'What's all this talk I hear about banning dill dough?'
Posted on 04/14/2016 4:49:04 PM PDT by drewh
Ted Cruz once argued that Americans have no constitutional right to bear dildos, that the government has a legitimate interest in discouraging "autonomous sex," and that allowing the sale of sex toys is the first step on the road to legal incest.
This history comes courtesy of David Corn, who went searching for skeletons in Cruz's closet and stumbled across a bunch of dildo baggage instead. On Wednesday, the Mother Jones magazine published an exposé detailing Cruz's defense of a ban on sex-toy sales while serving as the Texas solicitor general. Back in 2004, several adult-plaything providers challenged a Texas law that banned the sale and promotion of "obscene devices." At the time, only three other states had similar laws on the books. The plaintiffs founded their challenge on the Fourteenth Amendment's right to privacy, arguing, among other things, that some couples are unable to engage in intercourse without the aid of sex toys, or else require them to avoid passing along contagious diseases such as HIV. A federal judge turned the company down, it appealed, and in 2007 it fell to Cruz's legal team to keep dildos from undermining the fabric of Western civilization.
In a 76-page brief calling on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stand with the lower court, Cruz's office wrote that "any alleged right associated with obscene devices" is not "deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions." While Cruz acknowledged that, after Lawrence v. Texas overturned sodomy laws, the government could not ban the "private use of obscene devices," it could ban their sale so as to uphold "public morals." What's more, while the government can't forbid citizens from masturbating, it has a legitimate interest in "discouraging ... autonomous sex." Cruz's team went on to declare, "There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one's genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship."
The appeals court disagreed in a 2–1 decision, which held that the government has no business encroaching on Americans' most private of affairs. But Cruz and Texas attorney general Greg Abbott (who is now the state's governor) battled on, filing a brief requesting a hearing before the full court of appeals, claiming the three-judge panel had overstepped the precedent set by Lawrence. Cruz's office argued that the prior ruling would give all manner of deviants grounds to claim that "engaging in consensual adult incest or bigamy" must be legal as they have a right to "enhance their sexual experiences." They lost the motion and ultimately chose not to bring the matter to the Supreme Court.
Cruz has never discussed his views on dildo commerce during the 2016 campaign, and it's unlikely that many of his supporters know his history on such matters. It's difficult to gauge the effect this news will have on Cruz's standing with the electorate, as exit polls neglected to ask Republican primarygoers about their affinity for sexual devices. Regardless, the American people deserve to know whether Cruz still holds such an expansive view of the government's right to regulate public morality. There are undoubtedly no small number of patriots in this country who would tell President Cruz's jackbooted thugs, "I'll give you my dildo when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."
Of course I meant John Kasich and had a typo.
I think the line of discussion was during appeal arguments when Cruz as Solicitor General of the State of Texas was defending some law of the State of Texas.
This had nothing to do with any legislation, just a state lawyer arguing for his state to have a law stay in place. During the sort of presentation, the appellant judge(s) can introduce any sort of hypothetical questions to have either side carry their argument through on why the court should do X or Y.
How right your are! Is Texas really so well-off that THE most pressing issue they send their solicitor to argue about is dildos? Must be nice...a lot of states have real problems.
He made that argument with one hand tied behind his back.
Actually, he had a valid point. The sexual right to privacy was something courts developed 50 years or so ago and have been using to overturn state laws.
No, he did his job arguing the law as the chief lawyer for the state of Texas. If Texas law said everyone had to buy a dildo he would have argued for that.
'What's all this talk I hear about banning dill dough?'
It should have been something as simple as defending a right to zoning adult toy shops out of certain neighborhoods where a general retailer was not prohibited.
Well duh. Why do you think he had to resort to hookers?
we have a winner, no more calls please...
Sticky situation then for him. Wasn’t a fun job in some cases.
But could he have done it with a straight face?
Is banning them something really important for the success of the Republic?
If, as you say, he was arguing a position as Solicitor General for the State of Texas, then he, personally, was not trying to “ban” didlos or anything else. That is the purview of legislators at various levels.
Relevance of Kasich is not clear yet.
Danged if I know, but it’s for legislators to sort out, if anyone.
True. They used the right to sexual privacy to justify birth control, then abortion, and now all this “gay” stuff. I know a majority of Americans, conservatives included, have no issue with birth control. However, intellectual honesty requires one to acknowledge that the fight to legalize birth control was one of the first steps in our descent into rampant, society-approved sexual deviancy of all stripes.
He was Solicitor General of Texas at the time. His job was to defend the law that had been enacted by the State of Texas.
In this case, it was probably an outdated and overly intrusive law, On the other hand, I’m not sure society is greatly benefitted by the unchecked proliferation of “Adult” businesses that this law was intended to regulate.
Only a master debater could argue such a difficult case.
Like Roy Cooper, the Attorney General of North Carolina?
But just look at his record. He is a master debater and it seems to me that he had the case well in hand.
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