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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.religion,net.politics
Subject: Re: Violation of separation church and state????
Message-ID: <5354@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 09:36:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5354
Posted: Fri May 24 09:36:31 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 09:08:40 EDT
References: <1192@opus.UUCP> <625@abnji.UUCP>, <883@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories <SCCS>, Columbus
Lines: 46
Keywords: Blue Laws
Xref: watmath net.legal:1735 net.religion:6954 net.politics:9089

>I am originally from Massachusetts, where Blue Laws were in effect
>until two years ago.  There are still some left, for instance a
>store cannot sell liquor on Sunday.  It used to be that most stores
>couldn't be open at all.

>Anyway, there was a famous supreme court case (I don't remember the
>name) in which a kosher market wanted to stay open Sunday, but close
>Saturday, since that's the Jewish sabbath.  The court ruled that
>they could indeed do this without violating the intent of the blue
>laws.  It still seems like a violation of church and state separation
>to say, "you have to close on someone's sabbath, even if it's not
>mine."  What if you're an atheist, or your religion has no sabbath,
>or whatever?

>Dan Rose
>sdcsvax!rose

As has been explained by someone else, blue laws have a benefit to
society.  That is that they hinder employers from working their
employees seven days a week, forcing all competitive businesses to
stay open 7 days to remain competitive, etc.

The question then becomes, "Why Sunday, or the Sabbath?  Why not
just say they have to close one day out of the week?"  There are
problems with this also.  If, for religious reasons, one must worship
on a particular day, then that one is limited to working for employers
that close on that day.  This could turn into a tool for discrimination,
since an employer that didn't want to hire Jews could insist on
Saturday being a work day.  In the case of the kosher market there
is no problem, since it caters mostly to persons who keep the same
day, but the problem becomes more complicated for other businesses.
The vast majority of religious people in this country worship on either
Saturday or Sunday.  Either that, or they have no sabbath or are
not bound to a particular day and can just as well worship on the
weekend.  (I used to live next to and Islamic mosque that had worship
on Sunday.  I guess this is no problem for them.)  Specifying one or
two days helps accommodate the importance of religious worship for the
people, helps keep the week uniform, and also gives non-religious folk
a day off (you've got to mow your lawn sometime don't you? :-)).

Hostility toward religion is also a violation of the separation of
church and state.  Not allowing for a consistent sabbath period
at least borders on this.  The wall has *two* sides.
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd