The ruling makes good reading, at least for me—it’s refreshing these days whenever any kind of bullshit is officially rejected. It’s hard to beat a judge when it comes to ultra-dry putdowns: “we can divine no rational connection between the statute and the protection of children .... The alleged governmental interest in protecting ‘unwilling adults’ from exposure to sexual devices is even less convincing.”
The court also talks about the definition of that law in more detail than the press did, and it’s pretty amazing. It wasn’t actually illegal to own an unmentionable item, you just couldn’t sell them, and if you had more than five of them at home you’d be considered a dealer. It was a felony—although contrary to the famous ballad of Texas Annie, there wasn’t really a prison term of 27 years, and apparently prosecution was pretty rare. But the greatest part of the law was this: “It is an affirmative defense ... that the person who possesses or promotes material or a device proscribed by this section does so for a bona fide medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative, or law enforcement purpose.” I’ve heard the Texas legislature is an interesting place, but watch out for the cops...
Anyway, I just found out about a documentary on this from 2003 that has a 10-minute excerpt on YouTube (not particularly safe for work), and now I have to find the whole thing—it’s hilarious. It has the late Saint Molly Ivins to tell you all about the giant minds behind that law, and a couple of salespeople who do an impressive job of explaining with a straight face how the unmentionable items certainly aren’t meant for that. Thanks to Hilzoy for the link.
(The other thing I wondered about, looking at the court ruling: how does a state attorney defend that law, as he’s required to do, if he’s not an idiot? The D.A. named in the lawsuit was Ronnie Earle, whom you may remember as the guy who indicted Tom DeLay, and he’s not any kind of bluenose as far as I know. But he also prosecuted and convicted himself once for something pretty trivial, so I guess there’s a certain amount of Inspector Javert that goes with that job.)