Because of a recent trip to Kentucky (I type this post from the Blue Grass State itself, in fact) I thought I’d see what types of crazy laws they have here.  Lucky for me, I stumbled upon KRS 437.050 which states:

“Any person who interferes with any person addressing a public audience within this state, who interrupts such a person, while speaking, by the use of insulting or offensive language or opprobrious epithets applied to the speaker or who attempts to interrupt or injure the speaker by throwing missiles of any kind at him shall be fined not less than fifty ($50.00) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500), or imprisoned for not less than one (1) year nor more than six (6) months [sic], or both.”

Why is this scary picture of Sarah Palin here? Keep reading...

Of course, a law like this makes you wonder.  Who threw rotten tomatoes or eggs at some law-making person?  What incident could have sparked this particular piece of legislation?  Unfortunately, I have no idea, because the internet likes to talk about that law a lot, but doesn’t say why the law exists.  I’m adding it to the list of laws I’m going to investigate when I have countless hours to invest, because combing through state legislature is one thing, but finding out WHY a state’s government does something is darn near impossible.  Someday, Gentle Readers, the book will be published, and you can all buy it.  You will, right?  You’ll buy it.

An interesting thing to note is that this law about interrupting, insulting, or throwing things at a public speaker was repealed in January of 1975.  Perhaps it was because of the Watergate scandal that happened the previous August, when people realized that media and politics would never be the same again.  Kentucky lawmakers realized they might want to reserve the right, if the opportunity and urge presented itself, to throw eggs or rotten tomatoes at public speakers.

Incidentally, in December of 2009, a disenchanted spectator lobbed rotten tomatoes at the erstwhile Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin.  Indeed, Jeremy Paul Olsen was consumed by a compulsion to toss the tomatoes at Palin, but was not graced with the aim required to achieve the feat.  The rotten produce hit a police officer instead of Palin, who was signing copies of her best-seller Going Rogue at the Barnes and Noble at the Mall of American in Bloomington, Minnesota.  Olsen was arrested for disorderly conduct, and for assaulting a police officer.  But not for the tomatoes themselves.  See?  They found a way to get around that, after all.

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I love this one, Folks.  Here is the text of the law:

KRS 436.600

No person shall sell, exchange, offer to sell or exchange, display, or possess living baby chicks, ducklings, or other fowl or rabbits which have been dyed or colored; nor dye or color any baby chicks, ducklings, or other fowl or rabbits; nor sell, exchange, offer to sell or exchange or to give away

baby chicks, ducklings or other fowl or rabbits, under two (2) months of age in any quantity less than six (6), except that any rabbit weighing three (3) pounds or more may be sold at an age of six (6) weeks. Any person who violates this section shall be fined not less than $100 nor more than $500.

History: Amended 1972 Ky. Acts ch 374, sec 1. –Created 1966 Ky. Acts ch. 215, sec. 5

The actual wording I found said something about not being able to dye a duckling blue and sell it unless you sell 5 more dyed-blue ducklings to the consumer.  That amuses me.  I can only imagine that Easter is really popular in Kentucky.  From what I can find, this is a state law, which means (in my mind) that some Easter season the entire state was overrun with lonely died chicks and ducklings that were abandoned by their impetuous child owners as soon as the blue and pink die wore off.  It was an epidemic of homeless abandoned barnyard animals – with their true feather root colors showing and just a faded sheen of blue, pink, or green to remind them of the abuse and abandonment they’d suffered.  Shame on you, Kentucky, for getting so caught up in Easter that you caused this law to be created.

photo by Limbo Poet

Of course, that might not be what happened.  What do you think happened?

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