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.
Is yours a pull-start model?
"Note that in the second story, what really got her in trouble was not selling the items, but instead it was describing what they were for and how they were used, thus making it clear what the "devices" were "primarily" for, which is they key phrase in the law."
Which makes perfect sense. You know if you don't tell a woman how to use a dildo or vibrator, then she'll never know what they're for and she'll never be led down the path to immoral orgasms. It's the same principle as sex education for teenagers -- don't tell them about sex and they won't have any.
Well, out of fairness, grits make a lousy sex aid. Cooked or uncooked.
Nope. They have a right to decide as individuals how they want to live; no more.
So what do you think will happen with this bill?
What does that mean? You're describing anarchy -- everyone lives by their own rules.
Just make a contract with somebody rich enough to buy all the land in a city or a state, and you're golden.
Obviously SC lawmakers have way too much time on their hands. I would not want to be an incumbent in November.
On May 23, 1866, Senator Howard of Michigan introduced the proposal in the Senate. In a 1994 Duke Law Journal article, William Van Alstyne and his associates wrote the following concerning Senator Howard's remarks:So, in reporting the Fourteenth Amendment to the Senate on behalf of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in 1866, Senator Jacob Meritt Howard of Michigan began by detailing the 'first section' of that amendment, i.e., the section that 'relates the privileges and immunities of citizens.' He explained that the first clause of the amendment (the 'first section'), once approved and ratified, would 'restrain the power of the States' even as Congress was already restrained (by the Bill of Rights) from abridging -- the personal rights quarantined and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and bear arms... [etc., through the Eighth Amendment].Senator Howard referred to the right enumerated in the Second Amendment as a personal right of the people, not a collective right of the States. He concluded his remarks by stating:[T]here is no power given in the Constitution to enforce and to carry out any of these guarantees. They are not powers granted by the Constitution to Congress... they stand simply as a bill of rights in the Constitution, without power on the part of Congress give them full effect; while at the same time the States are not restrained from violating the principles embraced in them.... The great object of this first section of this amendment is, therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect these great fundamental guarantees.
"You don't like the Goths?"
"No! Not with the persecution we have to put up with!"
"Persecution?" Padway raised his eyebrows.
"Religious persecution. We won't stand for it forever."
"But I thought the Goths let everybody worship as they pleased."
"That's just it! We Orthodox are forced to stand around and watch Arians and Monophysites and Nestorians and Jews going about their business unmolested, as if they owned the country! If that isn't persecution, I'd like to know what is!"
-- L. Sprague deCamp (Lest Darkness Fall)
Hey! Vibrators are the DEVIL's playgrounds, French Ticklers Satan's gateway to hell!!!!!! /sarc
I guess some guys down here just can't take the competition...
You've discovered the the secret - this is really a plot by the Big Cucumbers cartel.
The state has tremendous powers -- every power not specifically given to the federal government is retained by the states.
Not true. The 10th specifically says that powers are prohibited to the States by the Constitution:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Obviously, individual rights apply to "the people".
The powers prohibited to the states, -- the power to prohibit the individual rights of the people -- is denied to government, -- this power is retained by the people.
Which was exactly how the Founding Fathers wanted it.
The founders wrote the Constitution under the presumption that individual liberties "shall not be infringed". -- By any level of government.
Face it paulsen, -- your visions that the "-- state has tremendous powers --" are limited by the provisions of the US Constitution and its Amendments.
Why do you fight this simple fact?
I have found, through much wasted time reading his inane ramblings, that Paulsen invariably takes a side contrary to the facts and does it in such an annoying fashion that he is not worth the trouble. He is consistently opposed to the system of governance set up by our Founders.
As long as the Constitution is not being violated, either in its due process for passing the legislation, or its adherence to individual rights expressly protected in the Constitution, then local government bodies can and do place such restrictions on business all the time. There are plenty of dry counties, Blue Laws, and all sorts of laws governing business behavior that localities have passed, and have never been overturned as unconstitutional as far as I know.
Do I personally agree with and support such laws? No. I would not want to live in such a place, and would either work to change the laws or move to a place that didn't have such restrictions. But my personal distaste for such regulations does not prohibit a group of people, who wish to freely associate and voluntarily live by certain restrictions and codes, from passing them.
If a county was heavily Amish, for example, and as a matter of conscience the leaders and representatives (with the support of the people) wanted certain legal restrictions passed -- as long as the Constitution is the base document they abide by in the process of drafting the laws, and protection of individual rights under the Constitution is not violated, then they should be free to create a legal and moral environment to their liking, should they not?
I realize there are many gray areas where individual rights collide with legal restrictions, and this is where many court battles related to Constitutionality are fought -- so it's not a cut and dry situation, just a general principle that has been established through the years.
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