In 1961, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the majority opinion of McGowan v. Maryland that “Sunday is a day apart from all others. The cause is irrelevant; the fact exists.”

While the cause was likely more relevant than Warren was willing to admit, he correctly observed that the practice of Sunday living in the early 1960s set the day apart from all the rest. The justice and his colleagues on the Court were considering a case in which seven employees at a large, highway department store in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, sold a three-ring loose-leaf binder, a can of floor wax, a stapler, staples, and a toy submarine on a Sunday. After the employees were charged with the crime, the dispute eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 8–1 that Maryland’s blue laws did not violate the Free Exercise and Religious Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment.