To the editors:

Allison A. Melia ("The Limits of Free Speech," Feb. 8) seems to be in favor of free speech except when the speech does not comport with her view of what ideas are acceptable. She says that the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) espouses ideas so hideous--namely, the lowering of the age of consent for engaging in sex--that "it is unthinkable that the American government would allow this organization to continue." However, such a decision is not up to the government. The First Amendment, which protects NAMBLA's (and Ms. Melia's) freedom of association and freedom of speech, specifically takes such a decision out of the hands of the government. Hence, it is quite thinkable that NAMBLA will win the lawsuit pending against it that seeks to shut down its website and shut up its members.

Should the courts protect NAMBLA's right to exist and to promote its admittedly unpopular views on its website? Ms. Melia predicts not on the basis of her conclusion that the First Amendment "is not an edict allowing deviants the freedom to express their depraved desires." However, she obviously has not read many of the high court's First Amendment cases. Just as the Constitution protects pure thoughts and words, it likewise protects "depraved" desires, as long as those desires are spoken but not acted upon. For example in a recent case the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt to publish a parody claiming that the Rev. Jerry Falwell lost his virginity in a drunken orgy with his mother in an outhouse. "Depraved?" Assuredly. Protected speech? Of course, without a single Justice in dissent.

In other cases the Court has noted that if the government were to acquire the power to assert an official orthodoxy over its citizens, there would be blood spilled over the question of precisely whose orthodoxy would, and should, prevail. Each of us can envision some organization, or some person, that it would be "unthinkable" for the American government to allow to exist. Fortunately, the government does not have this power, and we are spared the civil war that would result from a contest as to how such awesome power should be exercised.

Ms. Melia is uncomfortable with NAMBLA's existence--that's obvious. But she's even more uncomfortable with what she contemptuously refers to, in quotation marks" as those "inalienable rights," such as free speech, that we citizens "stretch too far" for her taste.

Harvey A. Silverglate

Boston, MA

Feb. 8, 2001