Karthick Arvinth
US presidential candidate Ted Cruz has come under scrutiny
after it emerged that he supported a ban on the sale of sex toys while
he was solicitor general of Texas. The 45-year-old, who is trailing Donald Trump
in the race to be the Republican nominee in the November general
election, was behind a 76-page brief that argued the case for outlawing
the sale of so-called "marital aids" in the state in 2007.
The brief was filed at the US Court of Appeals after two sex
toy companies challenged a state law that barred the sale of adult
devices on penalty of up to a two-year prison sentence.
Cruz's legal team contended that the use of sex toys was comparable
to "hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy", and
that advertising the sale of such products was akin to promoting
prostitution, according to Mother Jones.
"There is no substantive due-process right to stimulate
one's genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or
outside of an interpersonal relationship," they argued.
The document filed by Cruz's office added that there was a
government interest in discouraging "autonomous sex" to protect "public
morals".
The
argument was ultimately thrown out by the court, which asserted that
the state government's jurisdiction did not extend to people's bedrooms.
"The case is not about public sex. It is not about
controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in
the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a
certain type of consensual private intimate contact," the judges said
in their ruling.
Hollywood screenwriter Craig Mazin, a roommate of Cruz at
Princeton University, hinted that the Texas senator's opposition to
adult devices and masturbation was likely a recent development.
He wrote on Twitter: "Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a
right 'to stimulate their genitals'. I was his college roommate. This
would be a new belief of his."
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