The town of Black Jack, Missouri, got its name from the variety of oak tree that once grew nearby. 'Those stately trees represent who and what we are today, a proud city with strong roots, providing the safety and respite of community,' its promotional literature explains. It is the kind of place where family is valued - just as long as the family in question meets certain criteria. Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving's family, it seems, do not.
The couple could face fines of $500 a day, and Black Jack is already facing the unwelcome glare of national attention, as a result of a local regulation that bans unmarried couples with more than one child from occupying homes there.
In a country increasingly riven on issues of social morality, housing regulations represent an easy way for towns to try to give their definitions of acceptable lifestyles the force of law.
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