Posted on 02/13/2008 12:06:35 PM PST by trumandogz
A federal appeals court has struck down a seldom-enforced Texas law making it a crime to promote or sell sex toys.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case originally filed in federal court in Austin, found that the ban in the Texas penal code on selling or promoting obscene devices violates the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices, government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution," said the opinion in the case considered by a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court.
The opinion relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which struck down a Texas law prohibiting private consensual sex among members of the same sex. That case established a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.
The sex toys lawsuit arose in 2004 when Reliable Consultants Inc., which operates four retail stores in Texas under the names Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, sued Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle challenging his right to prosecute under the law, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail. PHE Inc., doing business as Adam and Eve, Inc., intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs and the State of Texas, represented by Attorney General Greg Abbott, entered the suit as a defendant.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel dismissed the suit after finding that there is no constitutionally protected right to publicly promote obscene devices. The plaintiffs then appealed.
The Texas statute criminalizes the selling, advertising, giving or lending of a device designed or marked for sexual stimulation, according to the opinion. In addition to Texas, three other states have a similar obscene-devices statute —Mississippi, Alabama and Virginia. Obscene-devices statutes in Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia have been struck down by courts.
Good. This is a total nanny state attitude that the government has the right to regulate something so private.
Please government. stay out of my bedroom.
Synonyms: “federal courts” and “Sodom and Gomorrha”
“Please government. stay out of my bedroom.”
They are already in there. The regulate every item in your bedroom, they even define what a bedroom is.
that’s birth control, not a sex toy.
>>Comment #2 removed by Moderator. There, saved The MOD some work.......<<
Don’t you generally object to the government regulating private and family matters without some compelling interest?
“and I sold your thermos to a Polish woman!”
So when was the last time violators of this law were sent to the penal system?
Don’t get me started. The government has no business in my private affairs.........
So, the state cannot pass a law against sex toys, but it can pass laws against having sex?
What kind of utter stupidity and hypocrisy is left?
If the “right to privacy” was a paper bag, the bottom would be ripped out and the sides torn open from having been over-stuffed with all manner of unrelated items.
I think it’s a stupid law, but I think it’s reading way too much into the 14th amendment to say a state government can’t do it.
Those who wish to repeal this stupid law should petition the voters, not the courts.
No it is not nanny state to keep a basic structure of decency and morality. No one’s true freedom is harmed by not being able to purchase indecent and trashy materials. This goes for child pornography, real or virtual, and even this sort of thing. You can live, work, marry, raise children, worship, etc..without buying nasties that serve no purpose but to degrade public morality and tempt perverted minds to act out their perversions. Clutter your mind with filth if you must. It is not the obligation of society to make sure you get to buy and sell visual aids and support materials for trashing up your mind and life. Some things are over the line for any civilized society. What is sad is that so few seem to understand that anymore.
Wait a minute....did they outlaw Cigars? That would piss off Clinton.
So you are against states being able to determine these things, and you'd like the feds to step in?
Hmmmmm. . . .
Now we know why Chirs Matthews had that feeling up his leg after all....
>>So, the state cannot pass a law against sex toys, but it can pass laws against having sex?
What kind of utter stupidity and hypocrisy is left?<<
I’m not convinced they can or should pass laws regulating sex between sane consenting adults.
For children we do have extra interest in protecting them and they by definition cannot form adult consent - so forbidding adults from sexually exploiting children is completely legitimate.
Seems to me that the Supreme Court need to weigh in to clarify the penal laws. :)
Seems to me that the Supreme Court need to weigh in to clarify the penal laws. :)
Agreed.
I don’t see anything in the federal constitution prohibiting the state of Texas from passing such a law.
There may be something in the Texas constitution that does. Or, the legislators passing such a law may get tossed out by the voters.
But the issue is federalism, not the merits of the law itself.
The government has made it illegal to have sex?
Somebody needs to tell me these things!
That will be fun to watch.
