For the first time, Canada's child pornography laws are being used against fictional writing, and self publishing a work of fiction is being labelled distribution of child pornography. John Robin Sharpe, the Vancouver man accused in the case currently in trial, is arguing that the works in question are literature, not child porn.

His lawyer, Paul Burstein, wants me to take the stand in his defence.

The package of Sharpe's work arrived with instructions that I could neither copy nor show the material to anyone. When my involvement with the case was concluded, the papers were to be returned to Burstein's office, where they would be destroyed. Finally, there were words regarding the strange concept of "artistic merit". For the purposes of the court, "artistic merit" doesn't have to mean that the work is a great work of art, but only that it employs the attributes of, in this case, literature. In other words, does the work employ literary devices such as character development, allusion, dialogue, irony -- or is it simply a vehicle for a paedophile to share his fantasies?

I'm not going to provide a critique of Sharpe's writing here. To attempt an unbiased commentary on his fiction would be impossible, given the circumstances by which I came to read the work. It is difficult for critics to comment on any cultural creation referring to the taboo issue of children and sexuality, and this is doubly true in a case as embroiled in media frenzy as Sharpe's.

Sharpe has been a rare vocal proponent of the prerogative to possess child pornography as guaranteed under constitutional provisions for free speech. He filed a constitutional challenge in response to the charges against him. When the BC Supreme Court found in his favour, predictable moral outrage ensued, and death threats made their way to both the judge and the defendant. Eventually, the case came before the Supreme Court of Canada, where Canada's confusing child pornography law was upheld. The court did make some minor provisions permitting privately owned photos and videos of, say, children taking a bath, and allowing for the ownership of material created privately and not for distribution (such as writing in notebooks).

A month after receiving the infamous package, I got the call from Burstein I had been dreading. He wanted to know -- What did I think of the work? Would I go to Vancouver to testify on behalf of a man reviled across the country?

Reluctantly, I confessed that I did not believe these works should be subject to criminal charges, and that in my opinion they did possess sufficient use of literary convention so as to indicate, for the purposes of the court, "artistic merit."

As much as I find difficulty with the morality and motivations of Sharpe, I agreed to go to Vancouver. My reasoning was simple: Someone should defend even Sharpe's right to create and publish works of fiction. And if not me, then who? After all, would writers come to Sharpe's defence the way they flocked to support the Ottawa teen thrown in jail for writing a short story involving high school mayhem? Would Sharpe find the support that Toronto artist Eli Langer had, after child pornography charges were filed relating to a series of provocative works showing naked children perched on the laps of adults?

Sharpe, a retired city planner, has little support in the cultural community. He's a fiction writer who writes about men having sex with boys and men torturing boys in a sexual context. This is difficult to support at best, particularly when the work is self published and comes with provocative titles like Boy Abuse that suggest it is prurient detail, not character development or plot, that makes up the primary focus of the writing. Throw in the fact that Sharpe is also accused of possessing a large collection of photographs, some of which illustrate the fantasies found in his writing, and he becomes a pariah even to those few who might have been willing to uphold his right to pen and publish fictional pornography.

Is it any wonder that, as the trial approached, I began to have trouble sleeping? I kept waking up in the middle of the night and wondering: Will I get death threats? Will my writing career tank? Will my magazine have its funding revoked? Will I help a child pornographer get off the hook?

In the mornings, I told myself it was my duty to go, because, let's face it, I couldn't think of any other member of the cultural community who would.

By this point, Burstein had left several messages to arrange my travel. I kept putting off calling him back, running my role in the trial through my head: Okay, its simple. I take the stand and state that as much as I dislike Sharpe's themes and premises, the work nevertheless employs the standards and conventions of literature.

But I couldn't help looking beyond that moment. What is really achieved by such testimony? I would, implicitly, be lending credence to the notion that courts should be able to censure works of imagination.And yet, the idea of a court deciding on what we can and cannot say in a fictional context is anathema to me. Decisions based on censorship and moral outrage are often made when courts start meddling with literature and art. By going to Vancouver, I would be a reluctant but willing participant in a process that is bad for artists, bad for culture and -- despite the fervour of those who would ban all references to children in a sexual context -- bad for Canadian society.

So I finally called back Paul Burstein. It was the first day of the trial and I reached him late at night via his cell phone in Vancouver. He sounded exhausted, but he patiently listened to what I had to say. I explained that I was willing to come to Vancouver. But only if I could testify that, as the editor of Broken Pencil, the magazine of independent writing and publishing in Canada, I believe all works of fiction -- regardless of their quality and how objectionable society might find their content -- possess "artistic merit". I told Burstein that to comment specifically on Sharpe's work would be to legitimize a system in which experts testify and judges decide -- is this art or child pornography deserving of a jail term? The consequences of participating and lending credence to such a system outweigh any value there might be inmaking the point that Sharpe's work, specifically, has "artistic" merit.

At the end of my statement, Burstein politely declined my services as an expert witness, and thanked me for my time.

He hung up, leaving me listening to the buzzing of the empty phone line and wondering if I had acted out of moral cowardice, or moral conviction.

I may never know the answer. The Sharpe case has demonstrated to me just how vulnerable abstract morality, along with art and free expression, is to the dilemmas of real life. Despite the ambiguities of the Sharpe case and a challenge that reached the highest levels of jurisprudence, Canada's child pornography law remains far too vague and broad. Sharpe may be someone with serious problems motivated more by obsession than art, but if his fictional writings are criminalized,there is no guarantee that future creators dealing with issues of children and sex will be protected from his fate. Morally, children should be free from sexual exploitation. But, morally, citizens should be free to express themselves in a fictional context without fear that publishing their writings will result incriminal charges. We may not like what people want to write about, but if repressing that writing means we are returning to the days when judges arbitrarily rule onthe artistic merit of works of imagination,then the courts have overstepped their moral bounds, and the law has trounced what should be sacrosanct.

My reluctance to take part in the process is, I believe, justifiable. But to Sharpe -- who may soon find himself in jail for, in part, penning objectionable stories -- my rationalizations will no doubt provide little comfort.