> b. Gross immorality should be illegal

No. Because then you get into the debate about who decides what is immoral, and I won't live under any sort of theocracy.

My thoughts about it are basically this: Things are illegal when they infringe upon the basic rights of others. Killing is illegal because it infringes upon a person's right to live. Stealing is illegal because it infringes upon a person's right to own property.

With child pornography, it's harder to define exactly what rights are being infringed, but it mostly has to do with the idea of consent. Adult pornography is legal because in theory an adult has the ability and the right to consent to be the subject of sexually explicit material. It's illegal to force someone to perform sexual acts in front of a camera. It's also illegal to tape someone having consensual sex without their knowledge and consent.

Children, however, are considered to not have the capacity to knowingly consent to such things. So even if an 11 year old girl gives you permission to take pictures of her naked, it's against the law because as a minor she's not legally able to give you such permission.

As for Darien's original point, I'd have to say that although drawings or comptuer generated artwork that are clearly meant to portray minors in a sexual way would disturb me, I don't see why it should be illegal. It's disgusting and repulsive, but no real person is being hurt or having their rights infringed by it, so I can't think of a good reason to make it illegal. There's unfortunately a whole lot of things I think are disgusting and repugnant that are legal, so to me this would just be one more thing to add to the list. The fact that it apparently *is* illegal is a little baffling to me. I'd guess it's one of those places where people *are* trying to legislate morality, despite the inherent wrongness of that.

-- Dave