<i>Oral Arguments</i> On Alabama Sex Toy Law May Reach Supreme Court
Via YoursDaily.com:
In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner but you can't sell sex toys.
That's right. Alabama is a vibrator-free state!
Well, technically you can go across state lines and buy sex toys in Georgia and Tennessee and carry them home. But the Alabama Legislature, in its infinite wisdom and in the spirit of protecting citizens from moral turpitude, a while back banned the sale of sex toys (or "marital aids" as some lawmakers coyly call them).
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has shown a gleam of interest in this controversial state law, which has been challenged in Alabama courts by adult toy retailer Sherri Williams. She has been fighting the law for nearly 10 years.
Williams has been in district court three times on this issue and has won twice. But both times her victories were struck down by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. She filed a petition to the Supremes and has hired well-known First Amendment rights attorney Paul Cambria. Also joining in the appeal petition with Williams are the Free Speech Coalition and the First Amendment Lawyers Association. Read more...
(h/t the Alabama Yankee transplant Blue Gal who refused to write this post on the grounds that to do so may incriminate her. :) )
Ummm... a Hello Kitty sex toy???? You have got to be kidding me! And I think I might just have that thing tested for lead.
What is the justification for banning a legal product. If you don't like vibrators, don't buy them. Let the free market speak for itself.
Oh, I see the problem now... perhaps it is just a spelling error on the part of the Alabama legislature. Marital aid rather than martial law toy...???
BTW, make love, not war. :)
No, no, that's a Hello Kitty *massager*.
This issue also raised its ugly "head" in South Carolina:THE RIGHT TO ‘BARE’ SEX TOYS
I'm sorry, but for some reason, I find the Hello Kitty vibrator more disturbing than the AK-47...
I find it so pathetic that the party of 'keeping gov't off our backs' cannot stay out of the bedroom. What is up with that?! Grow up already!!!
Strawberry @ 6:
Oh yeah, marketing to the 5-10 year olds?!?!
Maybe if they sold more of the kind on the left-hand side, so many people wouldn't feel the need to use the ones on the right-hand side...
Just sayin'...
And almost every movie out there markets Ak-47s and similar "toys" to kids, especially the ones aimed (okay, don't pardon the pun) at young audiences.
I'd rather find a vibrator in my kid's closet than an assault weapon.
I really, really, really wish the inbred hick South would just secede from the U.S.
Filed under the "torture" category....oh very funny.
Blue Rose @ 8:
How about a "Hello Kitty" with an AK-47?
Look, I've got nothing against vibrators, dildos and other sex toys...hell, like Bluegal, I'm rather a connasuer, but I draw the line at Hello Kitty.
Ozymandius @ 13:
Yes. The solution is to see a pink Hello Kitty AK47, & a fully automatic assault vibe.
Don't be mean, Dr. Matt. Alabama has brought you the great American intellectual Helen Keller. She was a formidable advocate of the ACLU in its early stages. There's also a line of blue counties, a blue belt if you will, running from Mississippi to Georgia. It's not all inbred.
See, this shit is why I left my native southland and moved to the northeast. If these red state rednecks were half as afraid of endless wars and spiraling debt as they are of an orgasm we would be well on our way to a truly advanced civilization. As far as I'm concerned they can just sever everything south of the mason dixon line to the Texas border with New Mexico and push it into the Atlantic.
Cut the dead weight and lets advance as a peoples.
Accepting one underlying theme is sex and violence, I thought this Carlin quote appropriate...
People much wiser than I am said, "I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay, Sherrif, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."
Dr. Matt @ 11:
they would, but they don't know how to read so they can fill out the paperwork.
Oh god NO! - not ORAL arguments!
I want a pink Hello Kitty sex toy . . . .
*
Kay @ 2:
Perfectly stated.
*
Mel @ 16:
Yea, for every one of these examples one could site a hundred examples of cross fires, gay bashing, christofascisim, and knuckledragging. I agree with Matt, let the south go, they are an anchor on a potentially advanced civilization...Again, I say this as a native southerner who spent most of my life in the south surrounded by these backwaters. I wish everybody who wanted to could escape the south as I have.
Hello Kitty or Hello Pussy?
