N.C. Law Banning Cohabitation Struck Down

Raleigh, N.C. -- A state judge has ruled that North Carolina's 201-year-old law barring unmarried couples from living together is unconstitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued last year to overturn the rarely enforced law on behalf of a former sheriff's dispatcher who says she had to quit her job because she wouldn't marry her live-in boyfriend.

Deborah Hobbs, 40, says her boss, Sheriff Carson Smith of Pender County, near Wilmington, told her to get married, move out or find another job after he found out she and her boyfriend had been living together for three years. The couple did not want to get married, so Hobbs quit in 2004.

State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford issued the ruling late Wednesday, saying the law violated Hobbs' constitutional right to liberty. He cited the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case titled Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a Texas sodomy law.

"The Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas stands for the proposition that the government has no business regulating relationships between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home," Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said in a statement.

It's probably something of a symbiotic relationship. The Great Society hurt society. The sexual revolution hurt society. Both hitting at the same time was a major catastrophe.

In addition, they feed off one another. The Great Society gave men an excuse to father kids and not worry about them. The sexual revolution produced more illegitimate kids in need of government programs. Even the upscale working women who have kids out of wedlock eventually turn to government for assorted benefits. They want day care subsidies, more community centers for their unattended kids to hang out in, and so on. Look at the voting patterns of single women. They vote Democrat by a HUGE margin.

Most of those households featuring "adult mothers with no father present" actually do include a cohabiting male, generally a series of them.

I don't actually find that in the statistics, but you may have some information on that. A series of them likely wouldn't qualify as much more than visitors, rather than cohabitors.

But these cohabiting males do not take the place of fathers, as the often violent testimony of the un-fathered children makes very clear.

Not the visitors, certainly. But it's hard to make the case that a single mother is better off without a cohabiting male in the house, simply because there are anecdotal cases of abuse resulting. But let's face it, in married homes, drugs, alcohol, and abuse are quite significant issues. As of 1998 there were 20 million children living in single parent homes. To suggest that a 2 parent household is worse because the couple are not married is simply not logical.

But that doesn't mean nothing else will weaken such ties further. In fact, we already know from the European experience that social sanction for gay marriage weakens marriage generally and leads to widespread cohabitation among heterosexuals, with all the attendant ills for the children of such unions (who are increasingly raised by the state).

Well, this topic is not about gay marriage, nor am I a proponent. But I simply do not believe that the legalization of same sex marriages in Belgium, Netherlands and Canada recently have materially impacted marriages in general which have been declining for years in Europe as has childbirth rates. If the 50-60 percent divorce rate hasn't been a significant blow to marriage, I doubt a few hundred gay marriages are going to make a difference. What about the countries that have not approved same sex marriage? Do you have any stats on declining marriage rates in them? It's important not to confuse correlation with causation. There are likely many causes of Europe's problems.

The same is true of social sanction for cohabitation. When shacking up becomes just as accepted an arrangement as marriage, marriage will be further weakened, illegitimacy will increase even more, as always, the losers will be the kids.

It is and has been acceptable in most states. I recall reading that studies have concluded that couples that live together for a while before marriage generally have longer marriages. As long as sex outside of marriage is not banned, cohabitation is by far the lesser evil than a single parent household.

I sense this is more of a moral issue than one of substance.

Antoninus claims:

The "right to privacy" is abstract and difficult to define--which is why it wasn't included in the BoR.

Not at all. It was a 'given' in those days that your home was 'your castle'. The 3rd & the 4th both address this fact, while the 9th makes it obvious that a privacy right does not need to be enumerated.

The notion that local govenment doesn't have the power to enforce local standards of decency as agreed upon by the majority of citizens is a liberal-tarian notion which had its coming-out party in the 1960s. I reject it completely.

The reason why democratic/socialist 'majority rule' theories were rejected so forcefully in the 60's is because at that time ~both~ major parties started to use "the notion" that local government has the power to enforce 'local standards of decency' that disregard individual rights & liberties.

No level of government in the USA has ever been delegated that power. [see the 10th] -- ALL officials are sworn to uphold the Constitution as the Law of the Land, "-- any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. --"

Read Article VI, -- you may learn something about so-called 'states rights'.

Gay "marriage" is likely both an effect and a cause of family deterioration. A society that valued families would never even consider sanctioning gay "marriage" in the first place, so you have to figure the family was already on the downward slide in Scandinavia. However, once sanctioned, the gay "unions" cheapen the family even more in people's eyes, especially impressionable young people. They no longer see marriage as a special bonding of opposite sexes to create and nurture children, but just a pairing of any two (or perhaps more, I think Holland recently "married" a man and two women somehow) people who sexually desire one another. Who needs marriage for that? And if kids aren't an important part of marriage, and they can't be if gays can "marry", then why marry at all?

I recall reading that studies have concluded that couples that live together for a while before marriage generally have longer marriages.

Your recollection is faulty, and the fault is evidently not accidental. The standard liberal talking point on this subject actually makes more sense: Couples who don't cohabit before marriage have more stable marriages than couples who do because they are people more likely to take marriage seriously. Of course, society would be best off if many more couples were encouraged to take marriage seriously. At one time, our laws served to encourage that. They proscribed fornication as well as adultery and made divorce difficult to obtain. The results were clearly beneficial to children, but they made the aging adolescents of the Sexual Revolution sexually frustrated, so they junked them, one and all.

On that other marriage-related issue, your prejudices do lead you in the direction of the liberal talking points. The most informed writer today on the effects of gay marriage is Stanley Kurtz. Check out his analysis in the Weekly Standard. It is certainly not what I would want for our society.

Previous responses to your post covered it well. I think I can add value to them.*

"Laws, laws, laws, everywhere you turn. I probably break half a dozen laws every single day and don't even know it... They are drunk with power, and WE let them get away with it." VermiciousKnid

You got it. The 800 pond gorilla in the room.

The federal government creates about 3,000 new laws and regulations each year. State government each create about a quarter that many. Almost every person breaks the law at least a few times each year. Not just traffic laws either.

Who has real power?

Despite 3,000 new laws and regulations added each year people increasingly prosper despite at the same time almost every person breaks more than just traffic laws several times each year.

How is it that persons and society haven't self-destructed with such huge lawlessness? Actually, it's direct evidence/proof that typical Americans' (productive workers, entrepreneurs and citizens in general) self-interest is more powerful than politicians and bureaucrats (parasitical elites) self-interest. The vast majority of new laws are not valid laws. They're the rulers proclamations made under the color of law used to control the citizens as a collective.

Most arguments similar to yours are premised on citizens being subjects and government the master/ruler. There's an important step toward a free-market capitalist society -- the founders vision. Not a collusion of big business, special interests with government/politicians and bureaucrats -- the status quo.

A key component of returning the citizens to their proper role of employer/master and the government to its role as employee/servant. It is citizens' control of the purse strings.

Enacting HR25 - S25 (The FairTax) is an important step towards putting politicians, bureaucrats and government in general, in its proper place. They have usurped the citizens' power and turned it against them by incremental movements toward socialism, collectivism authoritarian rule.

The FairTax alone will give a very substantial boost to the American economy. Followed by eliminating 95% of new laws and regulations created each year, persons and society would send the economy into orbit and take individuals prosperity up with it.

Great information on the FairTax at: FairTax FAQ -- FairTax Facts -- The FairTax bill: H.R.25

Noble Laureate, economist and champion of free-market capitalism, Milton Friedman's ten-part series (video): Free to Choose

* This post is not for the MTV attention span or attention deficit disorder (ADD) people.

What planet are you living on?

The same socialistic planet you are kiddo. No matter which political faction wants 'majority rule' to enforce 'local standards of decency', its still the same old democratic BS.

The sixties was the era that saw the rise of the Great Society in America, Trudeau's socialist Canada, and the final degeneration of most of Europe into a perpetual socialist state.

