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Unwed Parents Face Eviction

by TChris

There may be a legitimate public interest in limiting the number of people who are permitted to occupy a single residence, but that interest doesn't justify an ordinance that permits families to live together if the parents are married to each other while prohibiting them from living together if the parents are unmarried. The St. Louis suburb of Black Jack nonetheless thinks it has the right to keep unmarried couples with more than one child from occupying the same home.

The mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.... Mayor Norman McCourt said starting Wednesday the city will begin trying to evict groups who do not fit into Black Jack's definition of family, reports CBS affiliate KMOV-TV in St. Louis.

Putting aside whether the law is so arbitrary as to violate the constitutional right to equal protection, or whether it invades a couples' personal privacy interest in deciding whether to marry before cohabiting, the ordinance is poor public policy. Does putting families out on the street promote family values?

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    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#1)
    by aw on Wed May 17, 2006 at 12:57:21 PM EST
    These people need to get a life. Trite, but true.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#2)
    by Punchy on Wed May 17, 2006 at 01:01:47 PM EST
    Welcome to Missouri. Indiana Lite. Redheaded stepchild of Arkansas. Utah wanna-be... I'd LOVE it if someone could post a link to a chart/graph of unwed mothers vs. the state they live in. I'm pretty sure MO is way up there. And while we're at it, let's look at meth production vs. state. Yes, MO, you're really setting the moral curves for this country...

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 01:02:08 PM EST
    Whenever I hear something like this, I think it must have come from too much late night religious TV. Some dumbass is sipping his whiskey and getting all fired up about the decline of our moral standing. They decide they'll do whatever they can in their power to change it. The next morning, with the hangover to make them even more feisty, they draw up the plan's particulars. No thought about the actual people it might effect. At least the televangelists will approve.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Wed May 17, 2006 at 01:03:44 PM EST
    Does putting families out on the street promote family values?
    It depends on what your definition of 'family' is. For some, nothing they do will allow them to enter into the family values super saved club. God does not save the wicked especially when it is the wicked who are doing the counting.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 01:11:10 PM EST
    I think this is intended to protect landlords and neighborhoods from letting people, gasp, share housing. First folks share housing, then they form a commune, next thing you know it's Moscow.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 01:22:20 PM EST
    Nuke-u-lar families are the only families!

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#7)
    by soccerdad on Wed May 17, 2006 at 02:13:20 PM EST
    The christianofascists want to be able to control the government and the lives of everyone. They are a small but rapidly growing extremist group that are one of the parts of Bush's base. Google Dominionism read and be frightened.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#8)
    by roy on Wed May 17, 2006 at 02:42:01 PM EST
    IIRC, the government has a "compelling interest" in encouraging family structure. This policy is compatible with that interest. It's not so different from allowing married couples priviledges related to taxes, Social Security, and so on. This is not an endorsement of the policy, just an attempt at understanding the law.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 02:56:36 PM EST
    It's not so different from allowing married couples priviledges [sic] related to taxes, Social Security, and so on.
    The problem is that housing isn't a privilege bestowed by the government, though having a place to live is considered desirable by society, and there are certain laws in place to try to make the process of finding a place to live a fair one. But generally, it's a business contract between the renter and the landlord. So if the government is going to interfere, why should they do anything but try to make sure the process is fair on all sides? Why should they encourage landlords to discriminate against their tenants? What if the unmarried couple and their kids are really good tenants, and the yuppie schmucks who replace them are not so much? And it's one thing to give people incentives and tax breaks to get married, and another thing to force them to do so by kicking them out of their homes. Great. Is Black Jack going to pay for the counseling sessions as well? Do they have any idea how much homeless shelters cost?

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#10)
    by kdog on Wed May 17, 2006 at 03:01:42 PM EST
    Strange...in a so-called 'free' country no less. Strange indeed.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 03:05:35 PM EST
    The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption." I imagine the details are spelled out better in the actual ordinance? Otherwise it seems quite complicated to me: If the children all belong to the mother and same father, then only two of them are unrelated and that family would seem to be "acceptable". But if any of the kids has a different father (or mother) then the family is in violation and liable for eviction. Gonna be a big problem for divorced couples with kids isn't it? Especially if they are devout Catholics.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#12)
    by desertswine on Wed May 17, 2006 at 03:15:25 PM EST
    Google Dominionism read and be frightened.
    Well I guess you're not of the body. I submit. I bear myself to the will of Landru. - The Return of the Archons

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#13)
    by HK on Wed May 17, 2006 at 03:16:59 PM EST
    Devout Catholics don't get divorced, Tortoise, they live unhappily ever after...safe in the knowledge that although they hate each other, at least they have a roof over their heads.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#14)
    by Sailor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 03:19:27 PM EST
    IIRC, the government has a "compelling interest" in encouraging family structure
    Why? And more to the point, the gov't has no business deciding what a 'family structure' is. And further, since the divorce rate among gay married couples is so much lower than among straight married couples, would you want the gov't to mandate homosexuality?

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed May 17, 2006 at 04:17:09 PM EST
    May I suggest that counsel for the couple in question review City of E. Cleveland v. Moore and then quickly file suit.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#17)
    by txpublicdefender on Wed May 17, 2006 at 05:47:21 PM EST
    Yes. Moore v. City of East Cleveland, Ohio, 431 U.S. 494 (1977) is directly on point. Rejecting arguments that the ordinance served to prevent overcrowding, minimize traffic, and avoid burdening the public school system, the court held that the provision had but a tenuous relation to the alleviation of these objectives. Nor was the constitutional right to live together as a family limited to the nuclear family, the court ruled, as the extended family traditionally played a role in providing sustenance and security. Cutting off protection of family rights at the first convenient boundary, the nuclear family, was arbitrary and could not be justified.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#18)
    by orionATL on Wed May 17, 2006 at 05:53:18 PM EST
    (religiosity + love of punishing others + lack of publicly stated sentiment to the contrary)P*2 (i.e., squared by major involvement in politics) = major human meanness. this equation isn't new. it was worked out at least 5000 years ago.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#19)
    by Johnny on Thu May 18, 2006 at 01:33:08 AM EST
    The obvious course here is... After you get rid of sinners with children, it will soon be illegal for anyone but white-christian-religionutjobs to live together, under the holy bond of an official gov't religious ceremony... Vile.

    Re: Unwed Parents Face Eviction (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu May 18, 2006 at 01:04:28 PM EST
    After looking at the racial makeup of the city and the city council, I would imagine rainbow-push will not protest this.