5. Blue laws affecting commerce were based on injunctions from the Old Testament
The Virginia colony enacted the first blue laws in what would become the United States in 1610. They were based on the biblical commandments of the Old Testament. All business and labor on the Sabbath were outlawed, and attendance in Church was mandatory for all colonists. Since then fundamentalist Christian groups were the most enthusiastic supporters of blue laws. That some Christian sects and all Jewish observe Saturday, rather than Sunday, as the Sabbath was to them immaterial. Some religious groups were forced to observe, in such manner, two Sabbaths; one on the basis of their own beliefs and one imposed upon them by law.
By 1961, in the state of Maryland, blue laws made illegal “all labor, business, and other commercial activities on Sunday”. There were some exceptions. The state law allowed the sale of “foodstuffs, automobile and boating accessories, flowers, toilet goods, hospital supplies and souvenirs”. That year, the United States Supreme Court, in a case regarding a department store opening for business on Sundays, upheld the Maryland law, and in effect, all blue laws in the nation, finding that “they bear no relationship to the establishment of religion as those words are used in the Constitution”. Since then legal actions at the state level have eliminated blue laws in many states.