9 Texas Laws Still on the Books That Sound Made Up

Think you know Texas law because you know not to mess with Texas?

We’re willing to bet you don’t.

The state’s statute books are full of rules the courts tossed, the culture outgrew, or nobody ever bothered to explain, all still sitting there in black and white.

These are the Texas laws still on the books that sound made up.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Statutes and court rulings are subject to change. Confirm current laws with a Texas attorney.

1. Married Without a Wedding

Texas is one of the few states where you can be legally married without a ceremony, a license, or a single “I do.”

No wedding required.

Under the Texas Family Code, an informal marriage is real when a couple agrees they’re married, lives together in Texas as a married couple, and tells other people they’re married.

Introduce someone as your spouse around Dallas long enough, file a joint tax return, share a household, and a court can decide you’re hitched.

There’s a clock on it, though.

If a couple splits up and nobody tries to prove the marriage within two years, Texas presumes there never was one, which is how some people find out they were common-law married only when they try to leave.

2. Faith Test for Office

To hold public office in Texas, you still have to acknowledge a Supreme Being.

It’s right there in the Bill of Rights.

Article 1, Section 4 of the Texas Constitution bans a religious test for office, then tacks on one exception: An officeholder has to acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

Read it twice.

The U.S. Supreme Court settled this back in 1961, ruling that no state can shut someone out of office for refusing to profess a religious belief.

So the clause can’t be used against a single Austin city councilmember or a rural county judge.

It stays in the state’s founding document anyway, and lawmakers keep not removing it.

3. Struck Down, Still Printed

Texas still prints a criminal ban on homosexual conduct in its Penal Code, more than twenty years after that ban stopped being enforceable.

Section 21.06 is the statute.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas, a case that started with a Houston arrest.

Dead letter.

No officer can charge anyone under it, and no Texas court will uphold it.

Lawmakers have tried for years to strike the language, and each repeal effort has died in the Legislature.

So the words stay, unenforceable and unerased.

4. Burning the Flag

Deface or burn the American or Texas flag, and you’ve broken a Texas law that’s still a Class A misdemeanor in the Penal Code.

That law is also unconstitutional.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that burning the flag in protest is protected speech, and that case grew out of a demonstration at the Republican National Convention in Dallas.

Gregory Lee Johnson walked.

The ruling means Texas can’t prosecute you for torching a flag to make a political point.

Section 42.11 stayed on the books anyway, right down to the exact penalty it can no longer hand out.

5. No Car Both Weekend Days

Texas won’t let a car dealership sell you a vehicle on both Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend.

Pick a day.

Under the Texas Transportation Code, a dealership has to close its sales floor for one of the two weekend days, and most of them pick Sunday.

It’s a leftover blue law, the kind written to force a day of rest, and Texas wiped most of the others off the books back in 1985.

This blue law survived.

So if you spot the truck of your dreams on a San Antonio lot on Sunday afternoon, you’re browsing, not buying.

Come back on Monday.

6. Walmart Can't Sell Liquor

Walmart can stock hard liquor in nearly every state in the country, but not in Texas.

Costco and Target hit the same wall.

Texas is the only state that bars publicly traded companies from owning liquor stores.

Beer and wine, fine.

Spirits, not fine.

The rule dates to a 1995 law that reserved package store permits for "real, identifiable" people and locked most big corporations out.

Walmart sued over it and lost, and a federal appeals court let the ban stand.

So Texas liquor shelves still belong mostly to family chains like Spec's and Twin Liquors.

7. You Can't Keep a Stray Cow

Texas has a law for the day a stray cow, horse, or goat wanders onto your land, and it isn't finders keepers.

Call the sheriff.

The state's estray law says you report loose livestock to the county sheriff as soon as you reasonably can, not lead it into your own barn and call it yours.

The animal's owner then gets a window to claim it and cover the cost of its keep.

If nobody shows, the sheriff impounds the animal, posts notice at the courthouse, and can sell it at auction with the county taking title.

Keep that heifer to yourself and you're the one breaking the law, not the cow that turned up in Lubbock County uninvited.

8. Fence the Cattle Out

Much of Texas still runs on an old open-range rule, and it flips what you'd expect.

Keeping livestock off your property is your job, not the job of the rancher who owns the animals.

Under the state's fence-out tradition, a livestock owner has long held the right to let animals roam, so a driver who hits a stray steer on a back road can't always collect a dime.

Counties can override that with local stock laws, and every U.S. and state highway counts as closed range.

It depends where you are.

Out on a rural farm-to-market road, the century-old rule can still be the one that governs who pays for the wreck.

9. Hog Hunting by Balloon

Texas lets you hunt feral hogs from a hot air balloon, which is exactly as strange as it sounds.

A 2017 law added hot air balloons to the aircraft Texans can legally shoot hogs and coyotes from, building on the 2011 "pork chopper" law that opened up helicopters.

The problem behind it is real because feral hogs tear up hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas farmland every year.

Two million hogs will do that.