Marilyn Manson has apparently had it with conservative cultural bureaucrats trying to prohibit him and his band from performing at public venues. When the New Jersey Meadowlands, a major venue in the New York City area, refused to sell tickets for Ozzy Osbourne's multi-act "Ozz-Fest" on June 15th unless the Manson band was dropped from the bill, Manson got mad. Then he got a lawyer, who on Monday filed a first amendment lawsuit against the Meadowlands, which was joined by Osbourne himself on Thursday, for violating the group's right to free speech. Meadowlands officials were expected to file a response by late Friday, and a judge will probably rule on the case this coming Tuesday.

Manson's lawyer, first amendment specialist Paul Cambria, also fired off a cease and desist warning to the veteran anti-rock activist Donald Wildmon, head of the Mississippi based "American Family Association," which Manson charges has been spreading libelous lies about his group through its Internet

web site, its journal, and its automated telephone information service. Among other things, the American Family Association presents harrowing affidavits by what it claims are teenage concert-goers, none of whom are actually named. In one such purported affidavit, an Oklahoma City teenager claims to have seen fans following Manson's orders to kill puppies and kittens, Manson performing oral sex with a little boy on-stage, and Manson's security guards handing out liquid ecstasy to 10-year-old fans. As it happens, we were at the Manson concert in Oklahoma City last February, at which the security guards were all locals, not Manson employees, and at which none of those alleged acts actually occurred. Wildmon, responding in a letter, now claims he wasn't responsible for these aspersions, that it was all the fault of a subsidiary group.

Cambria, Manson's lawyer, says he's not buying that. He notes that the Wildmon group's web site has been taken down, and that the phone service now solicits

information about Manson. Cambria also says he preparing a lawsuit against the group. Wildmon has not returned MTV News phone calls.