Posted on 03/29/2005 6:26:35 PM PST by SmithL
WILMINGTON, N.C. - A former sheriff's dispatcher who quit her job after her boss found out she lived with her boyfriend is challenging North Carolina's law against cohabitation.
Debora Hobbs said she was told to get married, move out, or find another job after her boss found out about her living situation. The legal arm of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina filed the lawsuit Monday on her behalf.
The lawsuit seeks to abolish the nearly 200-year-old - and rarely enforced - law that prohibits unmarried, unrelated adults of the opposite sex from living together. North Carolina is one of seven states with such a law.
Convicted offenders face a fine and up to 60 days in jail.
"The government has no business meddling in the private relationships of consenting adults," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU-NC Legal Foundation.
Hobbs had been living with her boyfriend for about three years when she was hired as a Pender County 911 dispatcher in February 2004. The couple decided they didn't want to marry; Hobbs quit last May rather than be fired.
Sheriff Carson Smith said last year that Hobbs' employment was a moral issue as well as a legal question. He said he tries to avoid hiring people who openly live together, but that he doesn't send out deputies to enforce the law.
Hobbs declined to comment Monday. Rudinger said she is employed and still lives with her boyfriend.
Neither the sheriff nor Pender County Attorney Trey Thurman would comment.
This is unbelievable. Government has no business in this sort of matter. And this law also seems to discriminate against straight people, if I am reading it correctly.
We have some screwed up laws in this state. But then so does every state.
Okay let's see if the liberal federalists decide the federal courts should butt out of this one. Oh, and by the way, Florida has a similar law. Michael Shiavo should be immediately arrested.
I think it's a dumb law, but should be a state's rights issue.
We may decry -- in fact, I often do -- the continued erosion in moral standards. But whether we like it or not, the law needs to reflect, at least to some extent, contemporary attitudes. It may have been considered shacking up in the 1950s, but it's utterly mainstream behavior today.
Perhaps we should bring back the dunking stool, scarlet letters, and prosecution of women for being scolds.
It makes you a classical "liberal", circa 1900. Today this attitude would be considered libertarian.
If you believe in the at-will principle regarding employment, the boss was completely in his rights.
I would think they could throw a lot of people from the universitys in jail or a fine whatever the penalty. I know several people at my school who live in mixed gender houses. In some cases they are platonic relationships but people need roommates. I have to wonder what would happen if there are co-ed dorms.
That is exactly how I read it as well.
If only they made a MOAB for egos.
What if she was living with this man and he had two children with her? Would she get the tax break for being a single mother? And what often happens with this "living together" nonesense? You have two people living together for years, sometimes one person has children from another man.
Aren't there laws defining a "commonlaw" marriage as two unrelated, opposite sex adults living together for a specified period of time? If I remember correctly, under NC Law, you are legally married if you have been cohabitating for more than 6 months. I could be completely wrong however.
There are good reasons for bringing back the scarlet letter. By engaging in sex with someone who is married you risk bringing into the world a child who will not have the possibility of having a father. Especially if that father has children with his spouse. The problem becomes one of punishing the wrongdoers without harming the innocent children. Not an easy task. Marriage, though, is a contract and the State is a party and the purpose of which is to provide for the rights and welfare of the children produced. If that contract is violated, civil penalties should be imposed. The harm done to citizens by children of broken households (the jails are full of them) raises the question of whether criminal punishments should follow as well.
If cohabitation results in children, the parents should be considered married by "common law" as well.
Yes and it means automatic membership in the ACLU for you.There's no getting out of it - you're IN now.
Perhaps we should bring back the dunking stool, scarlet letters, and prosecution of women for being scolds.
I oughtta give you a good scolding for that.
(Just having fun) Holly
I lived platonically for 6 years with a female roommate while we each saved money to buy our individual houses. No one gave birth.
There doesn't appear to be any common-law provisions in NC state law. One would assume that with a law like this on the books, one wouldn't be needed.
Pedophelia is next on the agenda....and you will be labeled a "pedophobe" if you oppose it.
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