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.”

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An interesting thing to note is that this law about interrupting, insulting, or throwing things at a public speaker was repealed in January of 1975.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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