State Can't Ban Living Together, Judge Rules

It's hard to believe that there's still laws on the books in some places about this sort of thing.

State Can't Ban Living Together, Judge Rules

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A judge says North Carolina's 201-year-old law barring unmarried couples from living together is unconstitutional.

The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of former Pender County sheriff's dispatcher Deborah Hobbs.

Hobbs lived with her boyfriend and quit her job in 2004 after Sheriff Carson Smith demanded she marry her boyfriend or move out if she wanted to work for him.

State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford issued the ruling Wednesday, citing a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case which struck down a Texas sodomy law.

Jennifer Rudinger of the ACLU of North Carolina said that decision stands for the idea that the government has no business regulating relationships between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home.

A spokeswoman for State Attorney General Roy Cooper said lawyers were reviewing the decision and there's been no decision yet on whether to file an appeal.