Texas obscenity law repealed.
The Free Speech Coalition says:
"NEW ORLEANS, LA - A three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Texas statute making it illegal to promote or sell sexual devices last week.
"The ruling relied upon the landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision, which overturned Texas' anti-sodomy statute on the grounds of substantive due process rights, a complex legal argument that holds that government must have a compelling reason to interfere with the rights of an individual; morality not being an acceptable reason."
One might say that the right to buy dildoes is not something on which the future of humanity rests. But there are bigger principles at stake, and it's a victory every time they defeat a law which takes away individual liberty on spurious reasons such as "obscenity". The enforcement by force of one person's values and morals on another has never been right, and never will be.
3 comments:
"The case [...] 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."
Well said! End of discussion!
This reminds me of laws in many muslim countries prohibiting the practice of any other religion. In Saudi Arabia, if a few Christians gather in the privacy of home to pray, they can be arrested for that!
And, closer to us, here in Lebanon, the State Police regularly makes busts and arrests of consenting adult homosexuals. I think they are also in violation of some law meddling in what the State has no f***ing business interfering with. (Profanity meant literally.)
But I'm amazed every time the UNITED STATES remind me how much they can sometimes resemble my own primitive country. Or the former Soviet Union's police state.
Oops! Scratch that last bit, or I could be indicted of "bearing prejudice to the national prestige". No kidding!
Only a nation with very fragile national prestige needs a law against "bearing prejudice to the national prestige."
Even a feeble nation can withstand criticism. It's only a house of cards that needs to fear the vagrant breeze that topples everything.
Oh, rea-hee-hee-hee-hee-heeeeee-lly?
Ah say, Fouad, did thet Burton guy jest insult owah mighty fine an' most glo'ious country? See, ah's axin' on account o' ah cain't be sho'nuff mahse'f. Ah flunked sarcasm in collidge, yo' see. Ah wuz too busy doin' patriotic politickul ackivism, dawgone it. An' dodgin' draft, as a side boniss.
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