“In God we Trust” and Christmas as a federal holiday are clearly at odds with the current understanding of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has carved out an illogical exemption for “ceremonial deism.” One of my political science professors said that the reason for this was a simple fear: if the Court of the government push too far, then the backlash could lead to a Constitutional Convention. Because a Constitutional Convention has no limits. Anything they want that can be passed by a simple majority of the legislatures of 3/4 of the states is part of the Constitution.
In at least some cases, there is a clear secular benefit, to at least some of the people involved, to having “blue laws” that require certain businesses to be closed at certain times.
A couple of months ago we had a thread (that started out in GQ but was moved to the Pit because the person who started the thread was really more interested in ranting than in getting information) about the legality of car dealerships being prohibited from being open on Sundays. In that thread, several posters explained why car dealers might want such a law, and I linked to an article that explained it in terms of Game Theory.
That doesn’t explain why the Day Off has to be Sunday; but you could argue that, at this point, that’s just tradition. Saturday and Sunday are “the weekend”—the days off—for the majority of workers and students in our societym regardless of religion.
Clearly people do not have the right to visit a government office 365 days a year, since they are closed, many of them, on both weekend days, and on secular holidays also. Now, the question would be should Christmas be considered a secular holiday, and is there a good reason for government offices to close on Christmas? I’d say yes, since if they were open their staffing would be so low as to be impractical. When I was a kid the public schools I went to closed on Passover and the High Holy Days, since a very large percentage of teachers and kids in New York were Jewish.
In any case, government can’t avoid making these decisions for things it runs, but it can avoid making them for things it does not run.
If someone got arrested for adultery, it would be an interesting test case. However, I’d think there are far more secular reasons for adultery laws than Blue Laws. For instance, if the courts agree that same sex marriage can be banned to preserve the sanctity of marriage, adultery (which attacks marriage a heck of a lot more) is clearly bannable.
A real interesting case would be if an Islamic man brought multiple wives into the United States. I don’t know if the additional marriages would be recognized or not. If they weren’t, could he be arrested for adultery for sleeping with a lawfully wedded wife, lawful in his home country? If so, we are clearly establishing religions which don’t accept multiple marriages (no longer accept in the case of Judaism) over Islam which does.
Mormonism already tried this. It didn’t go well for them.
Of course, there’s no particular reason that the government should recognize plural marriage; marriage has a secular meaning, and there’s no reason that the US government should change it just to respect an establishment of religion.
This is an interesting point but sounds more like rationalization than an argument. Christmas is a federal holiday. If Christmas falls on a Sunday, a day that most government offices are closed, then government employees get Monday off while the rest of the world goes back to work. The employees are off in observance of Christmas as opposed to being off on a day that would be fairly slow anyway.
I think you are comparing apples and oranges. I think a better comparison is same-sex marriage and bigamy. I also think the Islamic man in your example would be arrested for bigamy as opposed to adultery. In this case, both Muslims and our own Mormons are being unfairly singled out by your standards.
Prior to prohibition the reasons I’ve found that such laws existed for Sundays was because that was one of most profitable days for a saloon. Prohibitionist, who viewed the saloon as a den where prostitutes and drug peddlers met and the source of domestic abuse, poverty, and all manner of crimes thought it made sense to close the saloon on Sunday. The rationale behind alcohol and Sundays after 1933 isn’t something I’ve ever looked at.
The basic reasoning for courts upholding blue laws goes back a long time.
It went something like this. It IS in the public interest to have one day off per week where non-essential services aren’t open. (Obviously this doesn’t include police and hospitals etc)
OK I think most of us will think, fair enough, one day a week isn’t bad.
Then the courts reasoned, you can’t FORCE a business to operate on a day when its religion says not to.
Then the court reasoned since MOST people were Christian and were taking off Sunday anyway, it might as well be that day.
Why? Because if you said, Wednesday is the day off, since most people are Christian they will be taking off Sunday as well. Now you would have Christian businesses taking Sunday off and also being forced to take Wednesday as well.
So while having ONE day a week where most businesses are closed is good, having TWO days where most businesses are closed would be bad.
Now this reasoning was made a long time back but it established a precident. And today it’s being erroded.
And while you may not agree with that reasoning at least you can see how it came about.
Remember Freedom of Religion, like Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, are NOT absolute rights. They have limits. For instance, the courts have ruled minors cannot be denied traditional medical treatments because of their parents religion. (Of course adults who chooose so can refuse such treatment)
And so yes, choosing Sunday does put a slight on other religions, but since most people in the USA identify with Christianity, it’s easier to do this. You can’t please everyone but sometimes you have to take the line that causes the least problems for the most people.
A town next to the one I grew up in has (or had) such laws. In 1990 a guy from a neighboring town was driving through and his car broke down. He walked to a nearby auto parts store and proceeded to fix it on the street. A rookie police officer ticketed him for working on his car on a Sunday. I’m not sure if those laws are still on the books.
I found the following blurb about that case:
http://www.longruns.com/ProspectPark/1989n.htm
Scroll down about half way to August 8, 1991.
Adultery is a class E felony in Wisconsin.
Under our statutes that means if you’re married and have consensual sex with someone who isn’t your spouse you’re a criminal.
Or if you’re not married and have consensual sex with someone who is married to someone else you’re a criminal.
Or if you’re not married but have sex with two people who are married to each other all 3 of you are criminals.
Or if you’re married and you and your spouse together have consensual sex with someone else at the same time or separately, all of you are criminals.
But if you’re an adult and not married and have consensual sex with 1000006 other unmarried adults (at the same time) it is perfectly legal.
Unless you do that in public. Under our laws that is classified as “Fornication”. (WI 944.15). That is a Misdemeanor.
But we can drink booze 6am-2am every day of the week! Hallelujah for that! Praise the Lard!
The blue law here that I don’t get is the one where you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday, nor on Election Day. I live in a part of indiana where I can be in Illinois or Michigan in an hour, and buy whatever. I think my state is missing out on a fair amount of tax that can be collected.
It’s funny you should specify Wednesday, because if I remember my youth correctly, Wednesday was an Early Closing day, as was Saturday. Shops - but not offices and factories - shut for the afternoon. This was to give the shop workers the same 5 day week as office and factory workers. I think that went out in the mid 1980s.
ETA: I’m talking about the U.K.
Interesting, I happened to be in Cancun on Election Day a few years ago, and as it turns out, there is a law in Mexico that says you can’t buy alcohol there on Election Day either. So in this big tourist center, in the shops all the alcohol was roped off on that day. Very weird.