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Ted Cruz helped defend Texas ban against sale of sex toys in 2007
Source: The Guardian
Ted Cruz helped defend Texas ban against sale of sex toys in 2007
As solicitor general, Cruz’s office had argued in case that using sex toys
was akin to ‘hiring a prostitute’ and masturbation was not covered by the
right to privacy
Megan Carpentier in New York
Wednesday 13 April 2016 21.16 BST
On the campaign trail, Ted Cruz portrays himself as a “constitutional conservative” who is committed to preserving Americans’ (largely unthreatened) right to religious freedom and access to the guns of their choosing. He is, he tells his audiences, interested in limiting the reach of the federal government into their lives, and often explicitly promises to limit the power of the federal government in various ways.
But in 2007, when he was solicitor general of the state of Texas, Cruz took a slightly more expansive view of the appropriate role of the federal government, when he participated in a federal court case in an effort to maintain Texas’s ban on the sale of sex toys.
In that case, highlighted by Mother Jones, two sex toy companies sued to render moot the state’s ban on the sale of so-called “marital aids” – as they are often called in conservative circles. The state’s counterarguments, penned in part by the office run by Cruz, were that the use of sex toys was akin to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy”, and there is a state interest in “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation”.
The state – and Cruz – further argued that the sale of sex toys in the state of Texas was not an interference with the right to privacy for one’s sexual activity as established by the US supreme court in Lawrence v Texas, which threw out state bans on consensual same-sex acts of physical intimacy. The US supreme court found that there was no compelling state interest in interfering in the sexual lives of consenting adults, citing the privacy protections of the 14th amendment of the US constitution.
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As solicitor general, Cruz’s office had argued in case that using sex toys
was akin to ‘hiring a prostitute’ and masturbation was not covered by the
right to privacy
Megan Carpentier in New York
Wednesday 13 April 2016 21.16 BST
On the campaign trail, Ted Cruz portrays himself as a “constitutional conservative” who is committed to preserving Americans’ (largely unthreatened) right to religious freedom and access to the guns of their choosing. He is, he tells his audiences, interested in limiting the reach of the federal government into their lives, and often explicitly promises to limit the power of the federal government in various ways.
But in 2007, when he was solicitor general of the state of Texas, Cruz took a slightly more expansive view of the appropriate role of the federal government, when he participated in a federal court case in an effort to maintain Texas’s ban on the sale of sex toys.
In that case, highlighted by Mother Jones, two sex toy companies sued to render moot the state’s ban on the sale of so-called “marital aids” – as they are often called in conservative circles. The state’s counterarguments, penned in part by the office run by Cruz, were that the use of sex toys was akin to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy”, and there is a state interest in “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation”.
The state – and Cruz – further argued that the sale of sex toys in the state of Texas was not an interference with the right to privacy for one’s sexual activity as established by the US supreme court in Lawrence v Texas, which threw out state bans on consensual same-sex acts of physical intimacy. The US supreme court found that there was no compelling state interest in interfering in the sexual lives of consenting adults, citing the privacy protections of the 14th amendment of the US constitution.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/13/ted-cruz-texas-ban-sex-toys-case-2007
9 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
But yah, yah, yah, I get the fanbase worship that requires defense of HRC no matter how egregious the behavior is, but this one kinda takes the cake. The "I was just doing my job" excuse is utterly pathetic. No lawyer is required to savage any victim of a violent crime as an "ethical obligation" let alone a 12 year old child who was raped so violently by a 41 yr old man she almost didn't survive. If that excuse held any water we would also have to excuse the RCC cardinals and bishops who also blamed children for their own rape, because after all they were just 'doing their job' of defending the church and fulfilling their "ethical obligations".
Sorry, this just doesn't pass the smell test. Any lawyer or any other adult for that mater who blames a child for their own rape is a shitstain on humanity.
