Posted on 02/23/2006 1:53:52 PM PST by Quick1
A Missouri couple say they were denied an occupancy permit for their new home because they're not married.
Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving have been together for 13 years and have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The couple are appealing the occupancy permit denial from the Black Jack, Mo., board of adjustment, which requires people living together to have blood, marriage or adoption ties. Loving is not the father of Shelltrack's oldest child.
I was basically told, you can have one child living in your house if you're not married, but more than that, you can't, Shelltrack told the newspaper.
This is about the definition of family, not if they're married or not, Mayor Normal McCourt said. It's what cities do to maintain the housing and to hold down overcrowding.
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LOL! That must be it.
Thank Calex! You said it for me too. I get irked by the holier than thou comments...and there are plenty
And a subsidy.
They are directly quoted. They did a press interview.
And this is the kind of story that is given to reporters by an interested party - journalists don't randomly pore through small-town occupancy certificate filings hoping to find a story.
What I'm talking about is that they should have been able to get the permit, instead of the permit board putting their nose where it doesn't belong in the first place.
The permit board probably asked their attorney or them (if they were doing their own closing) whether they could sign an affidavit attesting that they were in full compliance with municipal law regarding occupancy.
They most likely responded that they could not.
This probably prompted a hearing. At such a hearing the applicant usually states whether they intend to cure and in what time frame. Usually the board can grant a waiver contingent upon future compliance.
They apparently indicated at the hearing that they intended to never be in compliance, despite the fact that they had previously dishonestly represented themselves in a way which implied that they would. At which point the board determined that they could not grant a permanent waiver without violating municipal law.
Thism is not the board "sticking their nose in" - this is the board conducting due diligence on an occupancy certificate application or, in other words, doing the job the city hired them to do.
"He just goes around imposing his will on people. He's my idol." - Eric Cartman
I admire your gumption. Knowing that you had no intelligent comment to offer, you soldiered on and inserted a non sequitur anyway, just to be involved.
OK - here's my comment:
No conservative should praise or defend a local government who has the gumption to believe they have the RIGHT to decide on something called an "occupancy permit" based on the nature of the relationship between the people who OWN the property.
I have a lot of disdain for nanny government, no matter who the nanny is.
Bravo, Well said.
In your world, marriage may well be a government contract.
Of course, in the real world, no marriage is a government contract since the government is not a contracting party.
And marriage is first and foremost a sacrament - the contractual aspect of it is a housekeeping detail, not its essence or purpose.
If I'm reading the ordinance correctly (and, of course, I'm basing it only on what the newspaper articles said), you can't have more than 3 people living together unless they are *all* related by blood, marriage or adoption. It doesn't seem to permit, for example, a guy and his wife and his wife's cousin and his wife's cousin's husband and his wife's cousin's husband's sister to all live together. And I think that even if the man and the woman got married, they couldn't all live together, since there's more than 3 of them and not all of them would be related by blood, marriage or adoption (the husband and the oldest boy wouldn't be related). I think that the couple would need to get married *and* the husband would need to adopt the oldest boy.
"Perhaps the 15 yo's biological father refuses to give him up for addoption? I don't see why it makes a difference.
Why can't the gigolo adopt him?"
Because you can only have 1 legal mother and 1 father at a time.
If I was the biological father (and supporting my child via child support, involvment, etc), I would not agree to having my parental rights terminated so that my ex wife could live somewhere.
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