A couple seeking to enhance their sex life decides to take a trip to their local adult store. A lonely trucker, miles away from his wife, looks for diversion at a sex shop along the highway. A young woman in a long-distance relationship wonders if a trip to the Lion's Den might help pass the time between her fiancé's visits.

If any of these people happen to live in Abilene, Kansas, they might soon find their options severely limited. Citing an obscure Kansas statute, a grand jury charged the Abilene Lion's Den Adult Superstore with 29 counts of "promoting obscenity."

The local council for the defense, Robert Littrell, was amazed that such a law still existed. "I've never seen any prosecution under this law before," he says, "I had to look it up….it's a moralistic remnant from another era."

H. Louis Sirkin, a first amendment attorney with a long track record of dealing with these kinds of cases, contends that this law should not be on the books. "The Kansas statute is unconstitutional," he says without hesitation. "People have a right to be able to make their own choices, and one of those choices is ways to sexually stimulate themselves…if you hold that these devices are unconstitutional than I guess we should say that our hands are as well."

Virgil Eubanks, a pastor at the First Christian Church in Abilene, has been protesting the Lion's Den since it opened in September of 2003. "We're pleased," he says, choosing his words carefully. "We've had fairly good community support."

This "fairly good" community support has included a 100-day protest outside the store. Some of the 140 attendees went so far as to write down the license plate numbers of truckers and notify their agencies of the employee's behavior. Their campaign, dubbed Operation Daniel by its supporters, was coordinated by the Citizens for Strengthening Community Virtues (CFSCV.)

The main organizer for Operation Daniel is an Abilene resident named Phillip Cosby. In a January article for the American Family Association's Journal, Cosby told reporters that 30 percent of potential patrons of the Lion's Den drove away after seeing the protesters. He claimed that a staggering seventy-five percent of truck drivers were deterred, and stands by his actions by pointing out that "DOT info and license plates is public information."

"We contacted folks like Wal-Mart and the transportation director was very supportive," recalls Cosby. "Wal-Mart didn't want their trucks in front of adult superstores."

But Wal-Mart sells controversial video games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a game that rewards players for having sex with a hooker, then murdering her. In fact, there are two Wal-Marts within a half an hour of Abilene which sell this game.

Additionally, Wal-Mart is embroiled in one of the largest sex discrimination suits ever filed, a messy affair involving more than a million women and allegations that, among other things, female employees were forced to attend meetings in strip clubs.

Wal-Mart did not respond to numerous phone calls and requests for information.

Despite the protests, the Abilene Lion's Den did not close. Abilene Sheriff Curt Bennett was contacted by the county attorney's office.

"I personally didn't want to go out there and pick up the articles," says Bennett. "What may be obscene to me may not be obscene to anybody else."

Cosby and Eubanks agreed to accompany the sheriff to the Lion's Den to collect the evidence, hand-picking such items as Double Dong with Harness and Fujiko's Asian Odyssey-Vaginal, Clitoral and Anal Stimulations.

Kat Sunlove, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, and lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry, questions the actions of Cosby and Eubanks. "No one dragged that minister [Eubanks] in there to buy those 29 dildos so that he could be offended," she says. "Why he did so says a lot…about his motivations," Sunlove continues. "Why people have any interest in how a person pleasures themselves, or someone else for that matter, is really a mystery."

Dr. Barnaby Barratt, director and founder of the Midwest Institute of Sexology, who has been called to testify in similar cases, offered an outside perspective on the Lion's Den case, calling these suits "essentially a form of harassment [which] rack up legal fees, and some of these stores don't have deep pockets."

While the Abilene Lion's Den has remained open, Barratt contends that in these cases the stores are often padlocked. "They close [the store], says Barratt, "and sometimes they produce bogus health department charges."

Barratt is concerned about future cases. "There's an escalating movement of anti-sexual self-righteousness," he says. Barratt believes that "there are some frightening organizations doing this systematically." He is specifically worried about the American Family Association.