Exactly. - You're making my argument. -- Shortly after Johnson's 'great society' we were subjected to the Nixonian version. - The war on drugs, guns, & liberty started, and hasn't stopped yet.

Oh, I know you do, as do most who believe that their religious convictions belong in the laws of the land. Conservatives generally reject that....suffice is to say that any law which infringes on someone's rights, without a compelling reason, are unconstitutional.

Both statements are spot on target.

One purpose of first amendment was not intended to protect majority speech, for the majority already approves. It is intended to protect minority speech -- speech that the majority disproves off and may even find offensive. Speech can violate individual rights. Defamation of character is libel and provable in court. Of course, the standard, "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater," absent an actual fire it puts people in immediate danger.

Freedom of association is similar. Just as persons have the right and freedom to chose whom they want to associate with they may freely chose who not to associate with. Freedom of association is not intended to protect associations that a majority approves of. Rather, it is intended to protect minority associations. Associations that the majority may disprove of and may even find offensive.

There is no right to not be offended.

The smallest minority is the lone individual. Protect the life and property rights of the individual and all minorities as well as the majority is protected.

Side note. Note the "liberal-tarian" collectivist trap. Collectivists and many people struggling for honesty group things by all sorts of collective groups. It's especially pernicious in politics and religion. The correct differentiation is honest or dishonest.

Your recollection is faulty, and the fault is evidently not accidental

It may well be faulty, as I indicated I recall reading that somewhere, with no validation as I do when I have statistics, studies, etc. But I don't follow the not accidental comment. Anyway, I'm sure you have studies showing otherwise, which I don't have.

Of course, society would be best off if many more couples were encouraged to take marriage seriously.

True, but the 50-60 percent divorce rate indicates that it certainly is not just (if) a cohabitation issue, but likely many issues. And just how much should the state interject itself into this area as opposed to the church?

At one time, our laws served to encourage that. They proscribed fornication as well as adultery and made divorce difficult to obtain. The results were clearly beneficial to children, but they made the aging adolescents of the Sexual Revolution sexually frustrated, so they junked them, one and all.

I don't see children remaining in an unloving and unhealthy marriage necessarily a good thing, though it is likely better than the alternatives they face today. I do think that marriages with children in them should face a tougher divorce standard simply because of the children.

On that other marriage-related issue, your prejudices do lead you in the direction of the liberal talking points.

Once again, try and keep it on the issue. I am not the issue, as most of you here would like to make it me.

The most informed writer today on the effects of gay marriage is Stanley Kurtz. Check out his analysis in the Weekly Standard. It is certainly not what I would want for our society.

I read the article, and noticed that the only statistical data he noted showed a several year period where marriage rates increased and divorce rates decreased. He believed for some reason that it was atypical. Later in the article, Kurtz shows that numerous reasons existed for the decline in marriage and the family in Scandinavia. I agree, and like you, would not like to see the same thing here. He makes little argument other than a general belief that same sex marriages contribute to the problem (a problem that started long before the gay marriages in the 90s). So, the same sex marriages certainly don't contribute to anything traditional, but the so-called damage it actually does to traditional marriages even in Scandinavia is at best speculative.

I agree with you that we've been on a downward slide since the sixties as far as liberty is concerned, but that's largely because of:

A) The loss of local autonomy and self-government to unelected judges.
B) The sexual revolution, which defined freedom to an entire generation as sexual libertinism.
C) The rise of socialism, which benefitted enormously from A and B above.

The family and traditional morality are the greatest barriers to government expansion in Western societies. Once those institutions are trashed, people inevitably turn to government to carry out the functions daddies and mommies previously carried out. Once sexual liberty becomes pre-eminent, people lose all perspective and willingly sacrifice property, speech, gun, and other rights in order to keep their vices subsidized. With children increasingly unvalued, people lose faith in the future. That's why people no longer care what America will look like 50 years from now, and why almost half the population really doesn't care if we lose to Islam. Europe is even further down this road than we are, and it's simply taken as a given there that their lands are going to be lost to another people and another civilization.

