Unmarried couple sues St. Louis suburb that denied housing permit to their

[icymist]

Unmarried couple sues St. Louis suburb that denied housing permit to their family of 5
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aug. 11
ST. LOUIS - A couple with three children has sued a suburban town that refused to give them a housing permit because the parents are not married. The suit, filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday, claimed that the town of Black Jack's housing law violates the state and U.S. constitutions, as well as the Federal Fair Housing Act. It seeks unspecified damages.

The ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption."

The ACLU said Foundray Loving, Olivia Shelltrack and their school-age children are facing fines of up to $500 per week for living in their five-bedroom home in the suburb of 6,800 because Loving is not the biological father of Shelltrack's oldest child, and the couple are not married.

"The government has no business saying two consenting adults cannot live with their own children," said Tony Rothert, legal director for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

Read the article

[pooja]

1. This is just plain descrimination.

On top of that, in order to afford the house, they post-poned the wedding. They would rather their children live in a nice home and go to a nice school.

[icymist]

2. This law automatically discriminates against Gay families

with adopted children simply because Gays can't get legally married. Also, college students sharing a house.

[TahitiNut]

3. Thank all the gods for the ACLU

If I were to make donations to only a single organization, it'd be the ACLU. They're the gold standard of non-partisanship and ethics, imho. As uncomfortable as I might be with some of their clients, I can find absolutely no quibble with their adherence to the principles embodied in the Bill of Rights.

[icymist]

4. I second that! n/t

[Mabus]

5. shades of Loving v. Virginia (1967)? Legislatiing morality

from the SCOTUS opinion:

In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

***

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving

How times have not changed. It appears this ordinance is one that is trying to legislate morality, i.e., what the community thinks are acceptable standards for community membership. In this instance it would appear that the city wants to promote marriage.

Sheldon Stock, the town’s attorney, says that Black Jack intends to enforce its ordinances and “we think under the current state of the law that we have every right to do so”.

But why is there such a law? Mayor Norman McCourt explains. “It’s nothing unusual to have these particular type of laws,” says she. “Basically it’s to prevent overcrowding. Legislating morality was never the intention." But what then of the case in 1999 when an unmarried couple with 3-year-old triplets were denied an occupancy permit in the town?

“The easiest resolution to cure the situation would be for them to get married,” McCourt wrote at the time, as reported by USA Today. “Our community believes this is the appropriate way to raise a family.”

rest at: http://www.anorak.co.uk/features.php?features_id=169575&feature=

The comparision of a state refusing to recognize a legal marriage (as in Loving v. Virginia) and forcing people to marry to remain community members (not to mention forcing them to marry to allow them to live in a house they own) may seem tenuous at first glance, but the at the heart of it is the fundamental freedom of whether or not to marry. To paraphrase the Loving SCOTUS decision "Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person ... resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."