Appeals court overturns Texas ban on sex toys
Companies’ lawsuit claimed state shouldn’t regulate private adult behavior
Most popular
• Most viewed • Top rated • Most e-mailed

Obama’s delegate lead shifts focus of campaign
Saudi Arabia to execute woman for 'witchcraft'
Suspect in therapist’s murder left many clues
Auto warranty firms launch sleazy scam
Two strong earthquakes hit southern Greece
Most viewed on msnbc.com
Blue Cross quits asking docs to 'rat out' patients
Dogs give up their lives to save family
A Credit Card You Want to Toss
Small tumbles can predict seniors' serious falls
Deputy dumps paralyzed man out of wheelchair
Most viewed on msnbc.com
Saudi Arabia to execute woman for 'witchcraft'
Two strong earthquakes hit southern Greece
Stolen in 60 seconds: the treasure in your car
Obama’s delegate lead shifts focus of campaign
Auto warranty firms launch sleazy scam
Most viewed on msnbc.com

updated 8:12 p.m. CT, Wed., Feb. 13, 2008
FORT WORTH, Texas - A federal appeals court has overturned a Texas statute outlawing sex toy sales, leaving Alabama as the state with the strictest ban on such devices.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by up to two years in jail, violated the Constitution's 14th Amendment on the right to privacy.

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 Austin federal court 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 Tuesday, 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 gay 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 the 5th Circuit Court's decision was a big step forward. He said his business plans to expand to sell in stores and at home parties, something company consultants had been fearful to do because of the Texas law.

"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," Harvey said Wednesday.

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.

Virginia's law barring obscene items is different from other state laws and does not seem to apply to sex toy sales, said Harvey, whose company distributes nationwide.

Louisiana, Kansas and Colorado had laws barring obscene devices, but courts have since struck them down, the 5th Circuit judges wrote in their ruling. 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.

The 5th Circuit Court's decision is encouraging for Sherri Williams, who has been fighting the issue in Alabama for a decade. Williams, who owns Pleasures stores in Alabama, sued in 1998 after state lawmakers banned the sale of sex toys there. A year ago, she lost her fight again when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a lower court decision upholding the Alabama law as constitutional.

Williams hopes that lawmakers will take notice of the recent Texas case and support a newly filed bill in the Alabama Legislature to overturn the ban on adult toy sales.

"I think the courts are finally listening to the people," Williams said Wednesday. "You have `Sex and the City,' `Desperate Housewives' and other shows promoting what society is doing. I think the courts have finally opened their eyes and looked around, which is a miracle in the South."