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Subscribe to RSSShacking up may soon become legal in Virginia, where a bill aims to repeal the state's 136-year-old law that makes unmarried couples living together guilty of a misdemeanor.
Virginia is one of four states that has such a law on the books, along with Florida, Michigan and Mississippi.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Adam Ebbin, told The Virginian-Pilot an estimated 140,000 Virginians cohabitate with an unmarried partner.
“These men and women share that relationship openly, and without shame,” Ebbin said, according to the Pilot, adding that state and federal courts have made such laws unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, the law has been in place since 1877 and states that unmarried people who "lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together ... shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor."
So-called living in sin is punishable with a $500 fine for a first offense, while subsequent offenses may carry up to one year in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine.
The bill to repeal the law is currently making its way through the state's General Assembly. While a Senate committee advanced it unanimously, it still faces a full Senate vote and, if it passes, a review in the House of Delegates.
According to NBC 4, Ebbin said that while the law hasn't been enforced in a long time, it was brought up in the early 1990s, when state officials threatened to revoke a Norfolk, Va., daycare provider's license.
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Most Virginians wouldn't buy a car without test driving it.
Or without at least a look under the hood.
And Virginia can finally be ushered into the 19th century, if not our own...
SAY WHAT!? You mean to tell me that FORCED TRANS-VAGINAL BOBBY BOY McDONNELL is going to support this? What about CHRISTIAN VALUES? Or surprise attack GERRYMANDERING that the VA GOP passed through on MLK Day? Since we all know this is the ONLY WAY they can retain any POWER in the NOW BLUE STATE of Virginia. IMPEACH McDONNELL so i and all of Virginia's CITIZENS can be allowed to advance in the 21st Century with FAIR REPRESENTATION!!!
part of econ stimulus. Unwed, she qualifies for Medicaid to pay for the pregnancy and more programs after the kid is born. Being married endangers the plan because together they may have assets to disqualify them from collecting a tax transfer from their neighbors. Shacking up is "off book" so the gubmint happily pays for the stimulation of their happy home economy. Old people shack up to collect Soc Sec benefits at higher levels. IT's become as American as Apple pie. Thank God the Virginia Legislature found out about the Census Bureau update report for 2011 where they show over 50% of babies born in the US are to unwed Moms. Now may they join the other 49 states in getting their economy stimulated.
Key2Joy clearly has had WAY too much Kool-Aid.
Yes the law is severely outdated and just needs to be formally removed from the books. Virginia is not as Blue as you think and will never be. The last thing we need to become is another Maryland... overtaxed and nothing to show for it.
I guess common-law marriages are not allowed in Virginia.
KEY,lust this morning on wtop the our Governor stated the exact opposite of what you think he realizes thats it is an archaic and useless law and and that he was for our states legislature to remove it.imagine that maybe the state you live in needs to get with the times and outlaw witch hunts the rest of us have .
Next on the Progressive list of legislation:
Make it legal and binding, just like a married couple. A "shacked up" couple can receive the same benefits as everyone else. Name of the legislation:
Congratulations Virginia, we in Florida prefer to live in the dark ages. It is so much easier not to see our voter ballots in the dark also.
key2joy--Riot. ROFL. Thanks, needed that.
I suppose they go by the "what you see is what you get policy"...
I was in Norfolk when I was in the Navy and believe me back then it was hard to sow any wild oats as most of the women were afraid of the police down there enforcing their archaic non fornication laws. Great State but backwards when it comes to politics. Bet this does not pass as the right wing bible thumpers will defeat it. They need thos pay forward dollars.
Does the new law address 1st and 2nd cousins living together?? They also need to add the Common Law wife clause like any other self respecting redneck state........
Legal to co-habit if you are of the opposite sex, but illegal to get "married" if of the same-sex? Something is wrong with that picture. Remember that VA is one of the states where the "voters" denied equal rights to the LGBT community.
Funny how those "Christian Family Values" go out the window when it involves opposite sex couples, but the same people will thump that ole Bible all day long voicing how marriage equality for same sex people is against Christian values. I think it's called "hypocrites".
John B,
Are you saying there are Christian denominations that condone opposite-sex couples living together without the benefit of marriage?
What denomination is that?
Oh, that's right ... NONE.
Rationalism.
silverton - I'll bet Unitarians don't care.
Religous folks in office talking about the sanctity of marriage when the idea of gay marriage came up. So I asked what sanctity ? The one honored by 50% of all adults who are divorced, some multiple times - that sanctity ? OR the one in Alan Jackson's song about "who is cheatin who". I'd prefer that gays have rights equal to marriage but that marriage remain man and woman. But there is no way it is sanctimonious after the way married people have been treating it. It is individual now. If a couple honors it - their marriage can be in sanctity. But for most, it's just an arrangement with some formalities and some irregularities allowed. Since it has been trashed by straight people they want to give it to gays. That should make 'em pause.
