From consecutive posts on Reason‘s Hit & Run blog:
[1] Police in Jackson, Mississippi, raided two adult bookstores and arrested three people, charging them all with “possessing sex toys with the intent to resell.” That’s right: “marital aids” are illegal in much of the Deep South, though enforcement efforts are rare because police — one would hope — have better things to do than going door to door prosecuting women for owning vibrators. (Then again, they do the same thing with respect to certain kinds of plants …) The owners were led out of their stores in handcuffs and their inventory — which was seemingly devoid of phallic implements — was swiped by officers. No word on whether vegetables will soon be banned in that state.
[2] Much less surrealistically humorous is a quote from South Dakota state Rep. Joel Dysktra, who is considering a run for the U.S. Senate to unseat Tim Johnson, who is still recovering from a stroke. He pushed an attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade by passing a blanket ban of all abortions in the state, no exceptions. (It failed miserably when put to a statewide vote.) In his defense of excluding any and all loopholes from the bill, he uttered the frighteningly absurd — a horrible misstatement at best, a horrifying remark at worst: “I think ‘rape and incest’ is a buzzword. It’s a bit of a throwaway line and not everybody who says that really understands what that means. How are you going to define that?” Well, considering they’re defined by South Dakota statutes here and here … does that definition work for you? If you need more clarification, we could arrange for you to have some quality time with one of your state’s prisoners. At the very least, I think all reasonable people can agree that those who don’t consent to sex shouldn’t be compelled to bear children that result from it … though we may soon have a Senator who disagrees.
