Some of y'all might remember my post on Texas' outdated sex toy laws. I'm sure it had comments, but that must have been back when I was using Haloscan for commenting.
While I was up in Fort Worth a federal appeals court overturned a portion of the laws:
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.
[...]
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."
Legislating morality is one of the things I can't stand. I don't believe that it's the government's job to tell you how to live your life as long as your actions don't have a negative impact on other people.
Part of me wants to do a big, long post about why government has no business legislating morality, but I'm not sure if that's a firestorm I want to ignite.
And, yes, I did resist the urge to post a picture of a humongous dildo with this post. Aint you proud of me?
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