The Laws of Texas Are Upon You

You Can’t Pee on the Alamo

About Congress, Will Rogers once said that every time they make a joke it’s a law, and every time they make a law it’s a joke. The same could be said of Texas this week as they stridently marched full speed toward the 19th Century.

Looking a bit further into the Lone Star law libraries, you can find even more interesting laws that are still on the books, unless otherwise noted. Editorializing has been kept to a minimum. 

Here’s a set of laws from deep in the heart of Texas, where you can own all the guns you want, but it’s against the law to possess the Encyclopedia Britannica.

You’re darn tootin’!

🤠Professor Mikey

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Texas Penal Code Section 48.02: It is against the law to sell human organs which include your eyes, heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, skin and other organs or tissues. However it is legal to sell blood and hair. 

Weekends smell better in Houston, where it is illegal to sell Limburger cheese on Sunday.

Some Texas municipalities have made it illegal to go barefoot without a permit. Said permits are available for $5.00.

It is illegal in Mesquite to give your kids unusual haircuts.

You can’t ride a horse at night without taillights.

It is illegal to have sex in the back of an ambulance if it is responding to an emergency call.

You cannot have sex in a freezer.

It used to be illegal to go to church in disguise.

It is illegal to carry wire cutters in your pocket in Austin. 

You can carry a handgun in Texas without a license, training, or background check.

Although guns have few limitations, the possession of sex toys is regulated. The Lone Star State has banned the possession of or promoting the use of more than six dildos. 

In LeFors, Texas, it is illegal to take more than 3 drinks (sips or swallows) of a beer while standing up.

In Clarendon, Texas, it is illegal to dust any public building with a feather duster.

It is illegal in Borger to throw confetti. Also against the law are whips, firecrackers, rubber balls or feather dusters.

You must get permission before you eat out of your neighbor’s garbage. Unauthorized dumpster diving can land you in jail for trespassing and property theft.

Before 1974 it was illegal to milk another person’s cow, punishable by a $10 fine from the Texas Penal Code.

One of the few laws curtailing the use of firearms: it is still illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second floor of a hotel. However, shooting wild hogs from a hot air balloon is perfectly legal.

If you are planning on committing a crime in Texas you are required by law to provide your victim with 24 hours written or verbal notice. 

“The Bluebonnet Song is the official State Flower Song of the state flower.”

Texas is a common law marriage state. Therefore, two willing parties who are over 18, unmarried and aren’t related are legally married if they publicly announce they are married three times.

Windshields are not mandatory, but windshield wipers are.

You can be sent to jail In Dennison and Bristol, Texas, for up to a year for showing your stockings. 

A person found intoxicated must be administered a dose of castor oil by a local doctor. Failure to take the medicine could result in a fine.

Spittoons are all over El Paso, as they are mandated by law in all churches, halls of assembly, hotels, banks, stores, train depots and saloons. These establishments are required to provide spittoons “of a kind and number to efficiently contain expectorations into them.'”

The Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.

In April, 2021, The Leander Independent School District which oversees schools in Leander, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Jonestown, Round Rock, and northwest Austin banned the following books citing parietal complaints: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Kiss Number 8, Y: The Last Man, Laura Dern Keeps Breaking Up with Me, V for Vendetta, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

As long as we are on banned books, the Associated Press reported in 2017 that included on the list of 10,000 books banned for reading in Texas prisons are Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Where’s Waldo? Santa Spectacular. Among the books that are cleared are Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

In Port Arthur it is illegal to emit an obnoxious odor on the elevator.

It is legal for a blind person to go hunting as long as they are accompanied by a sighted person.

One needs permission from the director of parks and recreation before getting drunk in any city park.

Sitting on the sidewalk in Galveston can get you a $500 fine.

Alcohol may not be sold during an emergency. 

You do not have to attend your own wedding if you’re in the military and stationed out of the country. Texans can be “married by proxy,” meaning they can choose someone to represent them at the wedding.

It is illegal for two pigs to have sex on airport property.

Anyone arrested for soliciting a prostitute must have their photo and name shown on television.

You can’t call a person over the age of 32 a “virgin.”

Before someone can take public office they must acknowledge the existence of a supreme being.

It is illegal for either sex to flirt in San Antonio or to respond to a flirtation with the eyes or hands.

A 2003 Supreme Court decision overturned a law that made homosexual behavior a misdeamoner.

Sniffing glue is illegal in Galveston.

State officials once ordered that 400 words of sexually explicit material be deleted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

It is illegal to urinate on the Alamo. This is because of a rumor that Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne urinated on the shrine of Texas freedom in 1982. In reality Osbourne relieved himself on the Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot high statue adjacent to the historic mission. Ozzy was arrested for public intoxication and urination and released on a $40 bond. (Historical update: Osbourne was pardoned ten years later, after donating $10,000 to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. But you still can’t pee on the Alamo.)

“The past is a blast.”