91% Oppose Sex-Toy Ban

There's an Alabama state law against selling sex toys, but to say that law is unpopular with the public would be a gross understatement, at least in Decatur, Alabama. The Decatur Daily newspaper recently polled its readers with the following online question:

"Do you agree with Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys?" the two-day, unscientific poll asked. People could vote from anywhere. Of 191 respondents, 174 (a whopping 91.1%) answered "no". Seventeen answered "yes".

"I don’t get it," one reader wrote in an e-mail. "They want to ban sex toys, but sell guns on every street corner. When was the last time anyone was murdered with a vibrating banana?"

He voted "no", as did the following reader: "I feel that the government has no right to ban these items,” wrote the reader. "What a couple wants to do in their bedroom is no business of anyone."

Sherri Williams, owner of Pleasures adult toy shops in Decatur and Huntsville, Alabama, and others challenged the sex-toy ban in court.

On Valentine’s Day, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the law is constitutional because “the state’s interest in preserving and promoting public morality provides a rational basis” for it.

-- Wow! It sounds like somebody's state government is way out of touch with the public, at least on the issue of selling sex-toys. A majority like 91% on any issue is almost unheard of in the U.S. And the state must be losing a lot of tax revenues by not allowing sex toys to be sold. But I did like that line about the "vibrating banana", hehehe!