We went to Easter lunch today at my aunt & uncle’s house. As we were preparing for a drive to the land of my birth to commemorate the fact that we used to celebrate Easter, it occurred to us that we should bring something. It is, after all, customary to contribute something when you are a guest in someone’s home. After consulting with other family members, it became clear that we should keep it simple and just bring wine. Everyone likes the person who brings wine. It requires no effort, and who doesn’t like wine? (I don’t drink, but even I appreciate a visually-appealing wine bottle.)

Being the lazy fellow that I am, I waited until this morning to buy a bottle of wine. The big grocery store, H.E.B., was completely closed. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that. We went to the nearby Walgreens, grabbed a bottle of white (my aunt and uncle like white wine), and headed to the register. It was 10:30 a.m.

“Um, I don’t think I can sell this to you right now,” said the clearly sympathetic clerk.

Yes, in the secular bubble that is Austin, Texas, I had completely forgotten that Texas blue laws prohibit the sale of alcohol before noon on Sundays. The sale of distilled spirits of any kind is prohibited entirely in Texas on Sundays.

Because, as we all know, Texans like small government, and what better way to limit government’s pernicious influence over us than to allow it to dictate when we can and cannot buy booze? At least we know that no one will buy a box of wine, get drunk, and accidentally……do something that we, as a people, have a right to prevent people from doing when drunk on a Sunday morning. I’m sorry, I can’t even think of a sarcastic example of what this law might legitimately prohibit. It’s just that stupid.

The only reason these laws exist is to enforce some sort of religious standard that hasn’t existed in many communities for decades, if ever. Yet many of these laws apply statewide. Some Texas counties are “dry,” which often just means that you can’t buy alcohol unless you buy a “membership” to a restaurant. I’m not sure where that membership fee goes, although it would not surprise me if some part of it ended up in the county’s coffers. So the church-going folk get to pretend their community adheres to their own antiquated notion of morality, and the county (possibly) pockets a little extra change. Winners all around, right?

Except that it makes us all look like assholes.

Photo credit: ‘Unidentified white wine in glass’ by Basheer Tome (originally posted to Flickr as White Wine) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.