I have once before drawn your attention to the fact that in certain neighbourhoods in the US people may not hang their washing on an outside washing line, and that some of these people are fighting for the right to do so. I can now report progress - at least in Massachusetts. State Senator Benjamin Downing is proposing a bill which 'could prohibit homeowner associations or real estate covenants from restricting what he calls "solar clothes-drying devices"'. The Boston Globe, from which I got this item, suggests a compromise over the issue. While supporting the freedom to hang out one's laundry, the Globe says:
Just don't make it the front lawn. It's not too much to ask that clotheslines - er, solar clothes-drying devices - be placed in out-of-the-way spots.
This may sound like a reasonable way of splitting the relevant difference, but if we apply the tried and true principles of political philosophy here - as we should - we can see that it is not.
Though hanging your washing discreetly out of the way - say in your backyard and behind a large bush - may meet certain principles of neighbourly tact where you have grumbling neighbours, to demand this isn't defensible as a matter of law or other local regulation. Following the argument of John Stuart Mill, only if hanging out one's washing involved significant harm to others could legal interference with the practice be justified. But allowing washing to be hung in the back yard concedes that there is no harm in other people's seeing your clothes - as they may do, over the fence or from an upstairs window. Therefore hanging it out even on the front lawn must be OK. The prohibition is an unjustifiably meddlesome one. Heavens, it's like trying to legislate about what people may wear in public.