The AFA, whose website proclaims itself to be "America's Largest Pro-Family Action Site," with a membership, at last count, of 2,130,630, "is very active in this," says Barratt.

"They have very deep pockets, a lot of political power, a lot of power to inflame people's fear and a lot of self-righteousness and a lot of prosecuting attorneys," he continues.

Eubanks asserts that his group received no assistance from the AFA in organizing the protests, but that the AFA did assist Operation Daniel "with some of the research."

Meanwhile, The Citizens for Strengthening Community Virtues, which supposedly had a significant part in the organization of Operation Daniel, is unreachable. They have no website. They have no phone number. This highly organized, quick-moving group (they managed to put together a large protest group, complete with two and a half hour shifts, mere days after the store's opening) appeared, seemingly, out of thin air.

"The Citizens for Strengthening Community Virtues was formed specifically to protest the Lion's Den in the Abilene area," claims Scott Ross of Adult Video News. "They were advised by the American Family Association."

Michael DePrimo, an attorney with the AFA's Center for Law and Policy, denies that his group helped to organize the CFSCV or "Operation Daniel." He does, however, acknowledge that the AFA has been advising certain members of the town of Abilene with regards to a "sexually oriented business ordinance," that limits the options of adult businesses.

These "regulations" include restrictions on the store's hours of operation and regulations on the inward and outward appearance of the store. The reasoning behind such restrictions is to limit the "secondary negative affects" that adult businesses allegedly have on a community.

"People who often time patronize these businesses engage in illegal conduct, whether it be criminal conduct or sexual conduct or drugs," insists DePrimo. Additionally, DePrimo claims that property values decline around these types of businesses.

Sirkin rejects the argument that adult businesses adversely affect a community. "This claim of secondary affects is overstated," he says.

"Today's statistics are not proving that adult businesses harm communities," says Sirkin. "There are fewer problems with the adult businesses today than there are with bars." Indeed, there are many studies that indicate pornography may decrease levels of sexual violence in areas where it is made available to the public.

Sirkin notes that "these businesses today are very couple-friendly, they're more like boutiques. It's not the kind of industry that people generally have this image of and that the AFA tries to create for it."

Both he and DePrimo cite studies and court cases to back up their conflicting viewpoints. However, many of the Supreme Court cases DePrimo mentions, such as Barnes v. Glen Theatre, refer to live entertainment. The Lion's Den in Abilene does not offer such entertainment.

Additionally, DePrimo refers to Renton v. Playtime theatres, a 1986 case which stipulated that an adult movie theatre, which the Abilene Lion's Den is not, was forbidden to set up theatres within 1000 feet of a school, church, private home or park. That's a distance of less than a fifth of a mile.

This is one area where DePrimo and Sirkin may find themselves in agreement. "I agree that adult businesses don't belong next to an elementary school," Sirkin says. "I don't believe think that gas stations belong next to an elementary school, I don't believe that bars belong to an elementary school."

"But certainly in an entertainment district or in a shopping mall just like Frederick's of Hollywood or Victoria's Secret, adult businesses have a place," Sirkin contends.

According to Sirkin, these zoning laws are unconstitutional. "The Supreme Court has pretty clearly ruled on that question…it's unconstitutional to zone based on the content of the speech or expression," of the business," says Sirkin.

"Our ordinance doesn't drive [the adult businesses] out of town, it simply regulates them," says DePrimo.

However, Karen L. McMillan, Abilene's zoning administrator, seems to be under a different impression. "Our main goal is to make it as hard as possible for them," she says of the adult businesses. "Our doors aren't open anymore."

Because of the extreme reactions sex shops engender, "a lot of these places deliberately are model corporate citizens," asserts Barratt. "They give to local charities," he says, "they make a deliberate effort to be as positive in the community as possible."

