Posted on 04/23/2006 5:47:00 AM PDT by Crackingham
Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys. But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.
The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.
"That would be the most terrible thing in the world," said Ms. Gillespie, an employee the Anderson shop. "That is just flabbergasting to me. We are supposed to be in a free country, and we’re supposed to be adults who can decide what want to do and don’t want to do in the privacy of our own homes."
Ms. Gillespie, 49, said she has worked in the store for nearly 20 years and has seen people from every walk of life, including "every Sunday churchgoers."
"I know of multiple marriages that sex toys have sold because some people need that. The people who are riding us (the adult novelty industry) so hard are probably at home buying it (sex toys and novelties) on the Internet. It’s ridiculous." The measure would add sex toys to the state’s obscenity laws, which already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials.
People convicted under obscenity laws face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
See my post #280
Except for the first sentence, my reply was sarcastic.
Sorry you didn't pick up on that.
Why is it so hard for sex toy prohibitionists to understand that outlawing sex toys only drives up their street value? How many innocent women must contract disease from cheap back-alley sex toys? Legalize all sex toys and defund the sex toy black market.
whatever will happen to the store around the block from where I went to college??? haha
South Carolina's obscenity laws already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials, this bill simply adds stimulation devices to that list.
In 1973 the SCOTUS ruled to define obscene as something "contemporary community standards" determine as "patently offensive" sexual conduct, which "lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
SC, like other states that have already done so, has the right to ban these products. Obscenity does have ill effects even if some refuse to see it.
Personally, I don't care about this law one way or the other. Any ban in SC has little effect since there ain't no place in SC that isn't a short 2 hour drive from the state line.
I think my earlier statement regarding a state regulating legal and moral tone may have been somewhat misunderstood in the overall context of the debate here, so I should have qualified it with a lot of subtext that I didn't provide. My approach is an attempt to be pragmatic with the current state of affairs we find ourselves in today, as opposed to what I consider the ideal.
I believe that our current form of government bears no resemblance to the one intended by the Founders. I believe that the Constitution was intended to restrict forcibly the power of government in the lives of citizens in all areas. In an ideal, fully functional libertarian republic, people would be responsible for the consequences of their own actions -- always and inherently. That would be part of dealing with the "harm to society" and "other taxpayers bailing you out of your own stupidity" angles that people try to use to justify government regulation. But once we (the American people, many years ago) began crossing certain lines in legislation and Supreme Court decisions, and accepting certain compromises in previous generations as it relates to the original Constitutional intent of the Founders, we accepted statism, socialism, regulation of personal behavior for societal good, and a whole host of cascading ill effects that have brought us to the place, very badly off course, where we find ourselves today.
So, a Constitutionally limited form of federalism seems like a reasonable compromise for now. (Sorry to be a cynic, but it's hard to envision enough collective awareness among our citizenry to turn the tide completely back the other way and return to the ideal). Some states will have weak-minded and feeble citizens, and will send representatives to office that will protect the People from themselves, because that's what the People indicate they want. There will constantly be horns locking over where the Constitution provides individual liberty vs. where the state may regulate personal behavior for the common good, but that will be the tone set by the government in that state, blessed by the voters who send those sorts of representatives to office.
Hopefully, you will also have states that decide to allow greater personal freedom, and the People will elect like-minded representatives to office. Ideally, people living in restrictive nanny-like states would see how much better the citizens of libertarian states have it, and would either elect representatives to office to pass the same laws in their state, or will move to a state with greater personal freedom.
But unless you can find in the Constitution where a dildo is a protected individual right, I'll pragmatically reckon it to be something that the People in some states may choose to regulate, whether it's to save themselves from temptation, or prevent others from having fun -- or from some perceived societal benefit to the overall moral tone of the place.
Personally, if the guy who proposed such legislation was my representative, I'd let his office know in no uncertain terms that I vehemently disagree with it, and consider it nanny-state legislation of the worst kind. I think some others indicated that this bill has no cosponsor, and I'd like to believe that it will never see the light of day. But I'm just not so sure that it's a specific right in the Constitution that would stop such legislation, so much as the will of the People, as expressed through their representatives. I don't think that even a strongly Southern Baptist/Fundamentalist state like South Carolina would have enough state reps that would be willing to go along with such a bill -- hopefully it wouldn't even be close. But many local governments may choose to make similar restrictions, and likely could muster enough political will among the People there to restrict such things as sex shops and other types of businesses. And if it can be regulated locally through a Constitutional means of elected representatives doing the will of the people, then I suppose if such restrictions can also reach a consensus at the state level, it should still be acceptable.
Do you agree or disagree with a state being able to restrict abortion? On what Constitutional basis?
It's your understanding that, basically, any town-council, of any state, could enact and enforce such a ban without any serious legal obstructions?
I could just as easily said. "It appears to affect Obviously, it affects the lives of South Carolina citizens, however, and they have a right to ban them."
"Are you really contending that a ban would be within their rights even if no ill effect can be shown to actually exist?"
I contend that this falls within the police power of the state. Now if, as you postulate, there is no ill effect, the citizens may question the legislature as to the purpose of this law and make their voices known.
But I believe it would survive a constitutional test, yes.
Do you believe that the citizens of South Carolina don't have the right to petition their state government to ban these items? That these items must be made available to those who want them? Taken a step further, do you believe the State of South Carolina should have the power to force stores to carry these products (eg., my State of Illinois forces, by law, Wal-Mart to carry the morning after pill)?
Then why is concealed carry a state issue? If RKBA is protected by the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution, how can different states have different laws? Isn't there something about constitutional due process that requires uniformity?
How can one state require registration, and others don't? Why are age limits different in each state? Why are some guns prohibited in one state but legal in another?
Are you sure that the second amendment applies to the states? Or is each state guided solely by its State Constitution?
Did you see this?
I'm not aware that the law covers private ownership. The title of the article is, "Bill would make sale of sex toys illegal in South Carolina". Did I read it wrong? Or didn't you see it?
The sale of sex toys in South Carolina does not force perversion on me, no. Then again, this isn't about me, now is it?
The citizens of South Carolina, however, seem to feel that the sale of sex toys in their state forces perversion on them.
Are you saying that the citizens should not be allowed to petition their state legislature to prohibit these products? Are you saying that they must allow this in the name of "freedom" -- the priciple being "Freedom for me and not for thee"?
If the "outlawing" doesn't violate the state constitution, of course they can. Doesn't mean they have to, but they can under the state police power.
The state has tremendous powers -- every power not specifically given to the federal government is retained by the states. Which was exactly how the Founding Fathers wanted it.
"What about toes, tongues,?"
Here in Virginia it's still "officially" illegal to use your tongue.
"I am under the impression that this has the support of the people. Am I wrong?"
In fact, you are. From what I can tell, it has the support of one legislator.
D'oh!
Yes, but laying down only. Standing sex leads to dancing.
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