Silverton - I guess I don't follow your question.
Nearly all heterosexual couples I know, that have been married in a church, lived with their partners before getting married.
wouldn't you call that "condoning"?
IRY - I am a lesbian who would like the legal right to marry, not so I can be "equal" to heterosexuals, but so that I can enjoy all the benefits and securities that that legal binding contract offers to heterosexual couples...all the 1000's of things hetero's dont even realize that paper offers them, like the right to visit their spouse in a hospital. heaven forbid im on vacation in a city that only has catholic hospitals and something happens to my spouse...without the legal right to be by her side, that catholic hospital could easily prevent me from being there when my spouse needs me most.
you dont have to think about that...you just get handed that right by saying I DO.
I would hardly say that marriage is currently being trashed by straight people, because of divorce.
Marriage as an institution has long been imperfect, and it's roots make me pause far more than a bunch of idiot's marrying people and then choosing to call it quits. The fact that women were men's property should give all women pause when considering MARRYING someone.
but, things evolve...people evolve...and what is today, doesnt mean it's what it used to be.
Marriage is a civil contract or a religious contract, however you want to see it - I only want the civil side of the equation.
You can keep your religious side, and i'll take the civil side - and if we have to rename it all CIVIL UNIONS, and thats what hetero's get legally - while they get "married" in a church, so be it.
but thats not what most hetero people opposed to gay marriage want. they simply want to ensure that people like me, never get rights like them - because I am lesser than in their mind.
and on that very reality, i'll fight to my dying day for marriage equality....because someones religious beliefs should never trump someone elses civil liberties, NOT IN AMERICA.
Jessica -
Right on! Though, in my opinion, "civil unions" are just a red herring. Marriage has always been a civil contract. The marriages performed in churches were the churches' way of sticking their noses in the civil sphere, particularly since they used to run the civil sphere as well as the religious sphere.
I say we keep the word marriage and apply it to two consenting adults. That way, we don't have to change the wording of a whole lot of laws and case law studies and all that mess that comes with the English Common Law system we use. Also, the @!$%#s who keep saying we should all have "civil unions" keep voting against giving those civil unions the same rights as marriage, or even having civil unions recognized by the state at all. They just want to offer a wedge to split the vote, just smoke and mirrors.
Jessica,
Sure, some Christian couples live together before getting married.
But, I have never heard of any Christian denomination that condones living together before marriage. The Christian churches I have attended have always been welcoming to anybody regardless of their marital status.
As one person told me, when she thanked the congregation for being so accepting of her and her boyfriend even though they lived together, the minister replied, "We're more interested in your relationship with God than with your relationship with each other."
I thought that was kind of cool (even though the gay atheists will now descend upon me to rant about why it is not so cool ... lol).
Based on your comments here and in other threads about gay Boy Scouts, it sounds like you're a Southern Baptist or a member of some other bigoted extremist cult that's focused on sex and rigid gender roles.
Most of the Lutheran and Episcopal churches I've ever been to didn't preach about sex or moralize about it. "Shacking up" simply wasn't an issue, just like sexual orientation wasn't an issue.
Oh yeah. Marriage has been trashed by the straights. You say it's not because to admit it has been trashed means you are willing to accept damaged goods by insisting on marriage rights. You think not because you haven't looked far enough back. The stats are there. You also think that a civil contract is not the same as marriage which is described as a civil contract. Rights equal to marriage, means rights equal to marriage. Such a civil contract law can be written. Doesn't exist yet but it can be written. Let marriage be a man & woman thing, the churches, synagogues, mosques and temples can have their rites . Why must they lose their rites so you can have your rights ? Because you cannot conceive of a path to equal rights while honoring others. Now that's a shame.
No one is losing their "rites", given that the legal contract of marriage is the domain of the state while the religious rite of "holy matrimony" is the domain of churches. The state simply doesn't care what your favorite cult does.
The state can't tell churches what to do. Churches are absolutely free to discriminate in any way they choose, against gays, against divorced people, against mixed-race couples, against people who shack up, etc.
skrekk,
My mother-in-law belongs to the Episcopal Church and (as I said before) it does not condone living together without the benefit of marriage, but like every Christian church I have ever heard of, it accepts and invites everyone to its fellowship.
I am not Southern Baptist, but belong to the Methodist Church that does not condone living together without the benefit of marriage either. But everyone is welcomed no matter what their marital status.
So, what's the big deal?
Wtf... I cannot fathom how in this day and age laws like this could even be enforced.
Same goes for sodomy laws. How would anyone enforce that? But this is what we get when we elect lawyers to office... We did it to ourselves...
