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The circumstances that lead to the creation of The Minneapolis Pornography Ordinance involved a belief by people living in powderhorn park that the rise in the pornography industry in that neighborhood was hurting its value and charm. The Neighborhood Pornography Task force was formed to fight angst this encrouchment. Most of the materials for sale in the pornography book and video shops violated the standards for obcenity made by the supreme court. In 1973 Miller vs. CA defined obcenity with in the context of pornography as being obscene if it lacked any serious artistic or social value, protrayed sexual conduct in a blatantly offensive way and was considered obscene using contemporary community standards. The courts also created difficult procedures for taking civil or criminal action agnst pornographers to aviod too much censorship. Pornographers also had good lawyers, so people agnst pornography had trouble fighting it. They city tried to keep porn away from residential neighborhoods with zoning laws, but they were considered unconstitutional. The Neighborhood Task Force got together with MacKinnon and Dwokin who were professors at The University of Minnesota (Mackinnon of law and Dworkin of women's studies). They co-taught a class in the law school about pronography. The Neighborhood Task force encouraged them to testifyin front of the city's zoning and planning commette about how pronography affects the local community. A member of the city council liked their testimony and told them to write an anti-pornography ordinance for the city. They made this ordinace an additional section on the Civil Rights Ordinance, so it took a civil rights approach on pornography, and considered it an oppressive form ofpower that violates women's rights and encourages sexual violence.

MacKinnon and Dworkin are radical femminists. They see sexuality as a social construct and reject porn because they see it as a way men can institutionalize their power. They think that porn implies an inbalance of power and exploits women. Radical femminist believe that it is a women's rights to be safe from the harm of porn should take precedence over the first amendment. Liberal femminists on the other hand, don't like porn, but they see censorship as directly violating the first amendment. They are willing to tolerate porn to protect the first amendment.

Aside from radical femminists and the Neighborhood Task Force, the ordinace was also supported by conservatives. They however supported it because of moral reasons, while radical femminists supported it becasue they thought it degraded women and supported sexual violence which they see as political as well as moral reasons.

In addition to liberla femminists, it was opposed by other femminists that were afraid it would support government-enforced sexual repression. They feared the distinction between public ad private would be blurred. They saw sex as private and didn't want to support the government making laws about choices of sexual behavior. They also didn't want to support Dworkin and MacKinnon becasue they didn't share the view that hetrosexuality is anti-femminist. Members of the male gay community were agnst the ordinace because they thought it threatened sexual expression of gay men. They needed places where they could feel safe and where they could recognize eachother and the porn shop was one of those places. Lesbiens who were radical femminists however, did support it. Civil Libertarians including the MCLU were agnst the ordinance. Matt Stark, the director of the MCLU siad that he didn't like that the hearings were biased. The audience was unwilling to hear people who were agnst the ordinance. The pornography industry was obviously agnst the ordinace, but didn't worry about it too much becasue they felt if it was passed they would be able to get around it or it would be considered unconstitutional.
The Minnapolis political climate in the 1980s had a lot of progressives who were Democratic-Farmer-Laborers. The conservatives in Minnapolis were moderate republicans. Fraser, the mayor was a progressive politition who was a strong supporter of the first amendment. During the hearings, although conservatives on the committee were involved, conservatives in the community were shut out of the process by radical femminists. They didn't get very much notice about the hearings. The hearings mostly involved testimonies for the ordinance to get passed. Those that did testify agnst it were booed out of the hearing. The council voted quickly on the ordinance so it could be voted on before next term but, the Civil Rights Comission (who would be in charge of seeing cases about it if the ordinance passed) didn't have time to look it over carfully. The council also didn't have time to review the constitutionality of the ordinance. However the council passed it and it went to be signed or vetoed by the mayor. The mayor vetoed it becasue he felt it violated the first amendment of the constitution.