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[Thomas Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com>]

Scott wrote:
> > If a man and a woman who aren't married go to a hotel/motel and 
> > register themselves as married then, according to state law, they are 
> > legally married.

That is not the law in North Carolina.  You can only get married in this 
state with a valid marriage license issued by your county Register of 
Deeds.  (It is a property transaction, after all.)

> Can anyone find a cite on this? I did some quick googling but failed to 
> turn anything up other than what appear to be copy-n-paste references to 
> dumblaws.com.

You can look at NC Statutes here:

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/Statutes/StatutesTOC.pl

Chapter 14 is the criminal code, which contains most of those crackpot 
legislation.  Article 26 - Offenses against Public Morality and Decency 
- is especially juicy.

http://www.ncleg.net/Statutes/GeneralStatutes/HTML/ByArticle/Chapter_14/Article_26.html

Here's an old chestnut:

"If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with
mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon."

http://www.ncleg.net/Statutes/GeneralStatutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-177.html

You will be happy to know that the highest court of this state has ruled 
that the foregoing statute is not vague and is effective to prohibit all 
sorts of hanky-panky, including consensual heterosexual oral sex.

However, in an uncharacteristic burst of rational thinking, the U.S. 
Supreme Court recently ruled that the state cannot prohibit such 
conduct.  Even between same-sex couples!

Getting back to the hotel room thing, this is what the statute actually 
says:

"Any man and woman found occupying the same bedroom in any
hotel, public inn or boardinghouse for any immoral purpose, or
any man and woman falsely registering as, or otherwise
representing themselves to be, husband and wife in any hotel,
public inn or boardinghouse, shall be deemed guilty of a Class 2
misdemeanor."

http://www.ncleg.net/Statutes/GeneralStatutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-186.html

One wonders if the same Supreme Court ruling would also invalidate this 
statute?

TaB