Jim Everett, spokesman for the Lion's Den, echoed Barratt's statements. "Our tax dollars support the schools and the city infrastructure. We're involved in charities," says Everett. "We operate legally, ethically and honestly in every community we're in."

Everett affirms Lion's Den stores are painstaking in their efforts to stay well within the law. "We check ID's from all the people in our stores," he says, "we have cameras in the stores, we try to keep the buildings neat and clean."

As for the obscenity charges, Everett believes that "we have a wonderful justice system in this country."

Ultimately, Eubanks and Cosby won't tolerate having sex shops in his town. "We just don't believe it's what we need in our community," Eubanks says.

When asked whether he could consider simply ignoring the store, Eubanks rejects the idea. "That doesn't work," he claims, concluding that ignoring its presence would only cause things to go "from bad to worse."

Eubanks believes that stores like the Lion's Den are promoting ideas that go against Christian beliefs. He can cite several Bible passages that condemn "sexual immorality."

When asked whether he thinks that good Christians were in danger of the temptation posed by sex stores, Eubanks doesn't hesitate. "Certainly," he replies.

DePrimo concurs. In his opinion, "all people are tempted by sin."

Sirkin is alarmed by what he sees as an increase in religious language in regards to legal issues. "All of a sudden now we're hearing everything is either good or evil," he says. "And those are religious principals, those aren't government principals and they're not principals that we should be espousing," says Sirkin. "We should be espousing individual rights and freedoms and choices."

While DePrimo believes that adult entertainment is harmful, Barratt is unwavering in his belief that sex toys are good for people. The Midwestern Institute of Sexology is obviously devoted to studying sexuality. Barratt is not only a sex educator, but a sex therapist as well.

"The last time that I did defense expert witnessing I did a fairly extensive review of the research literature," says Barratt. "There's quite a lot of evidence that non-violent erotica has a lot of value and does some good," he maintains. "There is not a question that sex toys are enormously helpful to a large number of people."

Sunlove agrees. "These toys are not just harmless, they are pleasure-giving," she says.

If so, then why is there such resistance to sex shops in communities like Abilene? According to Barratt, "people who are sexually repressed are provoked by the very existence of people who are more expressive in their sexuality." Additionally, "sex toys are generally associated with masturbation and there is still a huge number of people who are highly anxious and conflicted about masturbation."

This sentiment is echoed by Sunlove. "They're afraid of what they don't know, they're afraid of sex in general," she says of those opposed to sex shops. Sex toys, Sunlove insists, "are pleasure giving," and offer us "ways of learning about who we are as human beings, trying new things."

"But the sheep out there don't want to try new things and they don't want anybody else to trying new things either," Sunlove says.

Despite the current troubles of the Lion's Den, Everett is optimistic that the Abilene store will eventually be accepted by the surrounding community. "We're happy to be in the city of Abilene" says Everett, "there are a lot of fine people in Abilene as there are in many parts of Kansas." Everett hopes that those fine people in Abilene will "learn over time that we are good neighbors."

The future of the Abilene Lion's Den, however, is unclear. Ordinances and zoning laws may prohibit such businesses from establishing themselves in Abilene. Obscenity laws may make it too difficult or costly for adult businesses to find a place in Abilene.

Nevertheless, Sunlove believes that the obscenity charges will eventually be dropped. "[The case] will be thrown out of court," she insists, "when it gets far enough up the line to where more rational, less provincial minds can prevail." The Kansas statute, Sunlove asserts, is "patently absurd."

Likewise, Sirkin is "mind boggled" that any state would outlaw dildos and artificial vaginas. "There's nothing illegal about having artificial hands or artificial legs," he says, "regardless of what I do with it, it's part of the human body."

"When we pass laws, ideally they are to address a real problem," explains Sunlove, "clearly that is not the case here."

"It reminds me of the witch burnings," she says. "One of the things those women were accused of doing was using their broomsticks as dildos." Sunlove wonders, "Have we not gotten any further than Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s?"