Robert Metz vs. Gail Hutchinson on Censorship and Pornography

AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:

In 1983, before Freedom Party of Ontario was founded by Robert Metz and others, Metz was president of a London-area riding association for a political party called Unparty (Unparty folded at the end of 1983). Dr. Gail Hutchinson was a London area radical feminist who (with her London Status of Women Action Group, LSWAG) in the early eighties, led campaigns to ban or otherwise censor the wide range of things she considered “pornography”. As a result, in those years, pornography “dominated the news” in London (in the words of then talk radio host Wayne McLean).

On March 18, 1983, McLean dedicated two hours of his radio program to the pornography issue. His guests were Hutchinson who advocated censorship, and Metz, who opposed censorship. McLean especially wanted to know how his guests defined “pornography”, what if any effects it has on people, and whether (or how) it should be banned or otherwise censored.

NOTES: All commercials have been removed from this recording, but none of the comments made by the host, guests, or callers. All news stories (which played intermittently), except one, have been removed. The one news story relates to a French bill proposing jail terms for publishing derogatory statements about women. Near the middle of the program, the show blocked broadcast of something that someone had said. The blocking takes the form of a few seconds of annoying buzzing and beeping.