http://www.slate.com/id/2185623/entry/2185627/ On Feb. 13, sex-toy retailers in Texas rejoiced when a federal appeals court ruledâ??just in time for Valentine's Dayâ??that a Texas prohibition against the sale of dildos and pocket pussies violated the 14th Amendment.
According to the Texas (ahem) penal code, it is forbidden to sell or to advertise an artificial penis or vagina "primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." The statute makes an exception for instances in which the purchase meets a "medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative, or law enforcement" need. Even so, in Reliable Consultants v. Ronnie Earle, the normally conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ban on the grounds that it violated the right of ordinary citizens "to engage in private intimate conduct in the home without government intrusion."
One of only four states banning sexual doodads (the other three are Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama), Texas is not about to take this insult lying down. Last week, state Attorney General Greg Abbott petitioned the appellate court to reconsider the matter en banc (see exerpts below and on the following three pages). Abbott wrote that, if permitted to stand, the court's decision may "invite â?¦ challenges to previously-uncontroversial criminal prohibitions" on sexual practices such as "consensual adult incest or bigamy" (Page 4).
Now, I'm all for the rights of an individual to buy a sex toy. I'm a fair bit prudish, so they're not really my thing, personally, but if an adult wants to purchase such a thing, who am I to say otherwise?
What I want to do discuss is the way we phrase our objections to other's sex acts and this is a pretty good example. You'll notice the appeals court overturned this law because it infringed the right of others "to engage in private intimate conduct in the home without government intrusion."
Now, everyone's going to jump all over this Greg Abbott fellow as a right-wing nutso, but he makes a good point that if the government cannot step in when it comes to one's "private intimate conduct in [their] home," then we pretty much have legal precedence to wipe out all our laws against incest, bigamy, and bestiality. Rick Santorum made this same point a few years back, and people ignored it because he's a bigot, but it's a solid logical, legal argument.
So, I guess my point I'd like ones to weigh in on is what objective standard should a society use to decide when the society's right to outlaw a sexual act overrides individuals' rights to partake in it? What considerations should be taken? Discuss.
