During the Legislature's midsession break, Fargo state Rep. Kathy Hawken was able to visit her son, and listen to his friends ridicule North Dakota's anti-cohabitation law.

"I think that things like this make us more of a joke, and we have a hard time with that, anyway," Hawken said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on a proposal to change the law. "It is just one more thing that makes us look provincial, and I don't think we really are."

A version of the law has been in effect since statehood. It says a man and woman may not live together "openly and notoriously" as if they were married, and lists the offense as a sex crime, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Attempts in the Legislature to repeal or overhaul the law have failed during the last two sessions. Before that, a group of lawmakers sponsored a repeal measure in 1991, which was thrashed.

The newest attempt, sponsored by Sen. Tracy Potter, D-Bismarck, was rewritten in the Senate. It would relabel the crime of "unlawful cohabitation" as "false representation of marital status," and remove it from a roster of sex crimes in the state's criminal code.

The legislation prohibits a man and woman from living "as a married couple without being married to the other individual, and falsely represent(ing) the couple's status as being married to each other."

Tom Freier, a spokesman for the North Dakota Family Alliance, opposed the change, saying North Dakota's present anti-cohabitation measure has important symbolic value.

"When you as a Legislature pass bills … you influence our society, you influence what people in this state are going to do," Freier said during Tuesday's hearing.

By changing the law, Freier said, "we will be sending a message to the people of North Dakota, and I don't think that's the correct message … I think when we stand up for our principles and our standards, I think that's something to be admired, as opposed to being ridiculed."

Supporters of the change said it was wrong to keep a law that has not been enforced for many years. Freier, under persistent questioning from Rep. Lisa Wolf, D-Minot, would not say whether he believed the law should be enforced.

Rep. Mary Ekstrom, D-Fargo, told of an incident where an older, unmarried couple were unable to buy a condominium because the condominium association's rules, which parroted state law, banned cohabitation.

Rep. Lois Delmore, D-Grand Forks, said many couples - mostly older people and college students - live together for companionship and to share expenses, and not for romantic reasons.

"I don't see a reason to keep a law on the books just because it makes us feel good and more moral than other people," Delmore said.

Hawken said senior couples who live together for companionship, or because getting married would cause one of them to lose Social Security or veterans' benefits, are bothered by the fact that cohabitation is illegal.

"Those people care deeply that they are not following the law. It matters to them," Hawken said. "And yet they really aren't doing anything wrong."

The bill is SB2138.