"free market"? Is that the one that Rupert Murdoch owns and the DEA enforces?
As a citizen of the blind state of Alabama, this is just another example of reasons why we appear stupid and ignorant in the eyes of the country, and the world.
Our state is sooo churchy, yet as of 1998, we have the 4th highest divorce rate in the country (and not one of those was a gay divorce)!!! Alabama people don't drink...in public (only in the privacy of our own bedroom, thank you very much). When we buy alcoholic beverages at Wal-Mart, we are sure to cover them with clothing when we head to the checkout (someone might SEE and know that we are sinners!). If we ever do get up the courage to buy alcohol, we always have to stock up on Saturday, because in many parts of the state, we still cant buy booze on Sunday (THAT would be a sin!).
As long as our state continues along this hypocritical course, we are forever doomed to relive the past. Organized religion has TOO much power in general, especially in the state of Alabama.
To the rest of the country; feel free to continue to view our state as backwards and prejudiced...I certainly do. Let the incest jokes begin!!
The Hello Kitty product is labeled as a "massager," but many sex toy shops sell them. I doubt that they're marketing them to 5-7-year-olds; Hello Kitty is actually rather popular with young women in Japan.
I don't see how Alabama could possibly defend banning sex toys. They could try to argue that the dongs are pornographic, but still, I don't know a state where porn is banned. Even if they could do away with the obviously penis-shaped products, where are they going to draw the line when it comes to personal massagers? Where does the back massager end and the clitoral joy device begin? A lot of things vibrate. Maybe they should ban electric toothbrushes and cell phones. Or removable shower heads. Or shaky laundry machines. (My friends and I were too young to buy adult toys at one point; we knew how to get creative.)
Not that there aren't men who own sex toys, but perhaps, to be fair, Viagra, hand lotion and Girls Gone Wild should be banned too. I can't imagine Alabama has anything more important, like, I dunno...making sure its children are literate to worry about.
Perhaps they should bring back sex toys and encourage their use as an alternative to pre- or extra-marital sex.
COOL! GUNS! GUNS! YEAH! HEH!
Huhuhuhuhuh. She said "oral arguments."
Trittydi @ 20:
IMO, any time anyone buys something Hello Kitty, a butterfly dies a painful meaningless death.
Butthead @ 28:
heheheheheheh-except, the concept of making a federal case over sex toys seems more anal to me-heheheheheheheh.
In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner but you can't sell sex toys. That's right. Alabama is a vibrator-free state!
So cell phones on silent vibrate. Guess that's a paddling.
Thing Fish @ 31:
Using a cell phone to get off AND getting spanked for it? Don't get me too excited. :)
EinGrundZurPanik @ 26:
What you said makes sense, that's why they do just the opposite! Naturally, if it's something that give a woman pleasure it's bad (altho most of those items are unisex!). ;)
This might be enough for Clarence Thomas to write his first opinion.
If vibrators are illegal in Alabama, other things beginning with the letter V should be banned as well, starting with the male marital aid known as Viagra.
I think you are all missing the more important point.
Alabama was forced to put this in place many years ago.
You see, the place was already overflowing with dildoes;)
bluegal @ 29:
I agree - the commercialism out there is just so depressing. But I can't bite the hand that feeds me (advertising) and it does employ a lot of folks up and down the manufacturing / retail / marketing line. I just have no interest in jumping on the bandwagon (I think it started when my parents refused to buy me a Barbie doll when I was a kid - at the time I felt rather deprived but later I could appreciate my parent's rationale of all the accoutrements >expense
The righties addiction to bedroom Sharia knows no bounds
feel free to continue to view our state as backwards and prejudiced...I certainly do. Let the incest jokes begin!!
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, I live in Texas, and we have a quite a few dumbass religious nuts here as well. Hopefully, no one from here will ever win an important national election................................................oops.
It is ok to F@#$K up someone, not F@#$@K someone.
In Europe, films block out the violence and leave in the sex
In the USA, the *censors* block out the sex and put in some MORE violence.
Or perhaps you may have seen a nipple being pixilated on Butcher90210 so you don't get offended when someone's daughter is having her tits CUT OFF or something.
