An emergency dispatcher at a North Carolina sheriff's department was presented with an ultimatum after the sheriff discovered that she was living with her boyfriend outside of wedlock: get married, move home or find another job.
Carson Smith, the sheriff of Pender county, told Deborah Hobbs, 40, that her decision to cohabit was a moral and a legal issue.
"This is sort of like a double barrel," he told Star-News Wilmington. "It is a violation of general statute, and it goes against something that I believe -- it is a moral issue ... Personally and morally, I think it's best to be married if you're going to be living together."
North Carolina is one of seven states, including Mississippi, Florida, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia and North Dakota, which prohibit cohabitation.
A 200-year-old law which outlaws fornication and adultery for "a man and a woman, not being married together," who live "lewdly and lasciviously" could result in a fine of US$1,000 and up to 60 days in jail. Between 1997 and 2003 35 people were charged under it, of whom seven were convicted.
Hobbs, who has been living with her partner for 12 years, filed a lawsuit to get the law changed.
She said after she was fired, "I want my fight to be about this law."
The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Hobbs' case. North Carolina's law is considered vulnerable after the 2003 supreme court ruling on Texas's anti-sodomy laws, which made it more difficult for states to enforce laws regarding sexual behavior.
"Certainly the government has no right regulating relationships between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes," said Jennifer Rudinger, the executive director of North Carolina's ACLU.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS