An appeals court ruling has upheld a provision in Colorado’s two-year-old smoking ban that extends the ban to actors smoking on stage during a theatrical performance. Winston Churchill’s curmudgeonly stogie? Verboten. Virginia Woolf’s elegantly puffed cigarette? Snuffed out.

The inclusion of theatrical performances was no oversight. When the law was being debated in the State Assembly, an amendment was proposed to exempt performances. The State Assembly’s pink-lunged princes knocked the amendment down in a hail of “nay” votes. Reassuring to know your State Assembly is in the business of legislating what’s acceptable in art, isn’t it?

Some of Colorado’s theater community – never wallflowers, they – fought back and challenged the provision, arguing smoking was sometimes necessary for expressing emotion or illustrating a character trait. Two weeks ago, a Colorado appeals court ruled against them, claiming “smoking, by itself, is not sufficiently expressive to qualify for First Amendment protection.”

Fine. Pass a law prohibiting doctors from lighting up a Chesterfield while delivering a baby. You can even be a big sissy about it and forbid smoking in a bar while you suburban Prius-driving schmucks “slum it” at the local with a glass of chardonnay after the Norah Jones concert. But extending one’s delicate sensibilities to the theater is a step too far. Have we become that insulated from reality, that intolerant of risk, however minute, that we should deny Sir Winston his cigar for the two hours we spend in his big fat eminently quotable presence?

Theater is about more than feel-good productions that leave us humming familiar tunes on our way out the door. Art, or at least good art, should make us uncomfortable. If you can’t tolerate a swirl of tobacco smoke on a stage fifty feet away, perhaps you should just stay home and watch TV.