LA LAW, CSI, MURDER (Real People's Death's REALITY SHOW) COURT SHOWS, COPS running 4 times a DAY.. ULTIMATE FIGHTER, JACKASS..America's funniest home videos of people smashing their nuts on things - pretty funny. aaaarrmmm what else.. OH perhaps we could get someone to hang off an elastic band while they eat a bulls anus for $25K.
YEP.... Sounds like ROME to me.
And why do we hate the FRENCH so much, oh the threesome thing perhaps.!
It is medication TIME, Mr McMurphy.
Put your nose bags on and eat your popcorn and shut up and watch the movie will ya!
We can go shopping later!
Thank God!
- JJ
LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!
It's the right thing to do.
Maybe if the sold Vibrators in the shape of a crucifix it would be ok with the folks in Alabama ;)
nsr @ 34:
:lol: Heh, he has actually written opinions.
But make no mistake, if this case goes to the Supremes, it just might mark the truest test so far of our liberties under the Roberts Court.
Consider: In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court struck down all the sodomy laws, declaring protection for the gay community (and drawing a dissent from Justice Scalia so rabid that one gets the impression he had written it with his head actually spinning......but I digress). The ultimate ruling was 6 to 3 to strike the laws down, but not all six of the justices agreed on the rationale. Justice O'Connor, whose departure ushered in the dreaded era we're now likely to suffer, would have struck down the laws based on Equal Protection Doctrine. (In other words, although sodomy laws were ostensibly applicable to everyone, there would be an inevitably disparate impact on gay people.) Five others, however, simply struck the law down as an unconstitutional infringement of simple liberty interests. Those five -- the Lawrence Five -- are still on the Court: Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer and Kennedy. In fact, Kennedy wrote the decision.
Now, to those less versed in the nonsense that is Constitutional interpretation, it might seem perfectly reasonable to strike down the law as an unconstitutional violation of basic liberty. But basic liberty is not protected under current interpretations (told ya it was nonsense!). No, for an unenumerated right to be protected, it must be fundamental; otherwise, you're screwed (particularly in a sodomy case (apologies)). The radical departure from precedent and the embrace of common sense was the catalyst for Scalia's rage, for Kennedy had drafted a decision that shed the traditional paradigm of judicial scrutiny of unenumerated rights, and had the audacity to declare -- at least within the context of homosexuality -- that the mere belief that something is "immoral" does not justify its prohibition.
Unfortunately, Kennedy's methodology was never particularly lucid, and no judge since then has known quite how to use Lawrence as precedent. I fear we may be on the verge of finding out, and I'm not optimistic about the answer. Kennedy has several times proven to be pro-gay rights. Lately, however, his pivotal votes have demonstrated that he is not pro-civil liberties in general, despite the language he employed in his potentially revolutionary Lawrence decision.
But I suppose I'll not give up hope. Should Kennedy clarify, or allow another of the Lawrence Five to clarify, precisely what Lawrence means, and strike down this pernicious interference with the pursuit of happiness, we'll have a better sense of the state of freedom in America. If he joins the RATS wing of the Court, well, we'll know for sure that the Roberts Court is the one the Authoritarians have longed for.
There's only one solution: the iDildo: it also shoots bullets and has internet capability.
I'm a native Alabamian living in Alabama; I've also lived in Chicago, New York, Arkansas, South Carolina, Connecticut, Louisiana, Kansas, and Florida, and I'd like to say I also wish the inbred redneck hicks to secede. I'd also like to point out their native territory extends far beyond the Mason-Dixon line.
Can my comments by held against me in a court of law? Because I can testify that I have made...oh, not quite a half-dozen trips to one of Birmingham's adult literature emporiums over the past 15 years, at least two or three of them since the law has been passed. To my admittedly inexpert eye, this establishment seemed to be suffering no lack of marital aids. There may be jurisdictions in the state where commerce in such items has been completely shut down by force of law, but the city of Birmingham would not appear to be one of them. I can't say what anyone else's experience has been, but to say that one cannot purchase a vibrator in Alabama is simply untrue; illegal, perhaps, but certainly selectively enforced. It's a story that deserves a great deal more serious coverage than the state could allow itself.
The South......we should force them out of the union! They are nothing but inbred filth.
