Alabama shop owner challenges sex toy ban

updated 6:09 p.m. ET May 14, 2007

WASHINGTON - The owner of adult stores in Alabama asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a state ban on selling sex toys, calling it an unconstitutional intrusion into the bedroom.

If the court declines to take the case — as it did in 2005 — Alabama residents shopping for sexual novelties could soon have to look outside the state’s borders.

“A person should have the right to make their own decision to explore their sexual boundaries outside what some government official says is moral,” Sherri Williams said outside the Supreme Court before filing the appeal.

Williams has waged a mostly losing battle against the law since the state legislature passed it in 1998.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dealt her the latest setback on Valentine’s Day, upholding the ban as constitutional and saying “the state’s interest in preserving and promoting public morality provides a rational basis for the challenged statute.”

The state has held off on enforcing the law as the case winds through the appeals process.

Alabama is one of a handful of states, including Texas and Georgia, with laws restricting sales of sex toys. The Alabama “anti-obscenity” law bans the sale of sex toys but not their possession.

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