Texas sex toy ban struck down!

Here's a bit of happy news for Texans, just in time for Valentine's Day.

A federal appeals court has struck down a seldom-enforced Texas law making it a crime to promote or sell sex toys.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case originally filed in federal court in Austin, found that the ban in the Texas penal code on selling or promoting obscene devices violates the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices, government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution," said the opinion in the case considered by a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court.

The opinion relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which struck down a Texas law prohibiting private consensual sex among members of the same sex. That case established a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.

It's about goddamn time! What possible interest could the state of Texas have in keeping women from using dildos and vibrators? It's ridiculous. That law has embarrassed this state for too long.

And the right to sexual privacy becomes just a little bit more entrenched in US case law.

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