IMO, any time anyone buys something Hello Kitty, a butterfly dies a painful meaningless death.
I agree, "Hello Kitty" is pretty disturbing...
This really is almost straight out of the Meese Commission, which also sought to ban all sex toys.
what will they ban next bratworst and chili bricks? the horror!
When are they going to do something about those filthy cucumber farmers?
Two things:
1) The far-right "Christian" crusade against pleasure never fails to surprise me. Anything to keep people frustrated for JAYZUS, you know. Makes it easier to get them to go out and kill anyone who won't conform.
2) The company that made the Hello Kitty massager stopped making the type pictured about five years ago (I think - I lost track of time). They do still make them, but they're... um, different.
I guess nothin's shakin' in 'Bama.
Talk about a buzz kill.
This is easy to solve. Register the damned thing as a Republican, then send it off to sit in the Alabama state legislature with the rest of the phony pricks.
Maybe it's a good idea that the red neck morons in Alabama NOT get too sexually stimulated.
They might propagate more than they do now!
ARggggH!
Dr. Matt @ 11:
I am sorry, I was wrong... Letting them go would have saved us all a significant amount of "head aches" -pun intended-
coleshack @ 35:
And those f*%$ing "male enhancement" pills, whatever that is. I want that Bob douche bag with the perma-grin to die a horrible death. Just so I can see the expression on the misses who seems to be going through some serious overdose of Xanax in all them annoying commercials that they show.
two words: STATES RIGHTS. south or not, if a state bans gay marriage or legalizes pot, or has or has no helmet law, this is the way it is. It doesn't fit your political fantasy, but it is what it is. I can't smoke outside, indoors or under the bed, but I can ride a motorcycle without a helmet and marry a gay man in my state, life goes on, and we have wars to stop.
renolds @ 56:
By your reasoning, renolds, if a particular state denies voting rights to blacks through literacy tests or other Jim Crow laws we, as a nation, should just shrug and say "state's rights"? State's rights is the penultimate refuge of a scoundrel, right before he heads over to patriotism.
coleshack @ 35:
You can have my Viagra when you pry it from my cold dead hand. ;)
dattexas @ 39:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, I live in Texas, and we have a quite a few dumbass religious nuts here as well. Hopefully, no one from here will ever win an important national election................................................oops.
Actually, Texas soes have a similar law to this, unless they've changed it...
renolds @ 56:
Rubbish. States don't have rights. States have powers. People have rights. People retain rights even when they delegate powers otherwise reserved for them to their governments.
In our Declaration of Independence, we announced to the world that all people are created equal, and have inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We held that truth to be self evident. In addition, we declared that governments are instituted in order to secure our equal rights.
Indeed, the Tenth Amendment reserves all powers not delegated to the federal government to the states or to the people. But the powers reserved are not plenary. They are the powers to secure the equal rights of their respective populations. The Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments are as clear as they can be that rights need not be enumerated to exist, and that no state may violate the rights of the people.
Pat yourself on the back all you want for prioritizing war termination over securing petty freedoms at home, but your "states' rights" argument is as pernicious as it is tired. The sooner the final nail in its coffin is hammered the better.
EinGrundZurPanik @ 26:
It's actually a honest to Jeesbus shoulder massager but like the Harry Potter broom women found another use for the product. It's not manufactored any more apparently and any units that turn up from warehouses in Japan get sold real quick at anime conventions in the US. Hello Kitty isn't just big with girls in Japan. They have a theme park and even an entire airline devoted to Hello Kitty. It's getting bigger in the us too. You would be surprised at the hello kitty merchandise you can buy everything from steering wheel covers to toilet paper.
Jlist.com does another version of the Hello Kitty shoulder massager vibrator for sale though. http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/hello_kitty_vibrator/1/
Japan seems to be ahead of the US in sex toy technology.
Alabama? Why am I not surprised?
Go git yer guns People! But make sure you stay away from those illegal products!
Welcome to Alabama. Please set your watch back 50 years.
I think these people seriously need their own sex toys. Good grief. It's the 21st century and if a woman wants to have a hello kitty vibrator than as a woman myself I'm going to have my vibrator if I wanted one. Sheesh.
Ok. To be honest, the Hello Kitty vibrator is just a touch much.