I would suggest an effect, but can't see it as a cause, because we are dealing with different groups of people. The issue is why have heterosexuals forsaken the traditional marriage/family. I see nothing that would indicate it is because another group (homosexuals) are getting married in 3 countries. This is also something that as you say began years before the gay marriage debate. So whatever the causes, the gay marriage issue may be an effect, if anything.

However, once sanctioned, the gay "unions" cheapen the family even more in people's eyes, especially impressionable young people. They no longer see marriage as a special bonding of opposite sexes to create and nurture children

Since this started long before gay marriages, and is rather prevalent in countries that have no same sex marriages, I think it is just speculative to assume that. If someone wants to raise a family and is heterosexual, I can't see them suddenly chucking it all because a handful of homosexuals got married. I believe there's a whole host of issues mitigating against the traditional family and marriage which have led to negative birth rates in much of Europe.

And if kids aren't an important part of marriage, and they can't be if gays can "marry", then why marry at all?

Again, logic is at issue here. If kids aren't important to a heterosexual couple, it has nothing to do with the fact that gays and lesbians can't have children. Hopefully you are not suggesting that kids have become less important to heterosexuals because homosexuals can't have any?

But this thread is not about gays and lesbians. It is about whether cohabitation should be an area for the state to control.

Mencken characterized Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

__ Why do people think that they can control me?

---- "The utterly insufferable arrogance of power, and the need for it, is an absolute fact of the human condition. -- Nothing can be done about it. - Just as the poor shall always be with us, so shall we have these infinitely shrewd imbeciles who live to lay down their version of 'the law' to others."
-unknown-

OTOH, why do we allow ourselves to be controlled?

The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation. We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
-Arthur Koestler-

Gay "marriage" is clearly an effect because it's hard to imagine a society that valued families sanctioning gay "marriage". But once sanctioned, it does additional harm.

####If someone wants to raise a family and is heterosexual, I can't see them suddenly chucking it all because a handful of homosexuals got married.####

I think you're correct as far as older adults are concerned. I don't think the addition of gay "marriage" in a society would harm the marriage of an established married couple. It's teens and younger people who are likely to be suffer the effects.

####If kids aren't important to a heterosexual couple, it has nothing to do with the fact that gays and lesbians can't have children. Hopefully you are not suggesting that kids have become less important to heterosexuals because homosexuals can't have any?####

No, but the sanctioning of gay "marriage" means that creating and nurturing children is no longer of any special relevance to marriage. It's just about sexual desire, not building the future of society. It's just about each "partner's" gratification, not about laying the groundwork for the raising of the next generation. If marriage is no longer about kids and the well-being of the next generation, then why bother with it? The only difference between being married and not married is that the former requires a few more obligations, and who needs that in a "me first" society? That's the attitude conveyed to kids by gay "marriage".

It may seem ironic to some that liberals dismiss marriage as not being important and then demand that gays be extended the right to "marry". But it isn't unusual if you understand liberals. They're merely covering all the bases in their war against the family.

Hi tpaine. This needs to be repeated.

The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation. We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
-Arthur Koestler-

Driven to fanatical devotion by parasitical elites -- politicians, bureaucrats, many professors, mainstream media reporters, journalists and the clergy -- foisting propaganda and dogma on citizens. They too are driven to fanatical devotion to carry the torch. That the parasitical elites have the "right" to leech off the host -- productive workers and entrepreneurs-- the value creators.

I don't want to see it result in laws and constitutional amendments that are designed for reasons other than the protection of individual rights.

The society the liberals envision is all rights and no responsibilities. The society the libertarians envision sounds pretty much the same.

These evil laws (bringing "state control" into our very bedrooms!) the godless sophisticates here hate so much were in fact conceived as a way of protecting the real rights (as opposed to the genital urges) of the most vulnerable people in American society--children, of course, but also women--by insisting that others with power over them take responsibility for their welfare. As each of them is discarded, the social fabric suffers another tear.

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