A Georgia legislator who wants to criminalize the act of manipulating photos to make others appear naked says he doesn’t know who Photoshopped his head onto a naked guy’s body.
State Rep. Earnest Smith is a cosponsor of House Bill 39, which would “provide that a person commits defamation when he or she causes an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction.” In other words, the definition of defamation would be expanded to include making any not-nude person appear nude in a photo.
“Nudity,” if you’re curious, “means a state of undress so as to expose the human male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttocks.” The law would go so far as to make it illegal to make someone appear to engage in “masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if such person is female, breasts.”
On Monday, Smith told Morris News Service that he had learned that someone had used computer software to make it appear as if he were posing nude, but that he “could not venture to give you an answer,” as to who was responsible.
A Google image search of “‘Earnest Smith’ and ‘naked'” shows a photo of Smith’s head, with a naked, blurred out body, as the first result. The site is Georgia Politics Unfiltered, where blogger Andre Walker readily admitted Monday that he “did exactly what Rep. Smith wants to make illegal. I pasted a picture of Smith’s head onto the body of a male porn star.”
Walker noted that “just like someone had the protected right to depict former President George W. Bush as a monkey, I have the protected right to Photoshop the head of any elected official onto the body of anything I chose.”
“I cannot believe Representative Earnest Smith thinks I’m insulting him by putting his head on the body of a well-built porn star,” he added.
Smith said that he’d heard no free speech objections to the bill, and that “No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right.”
Photo of “naked” Smith courtesy of Georgia Unfiltered. Photo of clothed Smith via State Rep. Earnest Smith/Facebook.