Weird Laws in Alabama: Strange Statutes Still on the Books

Alabama is the kind of place where a law can sit on the books for decades, even after nobody can legally enforce it, and then still pop up in weird ways when people least expect it. One of the biggest examples didn’t finally get formally erased until 2019, even though it had been effectively dead since 2003.

Picture this: consensual adult same-gender intimate conduct was technically criminalized under Alabama Code §13A-6-65, even while the U.S. Supreme Court already shut the door on it in Lawrence v. Texas. Alabama still left the words there, and legal advocates argued that “unenforceable” doesn’t always mean harmless, especially when courts and agencies cite outdated statutes in custody and professional licensing decisions.

And once you see that, the rest of Alabama’s truly strange legal hangovers start to feel less like trivia and more like a pattern.

A Law Alabama Finally Removed in 2019

Until May 2019, Alabama law criminalized consensual intimate conduct between adults of the same gender under Alabama Code §13A-6-65. The law had been unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas ruling in 2003, but Alabama had never formally removed it.

Alabama Senate Bill 320 passed both chambers in May 2019. The Alabama House approved it 101-0, and the Senate passed it 32-0. Governor Kay Ivey signed it. The criminal offense was formally repealed.

The repeal didn't change anything in practical terms - the law couldn't be enforced regardless. But legal advocates had long argued that unenforced laws can still cause harm. Courts and agencies had occasionally cited the statute in custody and professional licensing decisions despite its unconstitutional status. Getting it off the books was the point.

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Alabama Laws That Are Actually Real

Impersonating a member of the clergy is a criminal offense. Alabama Code §13A-14-4 makes it illegal to falsely impersonate a minister of religion, priest, rabbi, nun, or any other member of the clergy. The law is framed as a crime against public order and decency, and it has been on the Alabama books for well over a century. The provision isn't limited to obtaining money or property through the impersonation. The impersonation itself is the offense.

Driving while blindfolded is illegal. Alabama law explicitly prohibits operating a motor vehicle while blindfolded. This appears in Alabama's traffic code and has been cited in multiple legal references as an active provision. The fact that it had to be written suggests someone tested the gap before lawmakers closed it.

Mobile bans plastic confetti and spray string. As noted above, this is a modern ordinance with a 2018 date. It exists because Mobile's annual Mardi Gras celebration, one of the oldest in the United States, predating the New Orleans tradition, generates significant cleanup costs. The city decided plastic confetti and foam spray weren't worth the expense.

Mobile also bans stink bombs and offensive-smelling devices. A separate Mobile ordinance, noted in national legal reporting, makes it illegal to possess or use stink bombs, devices producing noxious odors, and similar irritants within city limits. Reader's Digest identified this provision in their state-by-state legal review.

The Historical Context Behind These Laws

Alabama's legal history reflects the Southern legislative tradition of addressing conduct in public spaces, particularly spaces with religious significance, with specificity. The clergy impersonation law is typical. It doesn't come from a concern about fraud alone. It reflects how seriously Alabama law treated the disruption of religious institutions and the misuse of religious authority as a source of community trust.

The traffic blindfold prohibition reflects something different: a gap in the law that someone exploited, or that a legislator anticipated being exploited, before the code caught up to it. Several states have laws that read as obvious because they were written in response to a specific incident. Alabama's blindfold law appears to be one of them.

For laws in neighboring states with similar histories, weird laws in Georgia include a mandatory gun ownership ordinance and a city law about how fried chicken must be eaten. Weird laws in Arkansas include a statute governing the correct pronunciation of the state's name. Weird laws in Florida cover the balloon release law, which is actively enforced, and the theater door requirement, which has been on the books since 1891.

Alabama's legal history is also a window into how the South looked before the 20th century. 75 rare photos of 19th century America show the everyday conditions that produced laws like the spittoon ordinances and clergy impersonation statutes — laws that made practical sense at the time. The Roanoke Colony, whose disappearance remains unexplained, vanished from coastal Carolina about 250 years before Alabama even became a state, which gives some sense of the deep timeline these legal traditions are embedded in.

The full picture of how these laws accumulate and survive is covered in weird laws in the United States.

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Then there’s the traffic rule that says you can’t operate a motor vehicle while blindfolded, a prohibition so specific it basically dares someone to test it.

Speaking of bizarre rules that still exist, Florida’s verified weird laws are just as wild.

And if you think that’s where the oddness ends, Mobile’s Mardi Gras rules banning plastic confetti and spray string show how quickly “public order” can turn into very real cleanup math.

A Word on Unverified Alabama Laws

The ice cream cone law, that it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket in Alabama, appears on a large number of lists and is attributed to Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky simultaneously. The claim typically arrives without a statute number or specific city ordinance. It has been included in this article only to flag it as unverified, not to assert it as fact.

The same applies to laws about wearing fake mustaches in church that appear frequently in Alabama coverage. Some sources describe this as a state law. Others attribute it to a specific city. No statute number has been confirmed.

This pattern of unverified repetition is exactly what the verified laws above are designed to stand against. If a law is real, it has a number. The ones listed in this article do.

Nobody wants their life derailed by a law that should have stayed in the past.

For more strange statutes with real statute numbers, check out Texas laws about windshields and ambulance chasing.