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N.D. weighs repeal of cohabitation ban
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| Contributor | The Sunset Provision |
| Last Edited | The Sunset Provision Feb 27, 2007 11:28am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Tuesday, February 27, 2007 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Don Polries and Helen Vetter don't look like outlaws. She's 82 and nearly blind, and he's an 87-year-old World War II veteran whose only brush with the law was a traffic ticket or two, decades ago.
But the retired farmers — and thousands like them — are considered criminals in North Dakota because they're not married and live together.
It makes Polries chuckle and Vetter steam.
"I will not have the state ruling us old people," Vetter said. "All we're trying to do is help each other out ... Boy, I'd like to see the state come and try and split us up."
Without each other, the Bismarck couple say, they'd be in a nursing home. They have lived together for about a year, after dating and living in separate apartments for more than a decade.
"I am legally blind," Vetter said. "I can't read and I can't drive — Don does that for me. ... And when Don had his hip replaced, I helped him out. What's wrong with that?"
North Dakota is one of seven states that bar a man and woman from living together "openly and notoriously" as if they were married. Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia have similar laws.
The North Dakota law has been on the books since statehood, and lists cohabitation as a sex crime, along with rape, incest and adultery.
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