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Council moralists back down after US appeals court agrees to hear case challenging sex toy ban in parts of Georgia
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 | 24th
March 2017
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| 19th March 2017. See article from alternet.org
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Sex toys are banned in a backward corner of Georgia. The city of Sandy Springs enacted an ordinance in May 2004, banning the open display of vibrators and sex toys by retailers and requiring a doctor's prescription to purchase such a device. The 11th
Circuit of appeals courts will now hold an en banc rehearing (with all the judges from the court) on a challenge to the sex toy ban that it previously upheld citing a 2004 precedent. The ban prompted a string of lawsuits arguing that the ordinance
was an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. However a federal judge in Atlanta upheld the ban, and in August 2016, an 11th Circuit panel upheld that decision, saying that it was bound by its 2004 ruling in Williams v. Attorney General ( Williams IV ),
challenging a similar ban in an Alabama city. The appeals court noted at the time: Although we are sympathetic to the Appellant's Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim, we are constrained by our prior precedent in
Williams IV , and we are obligated to follow it -- even though convinced it is wrong. The Appellants are free to petition the court to reconsider our decision en banc, and we encourage them to do so.
Presumably a multiple judge
hearing is able to overrule previous precedents. Update: Sex toys unbanned 24th March 2017 See
article from avn.com
Shortly after the news that the appeal court would hear a legal challenge to a city sex toy ban, the council has backed down and has now repealed the repressive law. Sandy Springs City Council repealed the local law known as the sexual device
ordinance. The local ordinance was patterned on one that had been adopted by the Georgia state legislature, but that was later invalidated, leaving Sandy Springs as one of the few communities in Georgia which retains a similar ban. A council
spokesperson said: [The] code now matches up with state law regarding adult devices by not prohibiting the sale of such devices.
While council members refused to comment on the repeal after the
vote, City Attorney Wendell Willard told reporters that the law, which was enacted in 2009 and has been the subject of several lawsuits, was unnecessary and expendable. However it seems likely that the reson for the repeal was that the
law's defence was proving too expensive. A council debate on the litigation revealed concerns that the city's insurance company balking at paying the legal bills for some of the lawsuits the city has faced thanks to its restrictive adult
business laws. |
14th November
2010 | |
| Alabama sex shop is the world's first drive in adult toy store
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From thefrisky.com
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Alabama is the only state in the USA that has outlawed sex toys—until now. Pleasures sex shop proprietress Sherri Williams has managed to fight the good fight all the way to the Supreme Court, but they kept the ban in place. However, there
is a loophole in the law does allow for sex toy sales if there is a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose. Taking advantage of that, Ms. Williams has opened not just the first adult toy
store in Alabama, but the first adult toy store drive-thru in the world. Using an old Wells Fargo bank building in Huntsville, she plans to cash in by selling whips, lubes, and vibes through the chutes in discreet paper bags. Williams has all of
her customers fill out a medical questionnaire explaining what health-related needs the purchase of a sex toy will fill.
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12th September
2009 | | |
| Alabama Supreme Court rules that it is illegal to sell vibrators in the state
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Based on article from xbiz.com
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Alabama Supreme Court justices,ruled 7-2 that Love Stuff can't sell vibrators and other sexual devices.
The decision upholds the state's anti-obscenity law, with justices stating that public morality can still serve as a legitimate rational
basis for regulating commercial activity, which is not a private activity.
Love Stuff, in its appeal to the Supreme Court, had claimed the state law banning the sale of sexual aides was unconstitutional and that it its unconstitutionally
vague.
The justices, in their ruling quoted the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a similar 2004 case, Williams vs. Attorney General of Alabama. In that case, plaintiffs seeking to sell sex toys and novelties were seeking to enjoin
enforcement of the state's anti-obscenity statute.
As the 11th Circuit in Williams pithily and somewhat coarsely stated: 'There is nothing 'private' or 'consensual' about the advertising and sale of a dildo, the justices said.
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14th February
2008 | | |
Sex toy ban overturned
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A federal appeals court has overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas, one of the last of the southern states to retain such a ban.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote
obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Companies that own Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail
distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.
In its decision, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples. Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to
enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct, the appeals judges wrote. The 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 consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence.
The Texas attorney general's office, which represented the Travis County district attorney in
the case, has not decided whether to appeal, said agency spokesman Tom Kelley.
Phil Harvey, president of Adam & Eve Inc., said: I think it's wonderful, but it does seem to me that since Texas was one of three states in the country — along
with Mississippi and Alabama — that continued to outlaw the sale of sex toys and vibrators, that it was probably past time .
Alabama is in the 11th Circuit. But now it's unlikely that the law in Mississippi, which also is in the 5th Circuit,
will be prosecuted, some legal experts said. Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia had laws barring obscene devices, but courts have since struck them down. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Georgia law banning the advertising of sex
toys, which can be sold under some approved circumstances. Update: Mississippi Shaken 25th February 2008 It is also speculated
that the Mississippi sex toy ban is now also in jeopardy as it is on the same circuit of appeal courts as Texas
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