Black Jack, Missouri rescinds anti-cohabitation ordinance

I posted last week about an unwed couple in Black Jack, MO, Fondray Loving and Olivia Shelltrack, who challenged the town housing ordinance prohibiting unmarried couples and their children from living in the same dwelling.

The blowback woke up the City Council, and the ordinance was changed.

Fondray Loving, Olivia Shelltrack and their three children are now considered a family by Black Jack officials.

The City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday night to change the ordinance that had prevented the unmarried couple from obtaining an occupancy permit for their five-bedroom home, bringing national attention to the north St. Louis County suburb.

...The ordinance had prohibited more than three people from living together in single-family housing unless they are related by "blood, marriage, or adoption." Loving is the biological father of two of the children.

The revision extends the definition of a family to include unrelated people and the children of both or either person who live together as a single housekeeping unit. The amendment would make the family eligible for an occupancy permit, city officials said.

The Mayor, Norman McCourt, was trying to play cute about the purpose of the original language, saying it was about "maintaining the quality of the city's housing stock," and "preventing overcrowding," and had nothing to do with living in "sin." But his own official statements in the city records ratted him out.

City documents have contradicted that position, including a note from McCourt in an unrelated case. McCourt wrote in 1999 that Black Jack officials and residents "do not believe that an unmarried couple having children residing in our community is an appropriate standard that they wish to approve" in a letter addressed to the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, which defended the couple.

H/t, Bruce from Missouri.