But regardless.. To be liberal is to be for anti-hate legislation. To be conservative is to be for anti-love laws.
The collective population of the state of Alabama's asshole is so tight, you couldn't pull a pin out of there using a tractor!
AN Flowers @ 25:
I'm Utahn, so I have no room to judge.
This is, after all, a state where it's legal to marry a first cousin. (Provided both are 65+ or 55+ with proof that one is sterile. Incest as a tax shelter, can't get any Redder than that.)
Although, I can't resist:
Sweet home Alabama
Where the laws are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
MeMyselfAndI @ 55:
You could get your wish. Maybe it'll be like in the film "Dogma" - he'll be in the can at the local mini-mart with a copy of playboy and they'll pull him out with a woody and stick him into the ambulance just like that.
*
AN Flowers @ 25:
Why, ever, do you stay there? Haven't you heard of U-Haul?
Dattexas @39,
How's this:
Q. What does a Texas girl say after sex?
A. Roll over, Dad, you're crushin' my smokes.
Did they ban "Sex and the City" there? They have vibrators in use almost every episode (it seems).
Alabama eh? Reminds me of people in the movie "Deliverance".
This law just reinforces that opinion.
so is it illegal post some adult toys info on internet?
that's hilarious... thought it would have been much easier to print out TheNastyStallion's Guide to Maximum Anal Accommodation to ensure she LOVED it, but whatever works. It's guaranteed to OPEN UP room for new ideas! ROFLMAO. Pun intended.
Loved your slap-down of "states rights" Karen, I copied and saved it! Civil rights are not for individual states to grant, when it's already in the constitution that everyone is supposed to be have equal rights. Gays will still have to wait decades before we get full civil rights nationwide, but no one should be pushing a bogus "states rights" argument that we deserve to have to wait endlessly for rights that are already guaranteed us in the constitution.
Well...
After seeing the picture and getting a laugh - all I can say is:
Hello Kitty!
(sorry - I had to....)
Dr. Matt @ 11:
I agree.
Even though most of my family lives in the hick south... (Maybe I'm omn to something here?)
woodguy @ 69:
I just emailed this to an email list of mine... "just because it felt so good...."
Either Alabama women and their men have skills beyond the average American -- in which case I saw, hot damn you go! -- or they are being gypped by some, ahem, tight assed holier than thou types in their legislature. C'mon Alabama. You're better than this. Especially the women. Hot Damn!
Given how ready these guys are to defend marriage from the homos, shouldn't marital aids be a good thing?
When vibrators are outlawed, only outlaws will have vibrators.
Lies, lies, and more lies. If dildos were illegal in Alabama then how could it be a Republickan state?
I would also think that this was unConstitutional because it interferes with free enterprise, interstate trade and could maybe be construed as prior restraint (a stretch). It is also an invasion of privacy (along the same grounds that Texas's anti-sodomy law was over thrown a gew years ago). I would also look at it as a clear instance of the crackers in the alabama legislature as trying to impose a state religion, since it is pretty obvious that it is derived from good, solid fundamentalist Christian Family Values( if this were instead a ban against dancing would the 11th Court of Appeals overthrown it?).
Something about the challenge seems to have rubbed the appeals court the wrong way (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk).
Actually, I think it's a farm support bill in an agricultural state. Think of the increased demand for vegetables in the absence of sex toys.
Can you imagine being a cop and having to go arrest someone and confiscate a bunch of big old rubbery dildos and vibrators! A great big redneck, racist, homophobic state trooper having to handle some enormous black dildo! What a riot. And just who gets in trouble when the inventory from the evidence locker comes up short?
This reminds me of all the anti-sodomy laws (which by the way often included oral sex). All I could ever think is that any politician that voted to outlaw oral sex was never on the receiving end of an attentive partner!
Karen@ 60
Hear! Hear!
In other news, sales of cucumbers in Alabama are way up.
I don't think that the good vibrations store here in San Francisco really want to put a store any where in Ala. Hopefully they send them unmarked in plain brown boxes.
Or folks can lean up again the clothes washer in hi-speed spin cycle.
When vibrators are outlawed only outlaws will have vibrators.
This was an economic decision intended to encourage the produce industry.
