Don’t be a sticker on new stickers

Each year our state legislature enacts hundreds of new laws and when you add what local government enacts, it boggles the mind. Don’t get me wrong, not all laws that get passed are wrong. Some of them are necessary for our health and safety, and to keep the wheels of government greased.

For example, just last week I read where a state legislator (who must be unnamed), unsuccessfully tried to get a state ordinance passed that requires new homes to have a disclosures sticker that listed such unnecessary things (in that legislators’ opinion) as developer impact fees, school and water fees and the like. I can’t completely condemn and dismiss this idea. It has some good possibilities if handled in the right way, especially in my hometown. Also, wouldn’t it be great if we had stickers on all public buildings, autos and equipment, telling us pore taxpayers what their costs are.

And taking the sticker idea to its conclusion--Why couldn’t we also put stickers on our elected officials listing what it costs the taxpayers when these elected people come up with muddleheaded laws like this one?

Unfortunately our government is not alone in passing some unnecessary laws. Across the United States there are thousands of out-of-date, no longer enforced, local and state laws concerning dating, marriage, and divorce that no one has ever bothered to remove from the law books. Here are several that I discovered that would not consider being totally without merit:

Indiana law does not allow a man to wear a mustache if he “habitually kisses human beings.

A section of the municipal code in Ottumwa, Iowa: “It is unlawful for any male person, within the corporate limits of the city, to wink at any female person with whom he is unacquainted.”

No liquor may be sold to a married man in Cold Springs, Pennsylvania, unless he first obtains the written consent of his wife.

Macon, Georgia, doesn’t allow a man to put his arms around a woman without a legal reason to do so.

Orange County, New York, has a law that forbids a man’s looking at a girl “that way.”

In Lebanon, Tennessee, a husband may not legally shove his wife out of bed, even if her feet are cold. On the other hand, the same law allows a wife to shove her husband out of bed at any time without a reason. (Editor’s note--I personally understand this law. My Honey’s feet are so cold at night that I suspect she might have Eskimo DNA. On the other hand, I don’t complain and have yet to be kicked out of bed.)

In Minnesota it is considered a legal proposal of marriage to do any of the following in the presence of a girl’s mother and father: hug the girl, kiss the girl, or present her with a box of candy.