Jonathan F
Epic fail. This is what you get when you vote in the religious. They start legislating their morality. We were under the christian version of sharia law for a long time. We are just cleaning up our laws after finally getting the jackboot of the religious off of our throats and boy are they mad about it.
.
Uh, it hasn't been enforced, that's the point. The SCOTUS has determined that the freedom of association and right to privacy trump any such state laws regulating unmarried people.
This guy is just doing a bit of housecleaning. It would be like removing the religious requirement for officeholders from the Texas Constitution, or like when Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment and altered its state constitution in the 90s to remove slavery from the books: it hasn't been enforced in years because federal law and the Constitution trump the states, but it's a symbolic milestone.
nutgrape - epic fail? How so pray tell. I was referring to all these laws on the books which are utlimately worthless and unenforcable. Nothing to do with religion at all. Case in point, California has laws on the books saying it is illegal to shoot at whales from a moving vehicle.
We have more laws - from government officials who guess what, are mostly lawyers, that come up with all these things. Do we really need a law saying it is illegal to shoot at a whale much less from a moving vehicle? There are hundreds of thousands of these types of laws, city ordinances etc, per city and state it is incomprehensible.
jonathan f Same goes for sodomy laws. How would anyone enforce that?
By a neighbor reporting it. I think that happened in texas.
FORCED TRANS-VAGINAL Ultrasound Gov. Bob McDonnell should be IMPEACHED!!!!!
Yes, it is amazing the number of outdated laws on the books from the 1700's, 1800's and early 1900's that have never been repealed...many of them dealing with horses tied up in towns, spitting tobacco, wooden sidewalks, etc.
Boston has a law about dueling to the death. It is only permitted on the city commons and only if the governor is present.
nutgrape,Actually it is not the churches who insist that people get marriage licenses in order to marry,it is the states.Most religions think that you should only have to have a ceremony to be married in the eyes of God and that the states should not require a couple paying for a license in order to marry.I find these four states that deem shacking up to be preposterous as how do they know that an opposite couple isn't just roommates unless these states ate peeking in people's bedrooms.
I heard it's legal in 26 states to marry your horse. As long as it's yours. Puts a new spin on the Lone Ranger and Silver, though, don't it? But I'm still looking for the reference--ah here on Wikipedia--the states where it s DIS allowed-- bestiality was banned inPennsylvania in 1999,[1] Iowa in 2001,[2] Illinois in 2002,[3] Maryland in 2002,[4] Washington (state) in 2006,[5] Arizona in 2006,[6] Indiana in 2007,[7] Tennessee in 2007,[8] Colorado in 2007,[9] Alaska in 2010,[10] and Florida in 2011 (by Nan Rich),;[11] --an only since 1999. heh. Glad I live in Florida for once.
it's legal in quite a few states to marry your cousin, but not your same-sex partner.
seems like a good way to put our elected officals to work, and get some actual work out of them (not endless campaigning) would be to require all the outdated, and non-enforced laws (like say in at least 20 years) to be removed from the books - and any laws that are rendered pointless by federal and state laws.
make them earn their money and lifelong pensions - you know, the one they beat up on unions about.
"Virginia Is For Lovers", it's not just an empty slogan anymore.
My nephew, who is now a lawyer, and a woman shacked-up for several years in Charlottesville. I knew he had an overactive libido but it was not until today that I discovered he was a scoflaw as well.
I understand that in Virginia if a couple gets divorced they are still considered cousins.
no thats west virginia.
Now the states with Criminal Defamation laws need to get to work. Leave defamation as a civil court matter. All laws that are hundreds of years old need to be reviewed.
Actually, I'd be happier if the states all got together and passed really good anti-SLAPP laws.
There needs to be anti-SLAPP laws because now according to the First Amendment Center, many states still maintain Criminal Defamation laws on the books where you can get six months in jail even though various courts have ruled them unconstitutional or lacking the "actual malice" standard. Bottom line is defamation should not be a criminal matter in a free society. They treat defamation as a crime in dictatorships not in true free societies. Defamation in a free society should only be dealt with in civil courts. These states with criminal defamation laws usually have a civil defamation law that is similar to the criminal defamation law. Locking someone up for defamation will not get to the truth.
Colorado repealed their Criminal Defamation law last year. They came to their senses.
Same goes for sodomy laws. How would anyone enforce that?
Easy, all age of consent males could stick their willie under Gov. McDonnell's nose. If he says "Smells like poop", you're busted.
nope
and what field do I put 'sage' in?
so you want your tax dollars to go towards our politicians adding .... let me get this straight - smelling dudes dicks to their list of things to do? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? if that was a joke it was not funny.
Short of violating privacy laws (what still remains of them), or obtaining a warrant, how could this ever be proven? I'd love to be a defendant in a case regarding this - my counter-suit would leave me owning the state.
Used condoms in the trash?
