While I applaud this ruling I can't help but be cynical:
Houston's adult bookstore backers Wednesday hailed a federal court's decision to overturn a 35-year-old state law that banned promotion or sale of sex toys. But the decision won't go into effect until the court issues its mandate in early March — long after the industry's lucrative pre-Valentine's Day season. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates the privacy protections of the 14th Amendment. "Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its law to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the judges wrote in the 2-1 ruling. "This 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 of consensual private intimate conduct." The judges alluded to Lawrence v. Texas, a Houston case that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the state's sodomy law in 2003.
Houston's adult bookstore backers Wednesday hailed a federal court's decision to overturn a 35-year-old state law that banned promotion or sale of sex toys. But the decision won't go into effect until the court issues its mandate in early March — long after the industry's lucrative pre-Valentine's Day season.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates the privacy protections of the 14th Amendment.
"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its law to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the judges wrote in the 2-1 ruling. "This 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 of consensual private intimate conduct."
The judges alluded to Lawrence v. Texas, a Houston case that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the state's sodomy law in 2003.
So tell me why this same reasoning doesn't result in the overturning of laws restricting recreational drugs, prostitution, gambling, and firearms? I can only conclude the judges rule however they want to rule then find a reason to justify themselves afterward.
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