Academic

Don't Flush, Get Arrested

By Kevin Maillard

Did you know that it is illegal to sell beer in Nebraska unless there is a simultaneous pot of boiling soup on the stove?  Or that  butter substitutes are not allowed in state prisons in  Wisconsin?  (Hm on that one.) Or that men commit a crime when they knit during fishing season in New Jersey?  You probably didn't but that's the point.  I love to cite such odd laws when I teach, and ask students what authority such legal restrictions have.  Most often, enforcement is left up to the officer, leaving a cursing man in Michigan straight to jail/court for using profanity in the proximity of women and children--and also an unsympathetic cop.

Some other good ones:

-Kentucky:  "No female shall     appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at     least two officers or unless she be armed with a club".

Nebraska: The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, must provide each     guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, regardless of marital status, may sleep     together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing the special nightshirts.

A collection of these laws, state-by state, can be found here.

Don't Flush, Get Arrested

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).