There isn't a bright line between the merely offensive and the "obscene". Even the supreme court couldn't do any better than "I'll know it when I see it". And for that matter, different cultures define obscenity in very different ways. Which one is the objectively correct way?
Expressing an opinion is not obscenity. Showing images for provocation is obescenity. The I know it when I see it argument is ridiculous. The Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. California that obscenity is content that is without socially redeeming value to that which lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Now you can argue the points of what has literary value, but the written word has always had literary value, no matter how grotesque.
If I draw a stick-figure and label it The Prophet Muhammad should that be banned? After all my drawing skills are terrible and it is likely to provoke people. But that doesn't seem very free to me.
