On Saturday night, a man in St. Petersburg, Fla., planned to take his own life. At the last minute, however, someone stepped in before he could follow through with his plan.

Normally, this wouldn’t have the least bit of newsworthiness in Iowa. But in this instance, the man chose to share his death with thousands of concertgoers and millions of Internet viewers. And the “someone” who stopped him just happened to be Florida’s attorney general, along with the city of St. Petersburg.

In one of the most publicized stunts of all time, heavy metal band Hell on Earth announced a month ago its plans to host the assisted suicide of a terminally ill man during one of its concerts. Immediately, city and state officials protested and passed an ordinance banning the stunt.

The band refused to comply, saying they would proceed from a secret location and broadcast the suicide on its Web site, regardless of the law. If it weren’t for an attack on the band’s Web site that shut it down and most likely stopped the suicide in the process, the event probably would have gone on as planned.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s sick. It’s disturbing. It’s a perfect example of the levels people will stoop to just for a little bit of self-serving attention.

Unfortunately, that’s simply not true.

Don’t get me wrong — anyone who would actually pay money to watch the suicide is definitely sick and disturbed. But the band is not as much at fault as the public and the Florida government would like to make it seem.

Billy Tourtelot, the lead singer and only member of Hell on Earth to voice his opinion on the issue, claims to be a long-time supporter of assisted suicide. The key word here is “assisted” — this isn’t an attempt to glorify the pointless, selfish act of taking your own life. They’re not putting a 17-year-old kid who was just dumped by his girlfriend onstage with a shotgun.

This is a terminally ill man whose life has been reduced to a regimen of pain medication, doctor’s bills and the knowledge of knowing his life will end very soon. He has both the right and the choice of when and how to end his existence. Whether he does it in a hospital bed or at a concert is irrelevant — he can make his own decisions.

Instead of allowing people to decide for themselves on the issue of assisted suicide, Florida has taken away the rights of everyone involved, including the audience, the band and, most importantly, the terminally ill man himself.

As despicable as it may be, showing a suicide onstage is both a political statement and performance art. It may not be as socially acceptable as Yoko Ono’s famed clothes-cutting performances, but the intent is the same: Artistic expression of an issue helps both the performers and the audience understand and internalize a political viewpoint. The political viewpoint in this case just happens to involve the touchy subject of death.

Taking away the right to express a viewpoint — especially an expression that was only made illegal as the state’s last defense — is censorship, plain and simple. It may be unpopular, but Hell on Earth’s decision is backed by the First Amendment. It may be the same amendment that has allowed Larry Flynt to degrade women for decades and Ozzy Osbourne to eat bats onstage, but it’s also the amendment that allows you to speak your mind and bring about change without fear of persecution, imprisonment, or — gasp! — even death.