Sometimes laws are meant to be broken. Especially these.
DETAILS: SAY WHAT?! 13th Amendment Was Never Officially Ratified In Mississippi
This week, it was revealed that the state of Mississippi was a century and a half late when it came to ratifying the 13th Amendment, the legislation that officially abolished slavery.
But it’s 2013! How could something like that slip the minds of lawmakers?
The hiccup is now fixed, but just up until this week, slavery was legal in Mississippi. And that’s pretty damn scary.
But to Mississippi’s credit, they aren’t the only state lagging behind when it comes to realizing that times change and laws need to be amended or rectified to assist today’s people.
So while these next few laws might have served their purpose in another life, now they are just plain ridiculous. Really, really ridiculous.
California:
If an attacker has sex with a California woman by pretending to be her husband, that’s rape. But if she’s not married and he’s impersonating her boyfriend, he goes free. Sound silly? It’s real, and it happened to a California woman who had to watch her assailant go free because of a clause in a rape law. This one isn’t even outdated…it was ALWAYS ridiculous.
Iowa:
A man with a mustache may never kiss a woman in public. Sorry Stalley, Rick Ross, and GlobalGrind’s brillo pad bearded-up writer @Milkman_dead. But women, trust, you wouldn’t want to do that anyway.
New York City:
Would you believe me if I said there was no dancing to be done in establishments unless they had a license that said you could? And would you believe it if I told you that law was still in effect in the city of dreams? Well believe it. In the early ’90s, Mayor Giuliani began using an outdated Jazz Age law that prohibited dancing in nightclubs or bars without a cabaret license. The law states that a business must have a cabaret license if, “three or more people are found dancing” in the establishment. It’s never been taken out of the books, so go dance at a random place, say a library, and see if you get tackled by police.
Washington D.C.
The U.S. government says it’s a crime to give false weather reports. In that case…lock them all up! Because they’re wrong half of the time!
The Entire Nation:
Immigration reform, gay marriage and equality? Yep, most of these United States hasn’t gotten with the program, so let’s include them in this list. Think about it this way, years from now we’ll be looking at the lone state who refused to accept these societal changes, just the way we were looking at Mississippi this week.
These are just a few amongst the weird (sex can only be in missionary in NY), odd (in Miami, it is forbidden to imitate an animal) and just plain stupid (in Delaware it is illegal to wear pants that are “firm fitting” around the waist), but hey, this is our America.
Are there any laws that you know of that make you go, “hmmm?”
