Originally Posted by cnn.com

Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Move or get married
Imagine you've bought your dream house. And you've moved in. Now, imagine being told you can't live there because you -- and your children -- are not considered a family. That's the situation facing Olivia Shelltrack, Fondrey Loving and their three kids in Black Jack, Missouri.

They moved from Minneapolis to the St. Louis suburb a couple of months ago. I visited them recently at their five-bedroom home. They told me Black Jack requires all homes to have an occupancy permit, but that they were denied one. They said they were told that because there are more than three people in their house, and not all are related by blood or marriage, they don't meet Black Jack's definition of a family.

As Black Jack's mayor, Norman McCourt, put it recently at a city council meeting: "It's overcrowding because it's not a single family. It's a single-family residence and they're not a single family."

Olivia and Fondrey aren't married and had two of their three children out of wedlock. The third child is Olivia's from a previous relationship. They appealed to the city's Board of Adjustment for an exemption, figuring it wouldn't be hard for anyone to see they're a real family. But they were denied. Olivia and Fondrey told me they came away from that meeting feeling like they were given a clear message: Get married or move.

"Just because we don't meet your definition of a family doesn't make us any less of a family. ... We've been together for 13 years. ... We're raising three kids together," Olivia said.

So the couple called the ACLU. That's when they discovered at least three other families have had this kind of trouble in Black Jack before. The ACLU showed CNN a letter it says it received from Mayor McCourt in 1999 explaining why another family was being denied an occupancy permit at the time.

"While it would be naive to say that we don't recognize that children are born out of wedlock frequently these days, we certainly don't believe that is the type of environment within which children should be brought into this world," the mayor wrote.

The city has issued a statement saying at least 89 municipalities in the St. Louis area have similar occupancy permit requirements. The ordinances are designed to eliminate boarding houses and illegal renting of rooms, but the city now admits its 20-year-old ordinance may not be in step with the times.

And after a public hearing scheduled for Thursday, Black Jack may soften the wording of its ordinance. If the ordinance isn't changed, the ACLU says it will sue the city, arguing it is violating federal fair housing rules and the constitutional right to privacy. In the meantime, all Shelltrack and Loving can do is hope the city won't force them to move.

Originally Posted by Charlatan

(just wait until a same-sex couple moves in with their kids).

Originally Posted by analog

I'd bet a crispy new $1 bill that the fact that it's an interracial couple is a large part of the city's refusal to make any exceptions.

Of course, there is a small part of me that says, "if you're going to declare yourself a family, declare yourselves married... then you should get the paperwork to make your assertion legally accurate."

If there are certain things you're missing out on because you won't legally recognize your union, then I have to kinda think maybe you give up those things when you refuse to get the legal papers. You may say, "We don't need to sign a paper to recognize our love/committment/union/etc."

Well, I don't want to have to sign a piece of paper saying I want to keep both of my testicles, since I think that should be implied, but if the government said all left testicles were going to be removed unless you signed a paper recognizing you want to keep both of your testicles, I'd sign that paper.

So what's more important- your scruples, or legally recognizing your home unit as a family? Sometimes you just have to say, "fuck scruples, my left nut is more important."

Does it necessarily make sense to enforce this law in this way? Of course not. However- if you want to live in an area designated for families or inhabitants numbering no more than 3 who are unrelated, you need to be a legally-recognized family, whether or not you agree with the law.

There are lots of laws that many people disagree with, but you still have to obey them until they're no longer laws. This country was founded on, and has continually grown and sustained itself on, the principles of people standing up against what they feel are unjust laws, and for rights. If they truly believe this to be a breach of civil liberties, they should take their issue forward as have all the others before them. You can't expect change to come simply from complaining.

And while many of us may think, "well, in this day and age, you're not exactly going to see a national uproar over a local town issue", this does not account for this obviously backwards hamlet of Black Jack, Missouri. There are still plenty of places in this country with very backwards thinking- and a local uproar may be needed.

Originally Posted by willravel

I

Edit: I loved in St. Louis for 4 years. Unless it's changed a lot since I lived there, I doubt it's a mixed race couple thing.

Originally Posted by Rodney

I read once that there's a sort of dividing street in St. Louis -- all the white people live on one side, all the black people on the other? Not true?

Originally Posted by Rodney

As to why no one told the unlucky couple in advance -- well, the owners and realtors wanted to sell the house. Wasn't _their_ business whether the new owners could live in it or not.

Originally Posted by Rodney

I read once that there's a sort of dividing street in St. Louis -- all the white people live on one side, all the black people on the other? Not true?

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I suppose I couldn't live there either...

I have two kids with my "wife". I call her my wife but we did not sign any license or take any vows before a God. And yet, we are still husband and wife to each other and mother and father to our two kids.

This is just small town pettiness... the municipality needs to get over itself.

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

I hate judgemental fuckwits like that

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

I guarantee it's either objection to an interracial couple, or religious objection to an unmarried couple with children.

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

Fuck that, if I were in that situation I would move out and start praying that a meteor hits the city. I hate judgemental fuckwits like that and hope that intelligence takes hold and forces that idiocy out of society. I guarantee it's either objection to an interracial couple, or religious objection to an unmarried couple with children. If it's the latter, they really need to put down the brimstone and work on that "love thy neighbor" thing.