremendous amount of political influence and connection. They were able to make use of the red light district laws, ones that allowed you to bring action against the landlord and the tenant and close the premises for a year, where there would be acts of prostitution, lewdness, and assignation or soliciting. But lewdness is a rather broad term, so they were closing movie theatres on the finding that the movie was obscene. And they were winning these cases here in Cincinnati because they were non-jury cases. The judges are all elected here in Ohio, it became very political, and Cincinnati’s federal district court judges were not as inclined to intervene in the Constitutional issues as rapidly as in other parts of the country. So this attitude developed here, and Cincinnatians are really interesting, in the sense that we believe in what we should be able to do ourselves, but we feel like we need to be our neighbors’ protectorate. And Cincinnatians also have a reservation about being outspoken against the establishment. So Keating ultimately moved his organization out and it got based out in Arizona; his organization here was taken over by a Presbyterian minister, who formed an organization called Concerned Citizens for Community Values. And then there was some friction in that organization, and the Presbyterian minister broke off and formed an organization called The National Coalition Against Pornography.

SH: That’s direct.

SIRKIN: They’re very outspoken, and very persistent, and one of the problems that we all face in dealing with the lobbying that goes on is that it’s very difficult to get these groups to really be truthful. They’ll go and appear before congressional committees, statewide and nationally, and make claims, take photographs that have been taken from abuse cases, and say, “these are victims of pornography.” They also started this idea that started to convince people that sexually explicit material was dependence forming. They’d start bringing out the former alcoholics with testimonials like “I was addicted to porn; it wrecked my marriage, now I’d rather go out and go to this sleazy bookstore!” So then anybody who went out to those bookstores was “sleaze.” You try to bring up kids to be tolerant and respectful, and you’ve got people in leadership positions who are no different than the neighborhood bully, using name-calling. Then they started to have all of these education programs, national conventions on how to get rid of porn - and they had the support of the local police. Then they would have one of their rooms [Laughs] – they would have all the material that’s available in an adult bookstore, so that people could see! And I used to get pissed off about that. I said “Look, you’re exhibiting it! If that’s okay for educational purposes, why isn’t it all right that it’s available in a bookstore?” No, that’s different.

SH: So you grew up there, in Cincinnati.

SIRKIN: Yup.

SH: So when you were growing up, you clearly witnessed all of this happening. How did you start into the field of law that you chose?

SIRKIN: I went to college right at the end of all the crap with the House Un-American Activities Committee. I’m the youngest of three boys, my oldest brother was very involved in theatre both in high school and at the university, and then very much involved in community theatre after he graduated college. I was very much exposed; I saw Skin of Our Teeth and those plays, and Our Town, when I was nine and ten years old because my brother was in these shows. My middle brother, though he went into medicine, he was very creative and very funny. And he did a lot of the high school entertainment, he’d do comedy routines, and he was an avid listener and collector. I was 15 years old, and my brothers were out buying their records and talking about Lenny Bruce, Mort Saul, Orson Bean, all these guys who ended up getting blacklisted. Coming home from high school I’d watch the House Un-American Activities Committee, and rightfully enough, one of the representatives on that committee was from right here in Cincinnati, was Representative Gordon Scherer. So I watched that and saw all this oppression and became aware of it because of my brothers. I went to college and decided to major in political science. And I became fascinated by the concept of law. So I went to law school. And I enjoyed it, graduated, and went to practice with a small firm. And into the mid-70s, there were some adult businesses in Cincinnati, and they started to get targeted.

SH: What percentage of what you deal with – if you could put a number on it - has to do with adult entertainment?

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