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Federal Court OKs Ban on Sale of Sex Toys
(submitted by gekkogecko)
By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A federal appeals court Wednesday
upheld a 1998 Alabama law banning the sale of sex toys
in the state, ruling the Constitution doesn't include
a right to sexual privacy.
In a 2-1 decision overturning a lower court, a
three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals (news - web sites) said the state has a right
to police the sale of devices that can be sexually
stimulating.
The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites),
which represented merchants and users who sued to
overturn the law, asked the appeals court to rule that
the Constitution included a right to sexual privacy
that the ban on sex toy sales would violate. The court
declined, indicating such a decision could lead down
other paths.
"If the people of Alabama in time decide that a
prohibition on sex toys is misguided, or ineffective,
or just plain silly, they can repeal the law and be
finished with the matter," the court said.
"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."
Attorney General Troy King said the court "has done
its duty" in upholding the law.
Sherri Williams, an adult novelty retailer who filed
the lawsuit with seven other women and two men, called
the decision "depressing."
"I'm just very disappointed that courts feel
Alabamians don't have the right to purchase adult
toys. It's just ludicrous," said Williams, who lives
in Florida and owns Pleasures stores in Huntsville and
Decatur. "I intend to pursue this."
U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith Jr. of Huntsville
has twice ruled against the state law, deciding in
2002 that the sex toy ban violated the constitutional
right to privacy. The state appealed both times and
won.
The state law bans only the sale of sex toys, not
their possession, the court said, and it doesn't
regulate other items including condoms or virility
drugs. "The Alabama statute proscribes a relatively
narrow bandwidth of activity," U.S. Circuit Judge
Stanley F. Birch Jr. wrote.
Circuit Judge Rosemary Barkett disagreed, saying the
decision was based on the "erroneous foundation" that
adults don't have a right to consensual sexual
intimacy and that private acts can be made a crime in
the name of promoting "public morality."
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