Missouri Town won't let unmarried parents live together

Town won't let unmarried parents live together
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Missouri (AP) -- The City Council has rejected a measure allowing unmarried couples with multiple children to live together, and the mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.

The town's Planning and Zoning Commission proposed a change in the law, but the measure was rejected Tuesday by the City Council in a 5-3 vote.

"I'm just shocked," Shelltrack said. "I really thought this would all be over, and we could go on with our lives."

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The defeated measure would have changed the definition of a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/17/unmarried.ap/index.html

:grr:

that child would be related, by blood, to every single person that plans to live there.

:nuke:

in the case where the children
aren't related by blood to both adults.

If I have 2 children from a previous marriage, and the man I'm living with has one child from a previous marriage,
and we are not married to each other --- we'de be screwed.

This law is reminiscent of the Dark Ages.

I'd wager the couple is poor, and probably African-American (not that it really matters).

If someone starts a legal defense fund for them to help with a federal lawsuit, I'll send money.

:mad:

I doubt it they're more than likely all as white as the driven snow and intend to keep it that way.

saw the story on the news a week or 2 ago.

NOT!

Surely there is further legal action they can take. I mean, a town can't really say you can't live here unless you get married, can they? This has to be discrimination. Or if nothing else an invasion of privacy.

I live with my boyfriend, and we're not married, if we had kids and someone pulled this crap, I'd be livid and talking to every media person that would hear me.

what century does that city council think they live in??? :mad:

in order to move into a home?

I've never heard of such a thing.

:shrug:

Anyone?

it's true.

(Basically, it says an inspector says the house is OK to live in.)

But still...I assumed an occupancy permit was for the house, not the people living in it. (i.e. if you buy a newly-built house, get the permit, then sell before you move in, you don't need another occupancy permit unless more work's been done on it.)

eom

This information can be found here

http://www.florissantvalleycc.com/membcat2.php?&class=Municipalities



City of Black Jack
Mayor Norman McCourt
12500 Old Jamestown Rd.
Black Jack, MO 63033
www.cityofblackjack.com

(314) 355-0400
Fax: (314) 355-4196

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, 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."

It was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

http://www.ameasite.org/loving.asp

sounds a lot like the "morality" police in some of the fundamentalist Muslim countries. You know, where the woman has to be veiled, and can't be out in public without a male relative with her. In this country, there is shameful discrimination against GLBT members of society. Oh, and of course, there are always the staple of bigots everywhere, who are prejudiced against blacks and latinos.

I'm just so very, very sick of them, these morality police, their complete willingness to decide and decree how we should all live, whether some people can marry, whether a woman has to carry a child to term, what medicine prescribed by doctors people can take. What unmitigated arrogance, to claim the right to live as they choose, yet deny others the right to live their own lives.

I'd be tempted to say that I wouldn't want to live in that town, but these twisted people live everywhere. They demand that everybody live by their own ideas of right and wrong, and claim the right to dictate to everybody else, usually because of some notion they have of the absolute correctness of their religion. The idea that others should have the same rights is scorned by them. I am so sick of these people, they spread bigotry, injustice, and meanness everywhere they go.

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The defeated measure would have changed the definition of a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.



There are five people in the family. The parents and their three kids. The math doesn't add up. How are they breaking this ordinance?

With apologies to DUers who live there. This is the state that has given us Ashcroft and Bond.

Fucking nazis. :mad:

While the law is clearly a bad one and ought to be changed, it doesn't worry me as much as a law prohibiting unmarried parents from living together somewhere where the majority of the electorate aren't clearly nuts would.

... they ARE married by blood as they are both blood parents of the children.

But I would like to point out that everyone here seems to be mistaking this law as being aimed at unmarried couples. From the wording of it, I would say it is aimed at large groups of people rooming together. There are many possible reasons for this, some bad some not so bad.

Real life example #1: I shared a house one college semester with fifteen other people. My room was originally a closet. And I wouldn't say that I got the worst room in the place. This house was predictably noisy and rowdy. Fortunately, it was also surrounded on all sides by retail businesses, so we had no neighbors to bother. But you can see where a suburb near a major university might want such a law.

Real life example #2: the year after college I paid $30 a week for a room in a boarding house. This house had started life as a large, single family home. Somewhere along the line it changed into a flop house for people like myself who could not afford anything better. The window did not close. Mice crawled under the covers seeking my body warmth. A stripper offered me "services" in exchange for sharing my room. And so on.

A lot of people would not like that in their neighborhood.

From the wording of it, I would say it is aimed at large groups of people rooming together. There are many possible reasons for this, some bad some not so bad.

There was a previous thread at DU discussing this case that I participated in, but I can't find it.

The "five unrelated persons" rule is very common in municipal zoning -- here in Canada as well as in the US. Its original intent was to stop people from operating rooming houses in areas zoned for single-family occupancy. (Again: good or bad, depending on your perspective.)

To use it as this municipality is using it is unconscionable.

Up here in Canada, discrimination on the basis of marital status is prohibited for pretty much all purposes, and so unmarried couples must be treated in the same way as other couples. A married couple is not "related" either, except by marriage, and a law or bylaw that defined "married" to specifically exclude common-law couples (whether same-sex or opposite-sex, as well), and grant benefits to married but not unmarried couple (e.g. permit them to occupy dwellings as "related" people) would be unenforceable here.

For the rest of us, it's enough just to say something is "bad" or "wrong" or even "counter-productive."

Christians need an Authority Figure to threaten them with punishment in order to keep them in line. Either an invisible man in the sky, or the government.

That's why the Christianists want to ban the cervical cancer vaccine, for example.

And, as an example of what our society is destined for if unwed Christian white people are allowed to raise children without getting married...

McKenzie police have charged two Carroll County parents with raping their child.

Jonathan Wayne Goodrum, 19, and Kristina Louise Sawyer, 18, are charged with raping their 1-day-old girl before she was taken home from McKenzie Regional Hospital about six weeks ago, said McKenzie Police Lt. Tim Nanney.

While both parents have been charged, Sawyer's bond was reduced because police still are investigating what role, if any, she played in the possible rape of her child, Nanney said. She was charged because "I could not exclude her from being part of it, so I had to charge her also," he said. "I could not exclude her at the time from being a participant of it."

Nanney said hospital officials notified police of the possible rape after noticing injuries to the child's rear during a routine examination given before newborns are released from the hospital.
"There were some skin tears in and around the private (back) area of the child," he said.

The investigation led to the child's parents, Nanney said, and there was no indication that any hospital worker was involved in the incident. "Based on the investigation, we ruled out everyone but the mom and the dad," Nanney said.

More:
http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060513/NEWS01/605130304/1002