Did you for one second think that the forces of sexual reaction in the Republic of Texas would stand still and take their defeat by the Fifth US Appealate Court on Texas’ anti-sex toy law standing down?? Not by a long shot, hell, no.

This from Slate.com (with a hat tip to Pandagon…belated props, Amanda):

One of only four states banning sexual doodads (the other three are Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama), Texas is not about to take this insult lying down. Last week, state Attorney General Greg Abbott petitioned the appellate court to reconsider the matter en banc (see exerpts below and on the following three pages). Abbott wrote that, if permitted to stand, the court’s decision may “invite … challenges to previously-uncontroversial criminal prohibitions” on sexual practices such as “consensual adult incest or bigamy” (Page 4).

The original decision was made by a three-judge panel; the appeal is to have the decision appealed to the entire Fifth Circuit nine-judge outfit; hence the legal phrase “en banc”.

The “Page 4″ reference is to an attached four page excerpt of the brief filed by Abbott and the Texas AG office announcing their appeal and stating their case why the anti-sex toy ban should stay in place. And what a doozy of a case he makes:

1) According to Abbott, the decision of the three-judge panel striking down the law directly contradicts the precedent of other appealate court decisions upholding laws regulating “morality” laws against “obscene” devices and behaviors; and overextends the reach of the infamous Lawrence vs. Texas ruling by the US Supreme Court a while back, which struck down laws against consensual adult sodomy improperly.

Hmmm….of course, since Abbot and his right-wing fundie cronies were the main defendants in the Lawrence case and still defend that particular law in the name of defending “marriage”, “family”, and “Western Christian civilization” from the evil threat of men fucking other men (if not just the threat of male erections used for anything other than making more babies for Jesus), then it would probably follow that they would oppose with similar stridency the use of penis substitutes by women for the sake of their own pleasure. The NERVE of those harlot sluts; using their bodies without his……ahhhhhh, I mean, God’s approval!!!

2) The ruling of the three-judge panel is a grave intervention into a state’s right to reflect the democratic voice of the legislature in passing laws to regulate behavior that reflects the majority view that certain obscene acts should be prohibited merely for being…well, obscene and immoral.

Ahhhhh, OK….so what if a majority of Texans happen to find the continuing war in Iraq to be far more obscene and immoral than any woman packing a dildo or Pocket Rocket in their car and happily jilling off on the Katy Freeway in H-Town during rush hour…and decide to pass a law reflecting their beliefs. I assume that as the AG, Mr. Abbot would be forsquare in front defending that law as well, too??? Oh, wait, I forgot….that has nothing to do with SEX and regulating women’s (and men’s) private sexual behavior; that’s only about such mundane things like “beating ‘teh terrorists’ there so that we don’t have to beat them here” and enriching King Dubya’s bank account for that getaway in Paraguay after he bolts the White House next year!!! OOPS…never mind….:-P And what’s up with this “states’ rights” deal…I thought that we had already resolved that matter, like, forty years ago with the civil rights movement???

3) And here comes the “money paragraph”: If the decision striking Texas’ right to ban sex toys is allowed to stand, according to Abbott and the Texas AG’s office, it will set a dangerous slippery slope that will allow all kinds of nasty, un-Christian, obscene behavior to be left unregulated. Quoting directly from the brief, placed as a footnote on page 14 (and much thanks to The Legal Satyricon for offering a copy of the brief):

4. It is undoubtebly true that some people believe that engaging in consensual adult incest or bigamy would enhance their sexual experiences. [...] Despite the failure of those activities to threaten the participants physical safety, Lawerence should not be used to invalidate laws prohibiting them. Anti-incest, and anti-bigamy laws are validly grounded in State’s legitimate interest in protecting public morals, as are the prohibitions contained in the statute being challenged here.

Oh, yeah….like, allowing a woman to purchase a dildo or a vibrator for her own personal and private use automatically leads to incest and bigamy, since we all know that the harlots/sluts will obvious use her recently discovered sexual powers obtained from using such devices to seduce their sons and seek multiple partners to marry; thusly destroying the last safe bastion of sexual modesty and chastity and feality to marriage and fidelity. And just…just..think of the children!!!!

How nice to see that the political leadership in Texas has progressed so far in such a short time. Really, you wonder where they get such wonderful politicos such as “DDT” DeLay and Dubya from???

Hey, Miss Molly: can you get the Goddess to launch a few lightning bolts at some of these fools???

UPDATE:   Witness this excellent whacking of the illogic of the Texas appeal by the aforementioned blog The Legal Satyricon:

These arguments are easily dispensed with, even if you turn off 98% of your brain cells.

Remember when gays started marrying in Massachusetts? A friend of mine who is a Jehovah’s Witness (yeah, seems funny that I have friends like that) predicted that men would soon marry goats. I haven’t heard of a satyr being born in Massachusetts yet.

Anti-bigamy laws are not an encroachment upon personal liberty. It is perfectly legal for three people, four people, five people, or a whole softball team to form a polyamorous group, live together, sleep together, and have children together. The only thing that is not legal is for a person to be married to another person who is already married to someone else. Marriage is NOT a sacred institution — it is a contract between two people and the state. The state gives benefits to a pair of people who decide they want to get married — for example, inheritance, marital privileges, and the like. Extending such privileges to larger groups would allow any cult or group of criminals to simply say “all 75 of us are married, therefore we can invoke the marital privilege.”

Incest — same thing. There is not an impermissible encroachment upon personal liberty, because incest has effects that will harm us all. Those who are in an inferior position in a family will not be able to give true consent. Even if they were (lets say fraternal twins wanted to do the nasty), there is a very real possibility that the incestuous relationship would result in inbreeding — which would lead to more Texans like the idiots who voted for this law in the first place. I don’t know, maybe if the incest took place between verifiably consenting adults who were also sterile, I suppose that I wouldn’t expect the state to get involved if my neighbor made that choice.

The second argument is just plain funny. The legislature of Texas has somehow deemed it to be harmful for people to masturbate? However, since they can’t make masturbation illegal, they have determined that the commercial activity of selling an item for the stimulation of the genitals is “harmful to the public?”

Does it not seem beyond belief that you can buy a gun with relatively little hassle all across the South. However, the legislatures of Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas are terrified of vibrators? One commentator said:

one could stroll down Alabama’s southern streets selling semiautomatic rifles and dildos, and be arrested for the dildos. (source)

The only thing that dildos threaten is some ass-hats in Austin who are terrified of the fact that women will like their dildos more than their men. Given what I have seen come out of the Texas legislature, I couldn’t blame them.

Emphasis indeed on “THEIR men”.

Tags: prudery will get you nowhere, right wing hypocrisy, Right wing sex freakery, war on sex