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Blue Laws
© By Abraham Lincoln
When
I was growing up the first day of the
week, Sunday, was going to church day. Some of my friends went to
church every
Sunday. Most were like me and didn't go to church. I don't know if that
was because
we were poor and didn't have clothes for church, or if there were other
reasons. But mostly, the "Blue Laws" meant everything was closed on
Sundays and you might as well go to church or stay at home.
It
was impossible to go to a grocery store, a drug
store, a movie theater, or to go anywhere on Sunday because everything
was
closed.
You
could still find gasoline stations open on
the big highways, like US Route 40. Lots of people ended up at these
gasoline
stations but not to buy gas. The stations often sold candy, ice cream,
snacks,
milk, bread and pop to travelers. The locals discovered if they ran out
of
bread they could go to the nearest gas station on "40" and buy some.
In
those days, the "Blue Laws" were
enforced. Blue laws were based on the biblical injunction against
working on
the Sabbath, and could be traced back to fourth-century Rome, when
Constantine
I, the first Christian emperor, commanded all citizens, except farmers,
to rest
on Sunday.
The
first blue law in America was enacted in the
Virginia colony in the early 1600s and required church attendance.
Fortunately,
the laws where I lived did not "require" church attendance. Though I
might have turned out better if they did.
About
three-fourths of the states still have
laws on their books imposing some kind of Sunday restriction on such
activities
as retail sales, general labor, liquor sales, boxing, hunting, or
barbering, as
well as polo, cockfighting, or clam digging. These laws have been
challenged in
federal courts as a violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the
First
Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion.
The
Supreme Court has upheld them, starting
with McGowan v. Maryland (1961), ruling that though the laws originated
for
religious reasons, the state has a right to set aside a day of rest for
the
well-being of its citizens.
How
about that? I think these laws also
contributed to a steady birth rate. I mean winter is bad enough but
when you
can't go anywhere it seemed like the only thing going up was the
national
birthrate.
Nowadays,
television has changed things a lot.
Visiting between families is down because people like to be at home to
watch
the ball games or some program they don’t want to miss.
I
know our family likes to call and remind each
other who was voted off on the program, Dancing with the Stars. The
entire
family makes phone calls to tell each other who was voted on or off and
the
decisions are often in dispute.
These
Sundays are like any other day of the
year. Everything is open and you can go anywhere on Sunday and do the
same
kinds of things you could any day of the week.
Carpe
Diem
Abe
Lincoln
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