Each state should probably take a look at these archaic laws on the books and clean them up. If a state's law declares that it's illegal to wear pants on Sunday, you can't walk your donkey down Main Street or spit within 50 feet of a church, it's time to tidy things up. I'm guessing most citizens would agree.
I don't know about that. None of those old laws are enforceable and most of them are unconstitutional, vague or just plain silly. No one is going to go to jail for wearing pants on Sunday or spitting within 50 feet of a church.
I would imagine that going through the law books and striking all these laws, particularly in the original colony states, would be time consuming and costly and almost %100 symbolic. State governments have more important things to work on I would imagine.
While I don't disagree that these laws shouldn't exist, I would rather have my representatives solving real and immediate problems.
"None of those old laws are enforceable"
Perhaps so, but they ARE used for coercion & intimidation. This law (cohabitation) in particular has been used AT LEAST once to fire an employee (police officer) for not "following the law" (she had a live in boyfriend).
It has also been cited in custody cases.
Its easy to fathom how laws like this can be enforced. Everybody knows the difference between right and wrong! Everyone will have to answer to the Almighty Creator, in the end!! Read the back of the Book, we WIN!!!
And let the crazy begin...
Go back under your rock.
meth is a hell of a drug.
And didn't that undead jewish warlock you worship live with like 13 dudes and and a hooker? If He'll kill thousands of people with hurricanes over abortion imagine what He'll do to you for judging Him.
onenationunderGod,answer to God because you are not paying a state for a marriage license.anybody can find a minister or pastor to marry them in the eyes of god without a marriage license.God did not create the marriage licensing laws,man did.Way back when people had ceremonies and were married in the eyes of God as there weren't licensing requirements.Marriage licensing requirements are just another tax hidden as a fee to fill states coffers.
Actually, marriages were a social contract way before whichever god you worship came into the picture. They were created to simplify inheritance matters, i.e. who gets the dead guy's stuff. Did he have multiple children with multiple women? Easy, who's name is next to his on the contract?
The early church actually frowned on priests handling marriages, as well as insisting that priests should be married men with at least one kid. It wasn't until later that the church realized it could get it's hands on lots of lucre and power by being the official marriage shop. They could decide who would be king or queen because they had the power to broker inheritance rights. It was a power grab.
As for being married in the eyes of your god? Fine, go right ahead, I don't care. Just don't try to claim it on your taxes without a license. It's good to have licenses because it carries on the tradition of real marriage: inheritance rights.
Joe - I love that description of Jesus...and I'll bet He has enough of a sense of humor to enjoy it, too. Undead Jewish warlock--ROTFLMAO!
What a surprise that 3/4 states that have a law like this are in the south. Southern redneck trash. We should have let you go 150 something years ago.
You can't live together if not married, but you can marry your cousin?!
Virginia is a backwards countrified bunch of hillbillies. They are about as progressive as leeches. Why I bet they're just now becoming Y2K compliant.
you do know that a vast majority of virginians are currently employed by the federal gov.if you piss us off i forsee your ss checks and welfare checks disappering and a nice irs audit comming your way.
Mg71,It's funny for these other posters insinuating that people in one state are ignorant.nobody should be painting all people with such a broad brush. You on the other hand should not threaten to audit people or mess with their Social Security check either.Using one's authority to do either just because a person works for the government and somebody tee's them off is a federal offense.If you work for the government are you using a government computer on government time to make all of these posts?
You missed a spot, justacleaninglady
Everyone will have to answer to the Almighty Creator, in the end!!
Rectum? Damn near killed him!
Virginia is on the cutting edge of social reform. Welcome to the 21st Century!!!
Before someone says "no one would be stupid enough to use this law" it should be noted that in at least one of the five states a Sheriff did use their states law as a basis for firing one of his female officers. I believe he offered her an ultimatum, marry your boyfriend or your fired. I think she was fired but sues shortly after, not sure of what the outcome of the case was.
I was kind of hoping to use this law in a legal case this year. Darn.
to NOMORE....good one..that made me laugh...
They just took the Virgin out of Virginia.
hey where is the dobson folks and all those freaks on this issue?
Shacking-up is the worst thing a woman can do. In practically all cases that I have observed the woman comes up with the short end of the stick when the arrangement falls apart.
So your saying it's your commitment to feminism that makes you opposed to removing this law?
It surprises me that someone fond of using the term "homo" in his posts would decide to join the liberal movement. Nevertheless, welcome friend.
Well that makes sense.
Joe,
I am a masculist. Just stating what I have observed.
What is wrong with using "homo", a word police no-no? I am not a PC observer.
spike - No different than marriage. Women end up in poverty more often than men after divorces (in spite of all the jokes about alimony).
Why I bet they're just now becoming Y2K compliant.
They've always been KY compliant.