Federal Court says it IS Alabama's business ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: July 29, 2004 8:49:11 PM PDT
To: Cn <cuckoosnest () riddlemaster org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Federal Court says it IS Alabama's business ...

http://www.thelouisvillechannel.com/news/3591874/detail.html

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 said the state has a right to police
the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating.


The American Civil Liberties Union, 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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