Last year, I wrote about Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, an unmarried couple with three children who were denied an occupancy permit for their house by the town of Black Jack, Missouri. Mayor Norman McCourt and the city council thought they were the morality police and could impose their 19th-century concept of “family” on everyone who lives there.
Olivia and Fondray didn’t back down and didn’t move out. Instead, they fought back, and they won. Not only did Black Jack change its official definition of “family” last August, but this week, the city gave the couple a $28,000 check to settle the civil lawsuit they had brought with the help of the ACLU.
I invited Olivia onto my show today to talk about all of this and ask if that check is enough reimbursement for all the trouble the mayor and his cronies put the family through over the last year — and whether she’ll campaign to get defeat these politicians in the next election.
Listen to our conversation here.