“Why do people not have a “Right to privacy” when taking drugs or smoking Marijuana?”
heck forget those, according to the dems you don’t even have a right to privacy in your medical files.
That was really funny.
“So when was the last time violators of this law were sent to the penal system?”
Well I’ll skip the obvious penal system jokes and just say my wife here in Texas went to a meeting of her girls club last month that had a sex toy distribuor there like it was tupperware night or something. I saw the pictures... Yuck.
Fear not — there is a cucumber, banana and wahing machine exemption in the law!
We could get to the point in this country where sex toys are unregulated, and guns are banned.
Yup, the antidote to Viagra...
Oh look! Another liberal who wants to use the federal government to tell me what to do!
As Scalia warned, this is the residual of Lawrence v. Texas...
What if the sex toy has a political message on it? Does it fall under McCain/Finegold?
Here’s the problems that arise when the Supreme Court makes up things in the Constitution that are not stated:
The Supreme Court rules that the “right to privacy” (made up) in the Constitution prohibits a State from banning certain sex toys.
The Supreme Court rules that the State can prohibit people from having certain kinds of sex, with certain people, in certain places, etc. According to the Supreme Court, the Constitution prohibits consenting adults from strip dancing and prostitution.
So, let’s get this straight.
According to the Supreme Court, the Constitution prohibits States from banning vibrators, YOU HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO VIBRATORS, BUTT PLUGS, DING DONG RINGS, etc, but you don’t have a right to show someone your boobies?
Come on.
>>No it is not nanny state to keep a basic structure of decency and morality. No one’s true freedom is harmed by not being able to purchase indecent and trashy materials.<<
If you really believe that, you should get the constitution changed to put limits on all the bill of rights saying that those rights can only be used in ways the majority finds to be moral. So that if the majority feels your speech or gun ownership or this message board is not moral then they can all be banned.
I don’t how you’d do that an not call it a nanny state, though.
>> This goes for child pornography, real or virtual, and even this sort of thing.<<
Directly harming children is different. Since the cannot form adult consent, any adult sexual contact with a child is rape. Photographing it is exploiting child rape. That’s a completely different subject from whether an adult can be prohibited from buying a vibrator because someone thinks its wrong.
Sex toys? Prove it, Nanny Government!
>>Good. This is a total nanny state attitude that the government has the right to regulate something so private.
Hmmmmm. . . .<<
“State” in this case was used to mean government in general.
I’m sorry I was unclear.
Sex toys? The government is outlawing old men marrying 20 something surgically enhanced airheads?
I would not support laws against the sale of sex toys, but I don’t see anything in the 14th Amendment that pertains to this issue. If anyone does, let me know.
On a purely moral level I’m not sure that couples are harming their morality if they resort to battery operated game playing. Such things are not addressed in the Song of Solomon.
I totally agree; it’s a reach - a huge one - for the court to see this as a 14th Amendment issue.
It’s really NOT anyone’s business what happens in someone ELSE’s bedroom. Period. By creating a law PREVENTING the sale of something ‘for the bedroom’ then the government IS overstepping it’s bounds.
Sorry, I recall the Declaration making the statement “the pursuit of happiness” as being an inalienable right.
You want to empower the government idiots and take away privacy, right to choose , and freedom from the individual . You are a liberal.
It’s up to the individual to purchase or not purchase what some other individual chooses to sell. If you don’t want to purchase it then put a filter on the internet or don’t go to those kinds of stores.
Perhaps. But that is a policy question to be addressed at the ballot box, not a constitutional question to be addressed in the courts.
Glad you're not the Decider® on this one.
This goes for child pornography, real or virtual, and even this sort of thing.
You're wound so tight you can equate child pornography with an adult buying a vibrator.
“...Photographing it is exploiting child rape...”
But this does not address Ghost’s point about “virtual”. Should computer generated images or cartoons of child pornography be outlawed? I would argue they should be illegal but differentiated from photograhic representation which is obviously a more serious offense.
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