Court Leaves Alabama Sex Toy Ban Intact

In a victory for tough anti-obscenity laws, the US Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to Alabama’s ban on the sale of “adult toys”.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a challenge to Alabama’s ban on the sale of sex toys, ending a nine-year legal battle and sending a warning to store owners to clean off their shelves.

An adult-store owner had asked the justices to throw out the law as an unconstitutional intrusion into the privacy of the bedroom. But the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, leaving intact a lower court ruling that upheld the law.

Sherri Williams, owner of Pleasures stores in Huntsville and Decatur, said she was disappointed, but plans to sue again on First Amendment free speech grounds.

“My motto has been they are going to have to pry this vibrator from my cold, dead hand. I refuse to give up,” she said.

Alabama’s anti-obscenity law, enacted in 1998, bans the distribution of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value.”

The law does not ban the possession of sex toys, and it doesn’t regulate other items, including condoms or virility drugs. Residents may legally purchase sex toys out of state for use in Alabama, or they may buy sexual devices in Alabama that have a “bona fide medical” purpose.

Similar laws have been upheld in Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas, but struck down in Louisiana, Kansas and Colorado, said Mark Lopez, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney in New York who worked on the Alabama case until recently.

The Alabama attorney general’s office immediately notified county district attorneys, who are responsible for enforcement. The attorney general planned to ask a federal judge to lift an injunction preventing the law from being enforced.

Removing the injunction should take a couple of days, said Chris Bence, spokesman for Attorney General Troy King.

Store owners should be aware that the law takes effect once the injunction is lifted, Bence said.

Williams had asked the Supreme Court to review a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found Alabama’s law was not affected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision knocking down Texas’ sodomy law.

The Texas sodomy law involved private conduct, while the Alabama law regulated commercial activity, the appeals court judges said. Public morality was an insufficient government interest in the Texas case but was sufficient in the Alabama case, they said.

Williams called the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the law “further evidence of religion in politics.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court said states can legislate morality,” she said. “I don’t feel it is fair to the people who do not agree with the morality of the Legislature.”

She also predicted future court battles over which sexual devices are legal to sell as medical devices.

Lopez said adult stores may be cautious about pushing the issue of what constitutes a medical device because the law has strong penalties: Up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine for a first offense. A second offense carries a prison sentence of one to 10 years.

 

 

 

Porn Compared to Toxic Sludge

An article in the National Catholic Register takes aim at pornography and its impacts.  it asks the question that most people would rather not have to address:

When toxic sludge leeches into neighborhoods, we demand the polluter stop and clean up his mess. What about the sludge of pornography?

The article points out some of the impacts of pornography on our community:

 Pornography threatens marriage and the family by distorting the very meaning of sexuality. It threatens women by reducing them to objects of male pleasure, and blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t. It threatens young people by stoking appetites that are increasingly difficult to satisfy. It abuses freedom of speech, because this freedom that was meant to be at the service of public debate, is now being identified with unbridled obscenity.

And it leads to other crimes. In conjunction with Bishop Paul Loverde’s teaching efforts, the Alpha Omega Clinic in northern Virginia launched a website, Unity Restored, to help fight pornography in practical ways. The site points out the strong correlation between use of pornography and theft, violence and other anti-social behaviors because it encourages users in the habit of seeing other people as objects to be manipulated instead of persons to be loved.

The website further exposes the darkness of the pornography industry:

• A University of New Hampshire study released in February found that 2/3 of children exposed to pornography in the course of a year came across it accidentally during innocent Internet searches.

• “Stealth” pornography is particularly malicious because viewing graphic sexual imagery causes a biological and psychological response in viewers, whether or not they desire it — a response that makes resisting more difficult. Pornographers try to “hook” young people and other innocents to get new customers.

• Dr. C.J. Manning’s 2006 study on sexual compulsion showed that learning of a spouse’s porn use typically has the same impact on an innocent spouse as learning of an affair — and pornography is a significant factor leading to divorce.

• “Adult” images won’t enhance sexual intimacy (a common justification); research consistently shows that pornography use decreases the desire and ability to have relations with a partner.

America is a democracy. In the end, the fight against pornography will only be as strong as we are willing to make it. For information on fighting pornography and helping enforce America’s obscenity laws, see the website of Morality in Media (MoralityinMedia.org)