Blue Law Leaves Public Blue

A glass of wine with Sunday dinner at the local restaurant; many people consider this just normal behavior. However, if you would like to have that same glass of wine at home, you may run into a problem. The problem being you would need to buy that wine on Saturday.

Georgia’s “Blue Law”, as it is referred to, limits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. The first question that springs to mind is ‘why Sunday?’ The answer of course being that Sunday is the Holy Day; unless, of course, you happen to be Jewish and therefore the Holy Day is Saturday. The same token applying to other faiths with different Holy Days.

This law was passed at a time when most of the United States of America was Christian. The fact is that times are changing and America has to change with the times. A religious stance is simply not enough to reinforce a law when we live in a country with freedom of religion.

In the end it is up to the people, and the representatives of those people, who live in Georgia to decide. And those voices of the everyday person speak volumes: “If you are old enough to legally drink, you should be old enough to make your on decision,” said Katie Sawhill, a freshman at Piedmont College in Demorest Georgia. While she does hold religious views of her own, she believes the decision is the individual’s; not the state’s.

“No drinking on Sunday,” said Mary Beth Williams, an opponent of lifting the limit. However, like many of her view, she could not state a reason, other than religion, why the limit should be left in place. This also brings to mind the fact that just because a person cannot buy the alcohol on Sunday does not mean a person will not drink on Sunday.

I believe the point I am trying to make can best be summed up with the view of another Piedmont student, Paul Meier. He remarked that if a Muslim can worship on a Friday, and we can all buy liquor on a Friday, and a Jewish person can worship on Saturday, and we can buy liquor on Saturday; why then can we not buy liquor on Sunday because the Christian faith worships on Sunday?

The Georgia Blue Law is an outdated and religiously biased piece of legislator which many people, even of the Christian faith, do not agree with. The limit should therefore be lifted, and equality granted to all faiths by doing so.