Mayor Norman McCourt is all over the map on this issue. But what do you expect? He’s a professional politician. He’s going to take whatever position is most likely to get him reelected.
I’m sure he hasn’t been happy lately over the national exposure he has been receiving. Various accounts are portraying his sleepy little suburb of St. Louis as a quaint throwback to the 1950s — complete with the institutionalized racism that was so prevalent then in our society. But let’s give Norm the benefit of the doubt on that one. He may not be a racist at all.
As recently as 1999, Mayor McCourt was framing this as a moral issue, referring to unwed parents in their community as not being “an appropriate standard that they wish to approve.” Well, that case didn’t receive the attention that this one is, and in the past few months Mayor McCourt has done an about face. Now, he is championing a change in the local ordinance that stands in the way of Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving obtaining an occupancy permit for the house in which they have already lived for months. Why the sudden change of heart, Norm?
Are the political winds blowing in a different direction this month? Did a focus group, or local telephone survey of prospective voters, indicate that you were on the wrong side of this issue? Or did you have a true epiphany and realize that government has no business defining what the term “family” means, or dictating what a homeowner can do with his/her property? I’m guessing it was the former.