The Eyes of Texas Are No Longer Upon Your Dildo
A peek above our garters to kendallmck for bringing this to our attention.
Angela K. Brown of the AP (via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) brings us this orgasmic news:
FORT WORTH, Texas — A federal appeals court has overturned a Texas statute outlawing sex toy sales, leaving Alabama as the state with the strictest ban on such devices.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by up to two years in jail, violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment on the right to privacy.
Companies that own Dreamer’s and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve, sued in Austin federal court in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.
In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between gay couples.
“Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct,” the appeals judges wrote. “The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence.”
I whole-heartedly share and endorse kendallmck’s reation:
Holy fucking shit. I just realized that THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, IN 2008, AND WE’RE CELEBRATING THE LEGALIZATION OF MASTURBATION.
WTFFFFFFFFFFFF?????!!!!!
Let’s all go have an orgy.
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to have that orgy in Alabama or Mississippi. Sorry ladies, y’all will have to keep using your cell phones on vibrate… until they outlaw that function there, that is.
From whence came the art:
And somewhere in heaven, Miss Molly (Ivins) is applauding.
It's about damn time that the Fifth Circuit joined the 21st Century...considering how conservative that court has been, it took some real balls to make that kind of ruling....or just plain damn common sense that you just can't stand between a woman and her sex toy.
Of course, this will fuel all the right-wingnut flamethrowers about "liberal judicial activists"...except that most of the Fifth were Reagan/Bush appointees, I believe??
Anthony
Miss Molly would be shocked
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Couple things-
The newspaper article above doesn't mention the actual name or docket number of the case, and I'm having trouble finding the opinion at the Fifth circuit's website, so I can't tell exactly who said what in the ruling. It was handed down on February 12th, so it should be there, I'm just not recognizing the case by its official name.
Also, although this is great news that the Fifth pulled it's head out of its collective butt, and pulled Texas lawmakers out of Texas panty drawers, remember that the Eleventh went the other way. I'm not optimistic of the results should the decision reach the Supremes in that court's current state. Hopefully it won't make it there until sanity is restored to the majority on that bench.
As you point out, however, the Fifth is a very conservatively appointed court, so maybe I'm wrong about the SCotUS as well.
Of the sixteen judges currently seated on the Fifth circuit, they break down like this :
1 appointed by President Carter
4 appointed by President Reagan
3 appointed by President Bush the elder
3 appointed by President Clinton
5 appointed by President Bush the younger
1 empty seat with a nomination pending
Let me amend this comment for accuracy to add that there are five Senior Judges listed as not active, and they break down like this:
1 appointed by President Carter (Judge Reavley, see following comment)
3 appointed by President Reagan
1 appointed by President Bush the elder
Kisses,
JanieBelle
Dream a little dream of me.
Found it
OK, I started going through, looking at every single decision handed down recently, and here it is:
Reliable Consultants vs Abbott , docket number 06-51067. (.pdf)
Reavley, Barksdale, Prado
Reavley (listed as not active since 1990?) was appointed by President Carter, Barksdale was appointed by the elder President Bush, and Prado by the younger.
Kisses,
JanieBelle
Dream a little dream of me.
Court tracker
Wouldn't it be cool to have a page on this site that tracked courts and their sex-related or privacy-related decisions? Is there a blog out there that does that? I know lots of us write about decisions as they happen, but is there anyone that puts that information all together in a neat court-by-court / issue by issue format?
...because public space really matters!
Elizabeth
Good Idea
I dont know of such a place, Elizabeth. It would be a great idea to have a little legal corner here that tracks just these types of cases.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars usually mentions them, although his range and scope are much wider.
His take on this case is here .
Kisses,
JanieBelle
Dream a little dream of me.
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