Blake Marler, bring your own Alabama slammer…

In keeping with the celebratory theme of 72 years of Guiding Light and the fact life does imitate   art so much of the time, I thought I would combine my commentary in this blog with my last opportunity to provide a little advice to Springfield’s Blake Marler and her retail pursuits of personal satisfaction.  So, Blake, if you are planning any kind of literary promotional tour to Alabama, bring your own…otherwise, this information might come in handy.

The Alabama Supreme (?) Court on Friday upheld the state’s ban on the sale of sex toys.  The court majority ruled in a 7 – 2 decision that while people have the right to use the devices in private, the Legislature has the right to ban public distribution of those products.

Love Stuff, a Hoover, Alabama small business, had asked the court to strike down a 1998 law arguing that the ban violated a person’s right to sexual privacy.  “Public morality can still serve as a legitimate rational basis for regulating commercial activity, which is not a private activity,” Associate Justice, Michael F. Bolin wrote in the majority opinion.

The judges cited an opinion from Atlanta’s 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the law from an earlier case filed by the ACLU.  Under the guise of you just can’t make this shit up, the Alabama Supreme majority stated, “There is nothing ‘private’ or ‘consensual’ about the advertising and sale of a dildo”.

The attorney representing Love Stuff, Amy L. Herring, said the store’s options may include an appeal to the US Supreme Court considering the problems with the Southern appellate courts and their previous decisions.  Good luck with that one, as Justice Scalia is still on the court, and has no problem imposing his own personal set of moral values as to what should be defined as public decency.

It is refreshing to hear at least one dissenting Southern opinion in favor of civil liberties.   Associate Justice Thomas A Woodall wrote, “The majority’s focus is unduly narrow and ignores the burden the statute places on private sexual activity.”  Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb also dissented in the case.  Atta girl!

Love Stuff sought to declare unconstitutional the Alabama state law passed in 1998 that prohibits the sale of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”   Of course there are exceptions, because what would any restrictive conservative law be without exceptions to white males, including politicians and the occasional clergy.  Just as with insurance coverage for Viagra, you can get off for medical, scientific, or educational purposes.

Educational?  I guess that’s a stimulus package Alabama conservatives have no problem saying, “Yes! Yes!” to.