Dog Fighting, Videos, and the First Amendment

Okay, this is a very tough one for me. I absolutely detest dog fighting and the people who are involved in it. But at the same time, as a quasi-journalist, I treasure the free speech protection of the First Amendment.
So a newspaper article "Brutal videos protected?" about Robert J. Stevens, convicted of violating a ban against trafficking in depictions of animal cruelty, is a hard call for me. He was convicted for selling videos on the "history and status of pit bulls," including dog fighting. He was not involved in the dog fighting, I don't think was even present at any of the fights, but he did collect and publish video of them, with his own commentary attached.
The 1999 law was enacted originally against "crush" videos showing mainly women crushing small animals with their own feet.
Stevens' conviction was overturned and the law struck down by a federal appeals court. It is scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court.
Is video of dogfighting so vile that it should not be protected under the First Amendment? Should it be allowed for educational purposes only, or as a profit-making venture? And where do you draw the line? Is a brief clip enough to initiate a lawsuit, or does dog fighting have to be the main subject matter of the video?
IN my own "I wish this were how things really are" world, this wouldn't be an issue because no one would ever consider buying a video of dog fighting. But that's far from a real world solution. Apparently Mr. Stevens has been making a fair amount of money from his video efforts, which also include dogs hunting wild boar.
Are there any parallels to be drawn between this and child pornography? If you allow one, do you have to allow the other? If you ban one, does that have any impact on banning the other? I know there are people out there who rail against public outcry over cruelty to animals, saying that we should save our concern for our own human species. Well, I certainly don't buy into that one.
If I were sitting on the Supreme Court when this was brought forward, what would I do? I think I would have to search deep in my soul and, in the end, rule for First Amendment protection. I don't like that choice particularly, but I find it very difficult to draw lines between degrees of heinousness. And I would hope that karma would have something to do with the lives of anyone benefiting from dog fighting, be it with live dogs or via video.

Michael Vick Rises Again

So, Michael Vick played in an NFL preseason game yesterday. And the media coverage notes that there was very little in the way of protests. I'm not going to debate here whether or not this person should have a second chance in the rarefied air of an NFL quarterback. What I do want to make note of is the way the media is now referring to matters when discussing Vick.
In all the hours and hours of discussion before last night's game addressing whether or not Vick should be allowed to rejoin the league, I consistently heard his transgression referred to as "being involved in dogfighting." This is what really frosted me. Vick wasn't just walking down the street with his pet pit bull and got dragged into a dogfighting den. He had a kennel of pits specificially for that purpose, as far as I could tell from the original media coverage, he arranged some of the dogfights, and there is no doubt that he was involved in killing dogs in rather hideous fashion.
So he was just "involved in dogfighting." And I would like that point -- a pretty major one to my way of thinking -- remembered and restated when discussions revolve around Vick and his "redemption."
And I don't listen to hours and hours of sports broadcasting, but I am pretty interested, and I never heard any announcer refer to the many studies that link cruelty to animals with other crimes such as family abuse and even serial killing. I would really like the media to give this transgression the weight it deserves.
In all the discussion, I haven't heard anything about what Vick is doing to redeem himself. There was a brief flurry of speculation about him involving himself with PETA (wouldn't that be a wonderful thing--read that with heavy sarcasm), but that didn't fly, and I haven't heard anything since about him donating any of his salary to animal welfare or volunteering to clean out kennels at a local shelter, or anything like that.
I'm glad there wasn't a media circus upon his return to the game, but I'm very unhappy with the current coverage. It seems that he "made a mistake" and everyone deserves a second chance. Maybe so, but giving that second chance shouldn't involve any reversion of history. Vick did things far worse than anyone is currently publicly giving him credit for. And that's wrong, no matter how you feel about his future football career.