MADALA J pornography cases to meet the particular circumstances. In Stanley v Georgia,141 the Supreme Court struck down a Georgia law which outlawed the private possession of obscene material on the ground that the State’s justifications for the law - primarily that obscenity would poison the minds of its viewers - were inadequate. The court recognised that the statute impinged upon the right to receive information in the privacy of one’s home. Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the Court, stated: If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.142 However, in New York v Ferber,143 the Supreme Court upheld a New York statute outlawing the distribution of child pornography for compelling state interests in protecting children. In Osborne v Ohio,144 the Court upheld an Ohio statute proscribing the possession and viewing of child pornography on the basis of the state’s compelling interests in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors and in destroying the market for the exploitative use of children by penalising those who possess and view the offending materials. It is this elasticity that allowed the American courts to develop different principles in response to differing circumstances. [107] Although the issue of child pornography may not be directly in issue in the present cases, and although it may even be the subject of litigation on another day, it is relevant to the question 141 394 US 557 (1969). 142 Stanley v Georgia (supra) at 565. 143 458 US 747 (1982). 144 495 US 103 (1990). 59