The Alabama legislature has just voted down a law that would have legalized sex toys. The sex toy ban was included at the last moment in a 1998 obscenity bill.
Question is, was this an example of Alabama’s prudishness, or a clever tactic to get around it? Because it’s the sex toy provision of the law which has gotten it into constitutional trouble:
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, said because of the court ruling, the obscenity law is unenforceable as long as it contains the ban on sex toys. “All this does is make our obscenity law constitutional,” Rogers said.
With little serious discussion, the House voted 37-28 to leave the sex toys ban in state law, leaving Rogers standing at the microphone shaking his head. “What you just did is make our obscenity law illegal. You voted for obscenity,” Rogers shouted at lawmakers.
Well, a person’s gotta vote for something in this crazy world …
(via Plum Crazy)
I was wondering about that myself, but then decided that would be giving them way too much credit for intelligence.