{"id":821,"date":"2004-03-31T02:40:35","date_gmt":"2004-03-31T07:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/03\/lewd_and_lascivious_associatio\/"},"modified":"2004-03-31T02:40:35","modified_gmt":"2004-03-31T07:40:35","slug":"lewd_and_lascivious_associatio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/03\/lewd_and_lascivious_associatio\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lewd and Lascivious Association”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melissa Sheridan, a New Yorker with two years of probation remaining, moved to North Carolina. In order for her to remain in good standing, she needs North Carolina’s Department of Community Corrections to agree to monitor the probation. She lives with her boyfriend, also father of one of her children. And according to the North Carolina agency, that’s a problem<\/a>:<\/p>\n

North Carolina is one of seven states that prohibits men and women from living together unless they are married. Prosecutors rarely act on the 1805 law, written during an era when state legislators also laid out penalties for “keeping bawdy houses” and “crimes against nature with mankind or beast.”
\nBut the ban is still invoked in a number of situations, including when convicted criminals move to the state and seek to transfer their probation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So here’s the deal:<\/p>\n

“They told me I had three choices: They can send my kids back to New York, or we can get married, or we can get separate houses,” Sheridan said. “I wasn’t happy at all. It’s breaking up my family.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Hmmmm,” you may be wondering, “there’s undoubtedly a lot of unmarried people living together in North Carolina. What is the law doing about them?” Good question. The answer is nothing<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, North Carolina’s social trends were tracking the nation’s. The number of households with unmarried couples increased from 67,425 to 143,680. In Hanover County alone, where Carolina Beach is located, 3,434 unmarried couples live together as a household, according to the Census Bureau.
\nPartly for that reason, prosecutors seldom pursue cohabitation cases. They brought just six prosecutions last year, according to court records.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

States should get rid of these archaic laws if they are not going to attempt to enforce them except in select or symbolic instances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa Sheridan, a New Yorker with two years of probation remaining, moved to North Carolina. In order for her to remain in good standing, she needs North Carolina’s Department of Community Corrections to agree to monitor the probation. She lives with her boyfriend, also father of one of her children. And according to the North […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}