Doesn’t this look like a family to you?
CVK
(First heard about this case on Blogging Baby.)
Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving are facing eviction from the house they purchased in the St. Louis suburb of Black Jack, MO. The reason? This town has an ordinance that prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related “by blood, marriage or adoption.”
Shelltrack and Loving are not married, but they’ve been together for thirteen years. They’re raising three children, two from their relationship, one from Shelltrack’s previous relationship. Despite all of this, the town does not consider them to be a family.
The ridiculous thing is that this law exists to prevent frat houses from springing up in single-family neighborhoods. And in this USA Today article, Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri says that these types of laws are rarely enforced.
And yet in the case of this family – excuse me, I mean, unrelated grouping of persons — the town was pretty quick to enforce it. Not only that, but the city council then rejected a proposal to amend the law to allow unmarried couples with multiple children to live together.
I have to wonder, if this couple were not interracial, would the city have cared so much? And for the record, I’m not the only one who thinks there’s a racial element going on here. Blogging Baby and Broadsheet, Salon’s blog on women’s issues, both find it pretty suspicious.
Meanwhile, Google News reveals that the international press is all over this story. Here’s a sampling of their take on it:
“a return to the Middle Ages” (The Sunday Times, UK)
“City tells family how to live” (Sydney Morning Herald)
“Unmarried, with kids? Not in our town” (People’s Daily Online, China)
By the way, interesting coincidence that Fondray’s last name is Loving. Any relation, I wonder? ;)
Lyonside wrote:
You know, it’s things like this that cause long-term couples to run and get married by a JOP (well, if they can…) - to conform to society’s ideal of what a “family” is…
It is possible that the family caught attention because of ethnicity/race. I also want to know how the family caught the attention of the town officials - is it that small an area? Did they apply for some permit or benefit or housing improvement or something (not that that would be their FAULT, but it would give another explanation for how they pinged on the radar).
As usual, I think that if this were another area where they had REAL problems, a stable family unit with 3 kids and home ownership, regardless of legal status, would be a community asset.
If they do own their home (or at least are paying it off), I hope to hell they fight it - and get their banker on their side too. What are they going to do, arrest parents and kids?
Posted 08 Jun 2006 at 6:40 am ¶
Francis wrote:
There’s a growing gap between Law and actual life. It seems the only way to get recognition from the state is actually… getting married.
Nowadays, nobody no longer seem to like the idea of “marriage”, except homosexuals, who value that right and are fighting to get it.
Posted 08 Jun 2006 at 11:39 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
The local yokels in Amerikkka’s Waziristan say,
“They’ve gotten into a situation and it doesn’t fit them,” longtime resident Corliss Bonner says. “So their solution is, change the situation. That’s not an adult approach.”
They’re not our kind of people. Getting married when you don’t want to is the adult thing to do!
Larry Hensley says Shelltrack and Loving should conform or move. He says that’s what he did 20 years ago when he moved from neighboring Florissant, which barred him from keeping bees in his backyard.
“Any law that can prevent the morality of the towns from going down is good. You might have a house with 10 or 15 people living in it. Two or three different so-called families in one house,” he says. “I don’t know what the big deal is about getting married.”
The danger of a heart rate and a body going down due to anaphylactic shock caused by thousands of bee stings is nowhere near as dangerous to an unmarried interracial couple raising their family.
The people who live in our tribals areas are very backward.
FOCUS ON YOUR OWN DAMN FAMILY!
Posted 08 Jun 2006 at 1:16 pm ¶
Mark La Roi wrote:
Weird law or not, it’s better for the kids to see married parents. People say that they don’t need to be married to be committed, but kids see their friend’s parents break up often, and the committment of marriage puts them much more at ease.
Kids recognize the value of that act of committment, and it’s reassuring to them. They’ll tell you themselves if you’ve got it like that with them.
If you’ve been together all that time, why refuse to marry? I’ve never understood that, but I can gurantee you that a LOT of kids take that as the sign of an exit strategy. Like mom and dad have walked all the way up to the broom but absolutely refuse to jump over it.
Posted 08 Jun 2006 at 6:46 pm ¶
Damie_Troy wrote:
A part of me understands the town officials. Marriage has been so de-valued nowadays, that evidence suggest this has contributed in a decline of American moral values.
I still don’t think the town’s regulation based on traditional values justifies dictating individual rights.
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 12:45 am ¶
Francis wrote:
Mark La Roi highlights a good point: it seems people do want the benefits, but they don’t like the idea of getting a contract marriage.
France passed a law in 1999 allowing the use of PACS contracts (pacte civil de solidarité, roughly translating as civilian pact of solidarity) which in essence grants the same priviledges as a normal marriage, but without the label.
Call it anything you want, but I think it is correct to have some kind of “administrative formalization of couples” also called marriage contract, even when two people only live under the same roof. With such a kind of contract, they can share things like insurance, and in case of decease, their goods go to the person whom they have been living with.
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 2:55 am ¶
lyonside wrote:
Mark:
There are a lot of reasons why this couple may not have married, and we don’t know them based on the article. The article says they’ve been together (i.e. as a couple) for 13 years, but we don;t know how long they’ve been LIVING together. It could have been things like custody concerns, financial issues associated with divorce (i.e. if a parent gets married, there goes the alimony), job uncertainty, etc. There may also be the psychological scars from divorce or other relationship breakups - I know 2 men personally who are so messed up from divorce that the “M” word invokes a kind of emotional paralysis. I personally think both need therapy, but that’s not my call to force them into it (it being therapy or marriage).
The “marriage” issue, however, is a red herring. The small question is, is this couple being targeted out of hand, and is the ordinance being interpreted correctly: the ordinance says “3 unrelated adults”, which doesn’t include this family, really - There are only 2 unrelated adults (the parents). If the older child shown is 18+, then she is biologically related to one of the adults.
The bigger question is the validity and purpose of the ordinance itself. As a comment on Salon.com points out, under the ordinance, two unmarried adults and their 1 child would be allowed to live there. Two unmarried adults could also live there. Therefore, the ordinance is not written as trying to prevent UNMARRIED COUPLES PER SE from living there (the salon article indicates that avoiding frats in houses was the rationale), even if it’s being applied de factor to do this for some couples. That’s grounds for a civil court case if I’ve ever heard one.
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 3:35 am ¶
lyonside wrote:
de facto… de facto… god I hate typing late
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 3:45 am ¶
Charlette wrote:
someone please tell me when can the law dictate what has occurred between a couple before they come to live there? Who gets to tell whom to be married or leave our lilly perfect town? What kind of 16th century
discrimination is this? They are Bush people for sure.
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 11:07 am ¶
bertie wrote:
Given the high reported divorce rate–and my own unscientific realization that I am one of the only in my group of friends whose parents are toghter–I’m not so sure marriage offers anyone a sense of security or committment anymore. As Mark La roi pointed out, kids see their friends’ married parents break-up all the time–so why their own parents’ marriage would necessarily offer a sense of security does not logically follow to me. (Especially if the parents hardly relate to one another—or relate negatively to one another). Kids are alot more sophistocated these days and I think the interaction between the parents provides a sense of stability, more so than the parents being techinically married.(13 years, a couple of kids, residing together–these folks are probably common law married at this point anyway.) As for the younger kids–how would they know the difference in how their parents interact versus a married couple? I think the only negative associated with long-term but unmarried couples is the “otherness” the kids might feel because people find their parents’ personal decision to be committed (but unmarried) odd.
Posted 09 Jun 2006 at 3:30 pm ¶