Law Review: Should Texas’s Former Ban on Obscene Device Promotion Pass Constitutional Muster Under a Murky Lawrence?

Should Texas’s Former Ban on Obscene Device Promotion Pass Constitutional Muster Under a Murky Lawrence?
Laura M. Clark, 41 St. Mary’s L.J. 177 (2009)

In Part II, this Comment will summarize the cases and statutes involved in the sex-toy promotion circuit split. Part III will discuss other courts’ holdings on similar issues. Part IV will analyze relevant U.S. Supreme Court holdings and Texas cases, apply Lawrence to the Texas and Alabama statutes, and examine whether the Texas statute might be changed to pass constitutional muster. While the murkiness of Lawrence has spawned a great deal of scholarship on whether it is a fundamental rights analysis or a rational basis analysis, this Comment will focus on the private-versus-commercial right aspect of the debate. This Comment will conclude with a discussion of what a possible U.S. Supreme Court clarification of Lawrence might hold.