Bull @ 84:
LMAO!
Guess now that sharia law has come to the American South, we'll be seeing a lot of one-handed men walking around...
I think they need to combine an AK-47 with a vibrator, and that would make it legal but scary!
Big dildos keep on turning.
Carry me home to ecstacy.
Screams and moans throughout the evening.
Don't miss my ole' man once again
And he thinks its a sin.
Sweet home Alabama
Where the guys are so blue (balled)
Sweet Home Alabama
Where the legislature averages two (inches)
Maybe secession wasn't a bad idea after all.
Southern paternalism not only means the banning of sex toys; it is responsible for the particular brand of Southern conservatism which includes deference to authority and hostility towards any progressive activity including labor unions and anything smacking of labor or antimilitary activism. It is my theory that this paternalism originated before the Civil War in the era of the slaveholding planter aristocracy; after the war, deference toward the planters was switched towards private employers and corporations.
rob @ 77:
You can have my vibrator when you pry it from my cold, dead.......
I'm LMAO over the fact that C&L filed this post under "torture". That is freaking classic.
I would imagine that the AK-47 would vibrate some wouldn't it?
CG @ 93:
I wondered if anyone would catch that. :)
So the Alabamians have to get rid of the vibrating Barcoloungers?
woodguy @ 69:
Here in Texas we say that of Arkansas.
Texas girls usually don't know who their father is.
woodguy @ 69:
So what does a Texas boy say after sex?
Roll over, Mom, you're crushin' my joint?
I already declared like 3 years ago I'd never step foot in that state... more reason not to.
[...] C&L; also at [...]
Strawberry @ 6:
I have to agree.
pine nut @ 101:
You prefer it look like a pine tree?
nsr @ 34:
LOL
Kay @ 2:
Well, if it is banned, then it's no longer legal? Anyways, why shouldn't state legislatures be able to ban certain products that they find offensive? Isn't that "democracy in action?"
What I find puzzling is the comparison to a rifle. Of course they sell rifles in Alabama. It, at least, is an item whose ownership by Americans is protected by the Constitution.
I'm also a native Alabamian, currently living in 'Bammy. I can think of no less than 5 adult book stores here, all of which sell the shit out of some dildos. There are relatively large stores that sell nothing but sex toys in the suburbs and even in some rural areas that actually advertise on billboards. There might technically be a law on the books (which there obviously shouldn't be), but no one is enforcing it.
[Deleted. Over the top-- Sitemonitor]
It's super easy to sit around in places like Chicago or Boston where you keep black people at arms length, the Southwest where you've probably never even SEEN a black person in the flesh, Philly where you've actually firebombed black people (and elected the motherfucker responsible for GOVERNOR), or Baltimore where you have conveniently warehoused all of the black people into one area so they can kill eachother, and criticize places like Alabama for having a bullshit law about dildos that isn't even enforced. Meanwhile, I can't buy a cold six pack of beer in a grocery store or a quickie mart in a lot of Northeastern states...'cause...you know...you guys shed religion a long time ago. At least you guys aren't hanging people for being witches anymore. I guess that's an improvement.
However, if you'd spent any time here, or even bothered to look into the place, you would probably quickly notice that Birmingham is THE leading place in the WORLD for aids research, we wouldn't be in space without Huntsville, and the rural areas, primarily the predominantly black ones, are some of the most culturally rich places in North America.
Grits are fucking gross, though.
I hope Rob Riggle wasn't planning to set up his dildo shop there when he gets back from Iraq...there's pink dildos, white dildos, black dildos, wooden dildos...of course you got a lot of splinters from them and that can't be good.....
Thats America for yeh'.
I'd rather see someone trying to sell a used dildo on the street corner and laugh then see a guy sell a gun to a kid and nodd in shame.
You kno?
Just to clarify, there's a difference between what's on the books, and what's actually enforced. I know of more than a few places in North Alabama where one can procure sex toys, oops I meant "marital aids".
I seriously doubt you can sell guns on the street corner in Alabama, or any state for that matter.
[...] Legislature, in its infinite wisdom and in the spirit of protecting citizens from moral turpitude.read more | digg [...]
