Slightly less than two years ago the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision inMcGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 6 L.Ed. (2d) 393, 81 S.Ct. 1101 (1961), upholding the constitutionality of Sunday closing (or Sunday Blue) Laws of the state of Maryland. Three basic constitutional issues were considered by the court in arriving at its decision. These issues, stated in terms of questions regarding our own Senate Bill 175, are as follows:
I. Whether the proposed law would constitute a law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof contrary to the provisions of the State Constitution, Article I, § 11, as amended, and the Federal Constitution, First and Fourteenth Amendments?
II. Whether the proposed law is so vague as to fail to give reasonable notice of its application and is therefore violative of the due process of law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and Article I, § 3, of the State Constitution?
III. Whether the proposed law in defining what goods may be sold and what merchants may sell, establishes classifications which bring about a denial of equal protection of the law or constitute special legislation prohibited by § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal [[Orig. Op. Page 3]] Constitution or Article I, §§ 3 and 12 of the State Constitution?
I.
The contention that the Maryland Sunday Closing Laws violated constitutional provisions prohibiting state support of a religious establishment or interference with the free exercise of religion was rejected by the court inMcGowan v. Maryland, supra, upon a determination that the underlying purpose of the laws was simply,
". . . to compel a day of rest from work, permitting only activities which arenecessary or recreational. . . ." (Quoting from McGowan v. State, 220 Md. 117, 151 A. (2d) 156 (1958). (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus the court followed precedent described by Mr. Justice Field inSoon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703, 710, 28 L.Ed. 1145, 5 S.Ct. 730 (1885), as follows:
". . . Laws setting aside Sunday as a day of rest are upheld, not from any right of the government to legislate for the promotion of religious observances, but from its right to protect all persons from the physical and moral debasement which comes from uninterrupted labor. Such laws have always been deemed beneficent and merciful laws, especially to the poor and dependent, to the laborers in our factories and workshops and in the heated rooms of our cities; and their validity has been sustained by the highest courts of the States."
Similarly, the constitutionality of the present Sunday closing law in Washington (chapter 249, Laws of 1909), was upheld by our own state supreme court inState v. Grabinski, 33 Wn. (2d) 603, 206 P. (2d) 1022 (1949), based upon the following reasoning:
"The statute which the appellant was convicted of violating makes no reference to the Sabbath, but prohibits certain activities on the first day of the week; it has been upheld by this court, not as an implementation of the Fourth Commandment, but as a proper exercise of the police power. As was said inState ex rel. Walker v. Judge, 39 La. Ann. 132, 139, 1 So. 437 (quoted inSeattle v. Gervasi, supra, p. 433) [144 Wash. 429, 258 Pac. 328 (1927)]:
