The Man Who Went to Jail for Being a Freethinker:
It is hard to believe, but 130 years ago, you could go to jail for blasphemy and obscenity in the United States. In fact, in 1879 the publisher of a small magazine for freethinkers called “Truth Seeker” was arrested and sentenced to prison for 13 months for obscenity.
The jailed publisher, a man named D.M. Bennett (1818-1882), didn’t think seeking truth was obscene, so he started a petition campaign that went all the way to the White House. But to no avail. Bennett ended up serving his full term in the penitentiary, where he nearly died due to the harsh conditions.
It seems that Bennett had not only affronted society by publishing pamphlets such as “Open Letter to Jesus Christ” and articles on the crimes and immorality of Christian ministers, but worse, Bennett had offended U.S. Post Office Special Agent Anthony Comstock, a religious fanatic and member of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock was militant about keeping what he termed “obscenity” out of the mails—and that included anti-religious publications. Bennett died a few years after his imprisonment and was buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn … at a time in history when to speak against religion was considered “obscene.”