US Election 2016: Ted Cruz backed law criminalising the sale of sex toys when Solicitor General of Texas

In 2007, the Republican presidential candidate’s office stated Texans could legally use sex toys in the comfort of their own homes, but had no constitutional right to purchase them

Ultra-conservative Texas Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz (AP)

As if people needed another reason to dislike Ted Cruz, it turns out the ultra-conservative Senator once supported a law that criminalised the sale of sex toys.

The Republican presidential candidate was Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008. During his first year in the role, a sales rep for the sex-toy firm Passion Parties was arrested under a Texas statute that outlawed the sale or promotion of dildos and other “obscene devices”. Those who broke the law could face as much as two years behind bars.

According to a report by Mother Jones, in 2004 several firms selling sex toys in the Austin area challenged the law, arguing that it violated their customers’ constitutional right to privacy. After a judge ruled that sex toys were not protected by the US Constitution, the plaintiffs appealed, which is when Mr Cruz got involved.

The Solicitor General’s office, tasked with arguing the state’s case, filed a 76-page brief in 2007 stating “the Texas Penal Code prohibits the advertisement and sale of dildos, artificial vaginas, and other obscene devices,” but admitting it did not “forbid the private use of such devices.”

Texans could legally use sex toys in the comfort of their own homes, the brief said, but they had no constitutional right to purchase them. “Any alleged right associated with obscene devices,” Mr Cruz’s office insisted, was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.”

The brief added: “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.” The court of appeals disagreed and overthrew the law in 2008.

Responding to the story, Mr Cruz’s former college roommate, Craig Mazin, claimed the Texan’s legal stance contradicted his personal behaviour. “Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to ‘stimulate their genitals,’” Mr Mazin tweeted. “I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his.”

Mr Mazin, a comedy screenwriter, shared a dorm room with Mr Cruz at Princeton University, and has regularly voiced his distaste for the Senator. “I have plenty of problems with his politics,” he once said, “but truthfully his personality is so awful that 99 per cent of why I hate him is just his personality.”