Guns don't kill people, dildos kill people. I shall sleep much better at night knowing that Alabama citizens are finally free from the possibility of being robbed and murdered with a dildo.
Typical: outlaw the competition.
I wonder whose in charge of making these dumbass laws.... a gun for a vibrator lol, the state would probably give an ak-47 for every vibrator brought in
Pound Foolish @ 104:
Of course it's democracy in action, and precisely the reason democracy is ultimately antithetical to freedom. We don't live in a democracy, thank goodness. We live in a republic.
And no, a republic is not merely a "representative democracy," wherein the people simple elect people to represent them and make laws on their behalf. A republic is a government in which "the people," as a collective, are sovereign, and their representatives (however chosen) are obligated to act on their behalf as a whole, not any faction thereof, minority or majority. (Interested folks can note that this helps explains the founders rather naive nonchalance towards universal suffrage -- they feared democracy and its "problem of faction.") Moreover, a republic has procedures of independent review of laws to ensure that a law makers are not the sole judges of their own legitimacy. In the U.S., courts can invalidate laws that do not conform to the Constitution.
But forget all the academic discourse. The Bill of Rights is fundamentally undemocratic. Because pure democracy sucks. If you're willing to surrender to pure democracy, you can legitimate any law enacted by a majority, whether it be to outlaw sex toys, jail marijuana users or commit genocide.
Seriously, our state legislature is full of these moral authority types. It's all because old people are the only ones who seem to care about local politics. Ask just about any typical Alabamian whether this is an issue at all to them, and you get a resounding NO. The problem lies in the disconnect between the voters and the lawmakers. The lawmakers waste time gaining campaign talking points by passing these ridiculous laws. What they don't realize is that even though so much of the state is overrun by the fundamental jack-nuts, even they don't see this as a hot button issue. It's just silly, and that is exactly why Spencer's Gifts decided to continue sales of vibrators in their Alabama stores. Is officer good ol' boy really gonna come bust 'em? Hell no, there's real crime, and real dough nuts to deal with. It's all a distraction by design. Keep making anti-dildo and other BS morality legislation and obscure the fact that our state has a broken constitution, and tax-system that systematically screws poor communities out of proper education and other social funding.
haa...lol...this is so funny, okay what if a vibrator mix with a gun, like if the vibrator is in use, than a bullet shot out of it at the end, would that be okay?
Pound Foolish @ 104:
That's some ignorant stuff right there. No, they aren't illegal. You can buy them and take them to Alabama, they just outlaw the SALE of them. To possess one is legal. Your post is as offensive as the law itself and you can rest assured that the majority of Alabamians do not find them offensive, this is tyranny by the minority.
Has anyone ever accidentally killed themselves with a loaded vibrator
Or killed their daughter when she was sneaking in late after a date?
A Republic can either take the form of an oligarchy or a democracy. If you deny latter you confirm the former. Is that where you want to live?
Hello Kitty Vibrators are BACK
http://www.jlist.com/search/hello_kitty_vibrator
If we tried to give Alabama away for free do you think any other country when even take it?
What's next, Strawberry Shortcake dominatrix set,
My Little Pony lubricant for the budding beastiality set?
ysbaddaden @ 119:
Errr, no. I want to live under the mixed government we're supposed to have under our Constitution, wherein the people are sovereign, their democratically elected representatives make laws, and those laws are subject to being struck down by an independent, unelected, and ostensibly "elite" (for lack of a better term at the moment) judiciary no matter how large the majority that voted in their favor.
Frankly, your false dilemma smacks of Bull O'Really?-style oversimplification.
I live near Prattville, and visit the Montgomery adult store occasionally...
What about the Hello Kitty massager do the Talibangelical bushist fascists find so offensive?
No Blood for Hubris @ 125:
It's fun. And they object to any fun. There is no "fun" in the Bible, is there?
I've lived in Alabama my whole life, and I've never once heard any complaint about the ban on sex toys. If you ask me the whole thing's a fucking joke, it's not like they're illegal, nor is the law enforced. So I really don't know why this argument is even taking place. I've read a lot of the comments on this, and some of them made me angry, but for the most part I laughed at the distaste of a state, of which, most of you have only heard rumors, and will probably never set foot in.
