Ethics

5th Circuit Overturns Texas Dildo Ban

By Ed Brayton

Just in time for Valentine's Day shopping, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 12th overturned a Texas law outlawing the sale of sexual devices like dildos and vibrators by a 2-1 vote. See the full ruling here. The Texas statute banned the sale of any device "designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." Nice to know that they exempted doggy dildos in the law, isn't it?

This case is a perfect illustration of a legal truism: the more narrowly the court states the issue in the case the more likely they are to find no constitutional basis for overturning it; the more broadly the court states the issue in the case the more likely they are to find that constitutional basis. In this case, the state of Texas proposed that the court should state the issue narrowly:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 16, 2008 (boomark / email).