A bipartisan bill passed in the Michigan Senate this week that would repeal a 100-year-old law making it a crime for unmarried couples to live together. Nine Republicans voted against the bill, including Senator Ed McBroom of the western Upper Peninsula.
“Government exists to provide for the general welfare by protecting people from evil and danger and by promoting the common good,” McBroom said. “The repeal of this law is not a promotion of the common good. Cohabitation has been consistently shown to decrease the resilience and permanence of marriage and to decrease the potential that marriage happens at all. Meanwhile, marriage has been consistently shown to be the gold standard by which a stable society is maintained.
Democrat Stephanie Chang of Detroit introduced the bill and had a different view.
“This law will help some individuals in our state by reducing their taxpayer burden,” Chang said. “It will place unmarried Michigan taxpayers on equal footing with taxpayers in almost every other state, and as mentioned, it will bring us to our current century and really update our laws.”
The law hasn’t been enforced, so supporters say it was time to take it off the books. Some opponents say it will allow people to cheat on their taxes by claiming someone as a dependent.