By the way, if some of you ever want to be taken seriously please spell words correctly, and don't replace words with numbers.
Battle Toads For The Win!
I actually live in Alabama. There are sex shops in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa - and I am sure a few other places. This is really just a formality in our constitution. If you know much about Alabama, you'll know we have the longest constitution in the WORLD (yes the world). We still have laws about men not spitting in front of a woman (which on several accounts I have thought about a citizens arrest).
So though it looks like we are really ass backwards, it's not as bad as it appears. I think instead of sex toys, they are labeled as personal massagers.
YaYa @ 128:
The presence of sex shops does not make them legal. It simply means that where there is money to be made and politcians to be paid, anything can be sold.
To quote the French guy in Godzilla..."This is America, you can buy anything."
Well this may have been something but it's total bullshit. I live in Albertville, AL. About 30 minutes from Gadsden, an hour from Huntsville, and 2.5 hours from Birmingham. Gadsden has a very popular "toy store" called Pleasures that has been in the same location for at least 5 years. There are other locations of the same store in Huntsville and Birmingham as well as another big store called Passions, as well as some smaller named stores.
ysbaddaden @ 122:
Borderline NSFW
Does that come in poster form?
(Heh...heh...he said come.)
Karen @ 123:
Power from the People is Democracy, and our system could also be called a Constitutional Democracy, as opposed to Britain Constitutional Monarchy (although now that's very minimal).
ysbaddaden @ 133:
Heh, fine. You're operating from definitions under which any system that ultimately derives power from a sovereign people as "democracy." I'm operating from different definitions. I'll concede that your understanding is the modern one. The Founders operated from very different definitions, and the semantic metamorphoses that have taken place over the centuries has contributed to considerable confusion.
The Founders understood "democracy" as dangerous. The term was pejorative. It connoted not merely popular sovereignty, but popular rule -- rule by the people. They were very concerned about the "problem of faction," under which the majority could tyrannize the minority, or the minority could tyrannize the majority. They sought to create a "republic" as something distinct from democracy. Not rule by the people, but rule for the people, and in which the people would serve as a check on the government, just as the different branches would check and balance one another.
Even under our modern understanding of the term, however, we do not, in this country, embrace outright majority rule. And I thank goodness that we do not. If a democratic majority of a state or its representatives vote to outlaw a kind of political speech, that vote can be struck down as unconstitutional. Our procedures of judicial review are fundamentally undemocratic and anti-majoritarian. And that's a very, very good thing.
Dr. Matt @ 11:
Well, they did try... and seeing how they turned out perhaps the North should've just let them.
I guess Alabama is afraid their women are gonna chip their teeth.
Ms. Williams' rights to sell sex toys in 'Bama might get upheld because y'all know Clarence loves him some vibrators.
He ain't called "Long Dong Silver" for nothin'.
Kay @ 2:
But, but, but.... that would make sense!
I want a Hello Kitty assault rifle with a vibrating barrel.
Prose Prone @ 109:
Of course you can. It's called a gun show.
On a related topic, my nephew had his first birthday the other day. Great grandpa gave him a "designed by a leading pediatrician!!" vibrating baby toy (said something about the vibration stimulating baby's interest). I about shot wine out of my nose and couldn't stop grinning the rest of the evening.
Karen @ 134:
They feared "mobocracy" but not Democracy. Romans weren't really original thinkers, nor claimed to be, taking most of their culture from Etruscans and Greeks, and even other cultures they absorbed. The basically took their concept of the Republic from the Greeks Democracy, and both they and our Founding Fathers were very selective as to who could participate. Our Founding Fathers were influenced by French philosophers who spoke of the Republic, and even used a modified version of their motto, Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Property. By the time of the Enlightenment any difference between Republicanism and Democracy was vanishing and they were definitely merging. 19th century "radicals" of Victorian England such as Charles Tennyson, Lord Durham, and Lord Brougham were pushing for our kind of "Democracy," which they equated with humane working conditions and universal (male) voting franchise, so there's nothing "modern" about this definition of Democracy. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The America is a Republic argument is one from the Repulican party and other conservatives to denigrate even the name of the Democratic party.
Another perfect example of retarded conservative logic.
Comments are closed on this entry