When Paul Forziano and Hava Samuels began planning their wedding three years ago, they envisaged beginning married life like any other couple — together.
Instead, the newlyweds who both have mental disabilities, have found themselves embroiled in a legal battle fighting for the right to live together as a married couple after their respective care homes have deemed them ‘incapable’ of cohabitation.
Mr Forziano is classified in the mild to moderate range of intellectual functioning, and has limited reading and writing skills and cannot manage money, the Daily Mail reports.
He can, however, articulate his desire to be with his wife.
“She’s very beautiful and she helps me,” he said.
“We’re very sad when we leave each other … I want to live with my wife, because I love her.”
Ms Samuels, who has a significant expressive language disability making it difficult for people to understand her, says she fell for her husband because of his sense of humour, but their living situation brought her to tears.
“I’m not happy… we live apart,” she said.
The lawsuit, being fought in Long Island, New York, where the couple are based, sees the group home where 36-year-old Ms Samuels resides claim she does not have the ‘mental capacity’ to consent to sex.
Mr Forziano’s carers claim the 30-year-old is ‘incapable’ of living as a married person, claiming that by definition people requiring the services of a group home aren’t equipped to do so.
The couples parents’, who are also plaintiffs in the case, have been seeking a solution to the group homes’ rulings since the couple began considering marriage in 2010 after meeting during a performing arts program for mentally disabled adults.
Mother of the bride Bonnie Samuels, who never thought her daughter would be married but is overjoyed that she has found love, finds the case devastating.
“It does make me very angry,” she said.
“That people say they want the best and the most for these individuals, or want them to have the type of life that they would like to have and let them grow as much as they can, and yet they’re being told no.”
The couple tied the knot last month, and their families are still fighting for newlyweds to move into a marital home.
“It’s not something we wanted to do, it’s something we had to do,” Samuels’ mother said.
Legal professionals have said the case is venturing into unchartered territory, but it tests the Americans with Disabilities Act which says “a public entity shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures … to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability.”
The group home where Mr Forziano lives says it is not equipped to house couples and has no requirement to do so.
The lawsuit cites a letter from the Manorville home saying its homes “are not staffed or designed to house and supervise married couples or assist married couples with the dynamics of their relationships, sexual or otherwise”.
The couple’s parents say they have sought out other homes which might have space, but were told there was no availability even for homes that would welcome married couples.
