Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis earlier this month was pilloried in the press for her attack ad that prominently highlighted the fact that her Republican opponent Attorney General Greg Abbott uses a wheelchair. Davis took her attacks to a new level on Monday by strongly implying Abbott would support an interracial marriage ban, despite the fact that Abbott is married to a Latina. But less than three hours later, Davis again topped herself by forwarding an attack on Abbott about an unlikely issue: dildos.
In an emailed press release, Wendy Davis For Governor passed along an article from progressive magazine The Texas Observer entitled “Greg Abbott: Dildos? Against ’em. Interracial Marriage? No Comment.” The piece attacks Abbott for his supposed reluctance to say whether he’d defend interracial marriage and his defense of Texas’ ban on the sale of sex toys. (RELATED: Even MSNBC Won’t Defend Wendy Davis Ad)
“In 2008, Abbott chose to defend the state’s ban on the sale of sex toys, a case that emerged from the fallout of Lawrence v. Texas,” writes the Observer’s Christopher Hooks. “Over the years, Abbott has deployed novel legal arguments against gay marriage. But this wasn’t a case about gay marriage, a subject that still animates sincere moral disagreements. This was a case about every American’s god-given right to buy dildos.”
“The state of Texas has a pressing interest, Abbott said, in discouraging you from masturbating or blowing your boyfriend,” Hooks frets. “That was just six years ago.” (RELATED: Wendy Davis Doubles Down: Wheelchair Ad Was ‘Fair And Important’)
It seems the reason the Davis campaign thought it was a good idea to send out the email was because Hooks agrees with their claim that Greg Abbott “likely would have defended a ban on interracial marriage, according to his own principles and record. He wouldn’t have known how not to.”
How does Hooks square that with the fact that Abbott was married to a Hispanic woman? Because “the anti-miscegenation laws struck by Loving [v. Virginia] were particularly targeted to black-white relationships.”
Still, the fact that Davis campaign thought it would be a good idea to send an press release with “dildo” in the subject line and “blowing your boyfriend” in the body… well, it’s almost hard to swallow.