The colors of laws

Laws are often colored by the minds of those who enact them. And while I grant without comment that all lawmakers have minds, I do in many cases wonder about the relative IQs with which some of those minds are possessed. Ah, but the colors.

Those of us, who watch Law and Order on television or for that matter any of its spinoffs, of which there are several, have heard the term “black letter” law more than once. Black letter law is that law which is considered basal and beyond doubt or debate. Well, actually one can debate anything, but for now we’ll go with the above definition.

We have green laws that are meant to refer to laws created, presumably, to improve the environment we live in. Some examples of these are the laws against the use of chlorofluorocarbons in aerosol cans, or again, laws mandating lower carbon emissions from automobiles and the like. All laudable legal products you will agree.

And then we have blue laws. And dear readers, the following are not jokes, they are real laws—some are local and some are state laws.

Massachusetts has a law that makes it illegal to go to bed without first taking a full bath. One has to wonder how the police would enforce that one.

Lee County, Alabama has made it illegal to sell peanuts after sundown on Wednesdays. That’s probably the night that the local church has its weekly bingo game and wants to sell the peanuts itself.

California, that paragon of modernity, has made it a law to ban the mating of animals within 1,500 feet of taverns, schools, or places of worship. Excuse me! I can understand the need to ban such lewd behavior near schools and churches, but from around taverns! Don’t get me started.

Mississippi has some of the strangest laws, some so strange that I dare not include them here. But, one caught my special interest. It is illegal in Mississippi to teach others what polygamy is. What? No mention of polyandry! Talk about chauvinistic laws and lawmakers.

And how about cowboy country—Wyoming. In Wyoming it is illegal for a woman to stand within five feet of a bar while drinking. Oh yeah, that’s going to go over well with the National Organization for Women. Or again Wyoming…

“You may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April without an official permit.” The lawmakers that passed this law must have been standing much closer to the bar than they allow women to.

And then there is Michigan. Michigan has some of the most interesting blue laws around. For instance, any person over the age of 12 may have a license for a handgun as long as he or she has not been convicted of a felony. One has to wonder how many 12-year-old felons reside in the state of Michigan. Or again in Michigan…

Now this one gets me. “Michigan’s second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling (read adultery) can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.”

Now folks, life in prison? Think about it. How many of you out there in readerland know of any such goings on? Or, perish the thought, are guilty of such goings on? I will refrain from hazarding a guess. But there is hope in Michigan. The legislative act creating the law has been repealed, but such repeal will not take effect until October 2010. I guess we can call that progress, can’t we?

The current Congress of the United States is under fire for what are called “earmarks.” Earmarks are add-ons to bills that are essentially indirect graft on the part of the lawmaker seeking such. But, at least earmarks have a rationale, i.e., greed. But blue laws? There is no rationale for most of them, other that is, than the sub-rodent level IQs of their creators.