Anti-commune Law Gets Repurposed

[Qwertz]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/17/unmarried.ap/index.html

I didn't know these sort of anti-commune laws were still around. The clear emphasis is now on making people 'living in sin' get married, not on providing a stable home for children. Why are so many people in this country so obsessed with marriage? Specifically with other people's marriages?

-Q

[Groovenstein]

I know there are similar ordinances around this area, particularly in college towns. One proffered rationale is that not having a bunch of college kids living together curtails underage drinking. I do not know if there have been any equal protection challenges to such laws. My hunch, sadly, is that they would pass so-called "rational basis" scrutiny. I wonder if there is another basis for challenge. Substantive due process maybe? (I know, I just admitted that I don't know much about substantive due process. But hey, I haven't got to Con Law in my bar review yet. )

[DamnGirl]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/17/unmarried.ap/index.html

Why are so many people in this country so obsessed with marriage? Specifically with other people's marriages?

-Q

I wonder the same. I suspect that it, in part, has to do with the fact that it's always easier to meddle in other people's affairs than deal with your own. It is amazing to me that so many people out there are convinced that they "got it right" and that the rest of us should follow suit. What arrogance to presume that you know what is good for the rest of us and what a shame that they may be having an impact! I am insulted that so many of their organizations have names like this:

American Family Association

Family Forever

The Moral Majority

People for the American Way

Concerned Women for America

Who ARE they to take these names that, again, reinforcing some notion that they are the authorities on all things related to the family, that their ideas somehow represent the American way, and that these women are more concerned than I am or have concerns that remotely represent mine (seeing as how I'm an American woman). Again, the arrogance is so frustrating!

I think that it is truly a disgrace that people who claim to value family and the sanctity of life would be in more support of a dysfunctional, married, heterosexual couple raising equally dysfunctional children that they had only because they weren't responsible enough to use birth control (oh, wait, that's forbidden) than a stable, loving, homosexual couple who goes through endless hoops to have a child. In which situation are the needs of the child met more? These are the same people who decry abortion but support the death penalty. I guess the sanctity of life only goes so far.

When I read stories like this with the anti-commune law, I am just disgusted that our government officials underhandedly legislate their version of morality. Then I read about the founder of Domino's Pizza wanting to start his own Catholic-values-based town.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...62.story?page=1

My first (and primary) response was one of disdain, but then I thought to myself, if all of the idiotic, right-wing Christians moved down there (wishful thinking), good riddance.

[Groovenstein]

In my Con Law bar review a few minutes ago, I came across Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas (1974). Here is the relevant part of the summary (from FindLaw, not BarBri):

A New York village ordinance restricted land use to one-family dwellings, defining the word "family" to mean one or more persons related by blood, adoption, or marriage, or not more than two unrelated persons, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit and expressly excluding from the term lodging, boarding, fraternity, or multiple-dwelling houses. After the owners of a house in the village, who had leased it to six unrelated college students, were cited for violating the ordinance, this action was brought to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional as violative of equal protection and the rights of association, travel, and privacy. The District Court held the ordinance constitutional, and the Court of Appeals reversed. Held:

1. Economic and social legislation with respect to which the legislature has drawn lines in the exercise of its discretion will be upheld if it is "reasonable, not arbitrary," and bears "a rational relationship to a [permissible]state objective," Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 76 , and here the ordinance - which is not aimed at transients and involves no procedural disparity inflicted on some but not on others or deprivation of any "fundamental" right - meets that constitutional standard and must be upheld as valid land-use legislation addressed to family needs. Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 . Pp. 7-9.