Back in the day of 2007 when GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas, his office prepared a legal brief to defend the state in court against plaintiffs who argued the state's ban on sex toys is unconstitutional.
Mother Jones has the details on Cruz's legal brief which, in so many words, argued that it's the duty of government to discourage the use of sex toys and that banning the sale of toys is not a breach of personal liberty.
Warning: what you read next may be disturbing.
The brief insisted that Texas in order to protect "public morals" had "police-power interests" in "discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, combating the commercial sale of sex, and protecting minors." There was a "government" interest, it maintained, in "discouraging...autonomous sex." The brief compared the use of sex toys with "hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy," and it equated advertising these products with the commercial promotion of prostitution. In perhaps the most noticeable line of the brief, Cruz's office declared, "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." That is, the pursuit of such happiness had no constitutional standing. And the brief argued there was no "right to promote dildos, vibrators, and other obscene devices." The plaintiffs, it noted, were "free to engage in unfettered noncommercial speech touting the uses of obscene devices" but not speech designed to generate the sale of these items.
Which brings us to our next point:
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.
— Craig Mazin (@clmazin) April 13, 2016
Think the GOP race couldn't be more embarrassing? Think again. I can't even imagine what will happen next.
As the saying goes, Republicans want government small enough to 'fit in your bedroom,' but Ted Cruz's government would be small enough to fit in your dresser drawer.