Alabama sex toys - NO! Guns and virility drugs - YES!

[drunk_bohemian]

The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review the constitutionality of Alabama's law banning the sale of sex toys.

From USA Today: "The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to review the constitutionality of a state law banning the sale of sex toys, rejecting an appeal that said consumers have a right to sexual privacy

Comments

[semerkhet]

So, I completely agree that it is totally absurd to criminalize sex toys while encouraging guns and Viagra. On the other hand, I'm not completely in disagreement with the statement of the Appeals court when they said, "If the people of Alabama in time decide that prohibition on sex toys is misguided, or ineffective, or just plain silly, they can repeal the law and be finished with the matter." I'm not sure that the Alabama law on sex toys is any more or less constitutional than the ban on marijuana. They're both silly, but it may be true that it's not up to the courts to do away with those laws. Besides, anyone with an internet connection has a very easy way around this law.

[drunk_bohemian]

The ACLU argued that the law violated people's constitutional right to privacy and personal autonomy. The problem is that the law does not ban self gratification but simply the sale of an item.

What I don't understand is the comment "if we today craft a new fundamental right by which to invalidate the law, we would be bound to give that right full force and effect in all future cases including, for example, those involving adult incest, prostitution, obscenity, and the like." Purchasing a sex toy doesn't hurt anyone in the way that hiring a prostitute or allowing incest could.

I just don't like a judicial system that allows limitations of your personal freedoms.

[semerkhet]

I didn't mention it in my response for some reason, but I agree with you about their tortured logic about how protecting the ability to purchase sex toys leads to protecting incest, prostitution, etc. It's the same silly hyperbole that gets used in railing against gay marriage because it will supposedly open up the door to people marrying their dog, horse, daughter, pet guinea pig, and so on. People are taught from an early age to be disgusted by sex and by their own bodies. Until that changes, things like this are going to crop up regularly.

[wi_c]

Hell, I've long thought that sex toys should be mandatory. The bored judges and backwards legislators would be too preoccupied to go around taking the plastic dicks out of people's hands.

[binro33]

'On the other hand, if we today craft a new fundamental right by which to invalidate the law, we would be bound to give that right full force and effect in all future cases including, for example, those involving adult incest, prostitution, obscenity, and the like.' "

I don't see the connection at all.