First businesses, now customers are suing the city of Sandy Springs over an ordinance that requires people to have a prescription, or a medical or scientific reason, to buy a sexual device.
Melissa Davenport and her attorney, Gerry Weber, filed the suit because they want the government out of the business of regulating private lives.
“(Some people) have this dirty mind about how people are going to use it. People really do need devices because they need it for health reasons and to have a healthy intimate life with their spouse,” Davenport said.
Davenport suffers from multiple sclerosis.
“The nerve pathways interfered (with) going to my intimate areas, to the point where I had no feeling,” Davenport said.
She told Channel 2’s Rachel Stockman taht the sex toys saved her marriage and that’s why she filed the lawsuit.
The ordinance in question prohibits the selling of sexual devices unless the customers have a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose.
Experts construe that to mean if you have a doctor’s prescription, or some kind of proof the device is being used for one of those purposes.
"The ordinance basically says the government can stick its nose in your bedroom and say you can use this but not that,” said Weber.
Weber says the ordinance violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides a right to privacy.
“People have the right to decide for themselves whether these devices help their intimate life, and the government has no business being the bedroom and second guessing that decision,” Weber said.
The city said they cannot comment on ongoing litigation, but are expected to file a response by June.
Davenport said she isn’t seeking any money, she just wants a judge to find the law unconstitutional.
