Yet another Missouri municipality distinguishes itself: The town of Black Jack moves to evict unmarried parents.
The City Council has rejected a measure allowing unmarried couples with multiple children to live together, and the mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.
The town's Planning and Zoning Commission proposed a change in the law, but the measure was rejected Tuesday by the City Council in a 5-3 vote.
Who said the nanny state was dead?
More at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an article by Eun Kyung Kim, including this pathetic bit of equivocation from the mayor:
Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt insists his city's ordinance has nothing to do with being married or not."It's definitely not a moral issue," he said. "It's for population. It's so you don't have multiple families in houses. It keeps (from) overcrowding in the houses, it keeps overcrowding in the schools down."
McCourt said Shelltrack and Loving failed to get an occupancy permit "because they don't match the definition of family." But when pressed to ask how, McCourt hesitated.
"I don't want to comment on it because I don't really know," he said, adding that city officials will be examining the issue over the next few days.
A slogan at the website for the city of Black Jack touts "36 years of progress." Change that last word to "regression" and you'd be closer to the mark.
(Cross-posted at about nine miles from Black Jack, as the Nazgûl files.)
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