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ACLU Challenges Denial of Housing Permit to Unmarried Couple in Black Jack, Missouri (8/10/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
ST. LOUIS, MO --
The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri and the ACLU Women’s
Rights Project filed a lawsuit today on behalf of a family that was denied a
permit to live in the city of Black Jack because of a law that prohibits more
than three people from living together unless they are related by “blood,
marriage or adoption.”
“The City of Black Jack’s behavior is both
pompous and unconstitutional,” said Brenda Jones, Executive Director of the ACLU
of Eastern Missouri. “Black Jack’s attempt to criminalize people’s choice
to live together as a family has earned international ridicule for
Missouri.”
Fondray Loving and Olivia Shelltrack live in a
2,300-square-foot home in Black Jack, a suburb of St. Louis, with their three
children. Because Loving is not the biological father of Shelltrack’s
oldest child, the city has denied the family an occupancy permit for the home
that they purchased. The family now faces fines of up to $500 every week
for living in their home without an approved occupancy
permit.
Loving and Shelltrack have lived together with Shelltrack’s
oldest child, 15-year-old Alexia, for 13 years. Katarina, 10, and Fondray,
Jr., 9, are the biological children of both Loving and
Shelltrack.
“The government has no business saying two consenting
adults cannot live with their own children,” said Tony Rothert, Legal Director
of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. “The town rejected a proposal to
change this outmoded law, so we have no choice but to go to court to protect the
rights of this family.”
Emily Martin, Deputy Director of the
ACLU Women’s Rights Project, noted that a court in North Carolina recently
struck down that state’s 201-year-old ban on cohabitation in another case
brought by the ACLU. “The government is using housing laws to impose its
ideas of morality on residents, but there is nothing moral about denying a home
to a family,” she said.
Today’s lawsuit, Loving v. City of
Black Jack, filed in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, challenges the
ordinance as a violation of the family’s rights to due process and equal
protection under the U.S. Constitution, as well as family status discrimination
under fair housing laws. The lawsuit names the City of Black Jack and several
city officials as defendants.
Attorneys for the ACLU are Rothert,
Martin and Gerald P. Greiman of the law firm Spencer Fane Britt & Browne LLP
as cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.
The
petition can be found online at: www.aclu-em.org/legal/legaldocket/currentcases/lovingvcityofblackjack.htm
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