| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"johac" |
| Date: |
01 Apr 2005 07:19:59 AM |
| Object: |
Woman Sues Over N.C. Anti-Cohabitation Law |
It's unbelievable that laws like this still exist.
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Woman Sues Over N.C. Anti-Cohabitation Law
Tue Mar 29, 7:58 PM ET
WILMINGTON, N.C. - A former sheriff's dispatcher who quit her job after
her boss found out she lived with her boyfriend is challenging North
Carolina's law against cohabitation.
Debora Hobbs said she was told to get married, move out, or find another
job after her boss found out about her living situation. The legal arm
of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina filed the
lawsuit Monday on her behalf.
The lawsuit seeks to abolish the nearly 200-year-old and rarely
enforced law that prohibits unmarried, unrelated adults of the opposite
sex from living together. North Carolina is one of seven states with
such a law.
Convicted offenders face a fine and up to 60 days in jail.
"The government has no business meddling in the private relationships of
consenting adults," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the
ACLU-NC Legal Foundation.
Hobbs had been living with her boyfriend for about three years when she
was hired as a Pender County 911 dispatcher in February 2004. The couple
decided they didn't want to marry; Hobbs quit last May rather than be
fired.
Sheriff Carson Smith said last year that Hobbs' employment was a moral
issue as well as a legal question. He said he tries to avoid hiring
people who openly live together, but that he doesn't send out deputies
to enforce the law.
Hobbs declined to comment Monday. Rudinger said she is employed and
still lives with her boyfriend.
Neither the sheriff nor Pender County Attorney Trey Thurman would
comment.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=9&u=/ap/20
050330/ap_on_re_us/cohabitation_lawsuit
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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