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.
Why is that any of the government's business?
...or a reality show on Fox...but I repeat myself.
This makes sense. Let's see if we can break the "family" up. It's be much, much better if the kids had just one parent.
There are minor children in the home whose welfare is clearly not the parents' primary concern.
Just a guess, of course. Maybe they have an ideological opposition to marriage. Don't want to be slaves of the patriarchy, after all ...
It's a weird world. Maybe they were married once.
And you know this how? Have you spoken with the couple in the article?
People misunderstand common law marriage. Statutory law has replaced common law in most areas of the law. Nowadaws, the individual state has to recognize such marriages; Missouri does not. No matter what this couple does to 'hold themselves out' to the community as a couple, they cannot be legally recognized as married.
A bunch of kids and 13 years, why don't they go down to the Justice of the Peace already?
I don't think Missouri has common law marriage.
Afraid of commitment, I guess. LOL
Actually, as I recall now, I know of a divorced woman who was living with her boy toy for upwards of a decade and they wouldn't get married because both of them were living off the ex-husband's substantial alimony.
Lone Jack is a very small town about 40 miles east of Kansas City. It claim to fame is being the location of one of the larger Missouri Civil War battle sites. I'd estimate the population about 1000---most folks who work in the KC area.
Just more Libs whining when they don't get their way.
Because they aren't married. If you care enough about a child to be a real father to him, you marry his mother.
Period.
Olivia and Fondray are men's names now?
They're too enlightened to do something so mundane as marry
It's to keep college kids out. Four college kids can create quite a ruckus. We have the same ban in our neighborhood. We had three college kids in one house plus guests. They thought the mountain road was the Monte Carlo until one of them crashed into a tree. After they moved out, we had no more "racing" problems. The problem is that you sometimes catch others in the web. Our standard policy is that no one knows anything until a problem arises. We don't enforce unless there is a problem.
We have one college kid now. She was keeping multiple guests over until we threatened to call the homeowner that was renting to her. It was her parents.
The couple thinks that they might have met more than 15 years ago but the woman doesn't remember for sure.
Great non sequitor. See if you can tie this story to abortion also.
Marriage has ruined a lot of perfectly good relationships.
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