In the Ginzburg et al. v. United States case of 1965, Ralph Ginzburg and others were charged with violating federal obscenity laws by mailing pornographic material through the U.S Postal Service. The defendants argued that their First Amendment rights had been violated as they believed that the materials in question were not obscene but rather a form of expression protected under this amendment. However, the Supreme Court ruled against them in a 5-4 decision stating that while erotic content was indeed protected under free speech, it did not extend to obscenely explicit content which only served to incite lustful thoughts without any redeeming social value or artistic merit. This ruling set an important precedent for future cases involving pornography and freedom of speech.

In the dissenting opinion for GINZBURG et al. v. UNITED STATES, Justice Hugo Black argued that the majority's decision was a dangerous departure from established First Amendment principles protecting freedom of speech and press. He contended that by focusing on the commercial intent behind distributing potentially obscene material, rather than its content alone, the Court had effectively created an entirely new category of unprotected speech based solely on business motives - something he believed to be constitutionally unsound. Furthermore, he criticized their reliance on community standards in determining obscenity as it could lead to inconsistent rulings across different jurisdictions and infringe upon individual rights to free expression.