Category Archives: citizenship

citizenship, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, marriage, Religious freedom

You Asked: How Can “No-Fault” Divorce Laws be Unconstitutional?

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constitution-burningReagan

by Standerinfamilycourt.com

This post goes out to Barney, who raised a very valid question last weekend on our companion facebook page:   https://www.facebook.com/nofaultequalsnoaccountability/posts/1527839317455483

Considering the current reach of our fairly new page, there must be dozens of critical thinkers like Barney out there with the same question.    SIFC is thankful for the question and the engagement,  an opportunity to contribute some expanded thought.    All great social reform conversations began exactly this way, and we of course could have just as easily been ignored, so Barney (and his silent counterparts) are sincerely a blessing.    Our legal team will, no doubt,  get the very same question from the bench next spring.     Indeed, I can quote a recent definition-of-marriage judicial  assertion very much to the point from Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the (liberal) 9th U.S. Circuit:

“If the defendants [states of Idaho and Nevada] really wished to ensure that as many children as possible had married parents, they would do well to rescind the right of no-fault divorce, or to divorce altogether.   Neither has done so.  Such reforms might face constitutional difficulties  of their own, but at least they would further the states’ asserted interest in solidifying marriage.”      

– Latta v Otter,  October 7, 2014

Judge Reinhardt, we’ll notice,  stopped well short of saying that such reforms would be unconstitutional.    As the spate of 5-4  Supreme Court decisions clearly demonstrate in cases where the competing fundamental rights of the opposing parties are actually valid on both sides, these competing rights must be prioritized and  must be carefully balanced.   Brilliant legal minds can honestly disagree on the appropriate balance of fundamental rights based on their particular world view, and hopefully they are not wasting taxpayer dollars by accusing one another of misunderstanding the Constitution.

In this blog, we could paste in links to various cases, but we’ve actually done so in several earlier posts, and will be doing so in the very next planned weekly post on relevant legal definitions, so for brevity we won’t do so here.   We’ll come back later and make appropriate linkages.

The basic rule is that a law is presumed to be constitutional if it is aimed a legitimate state purpose (however ineffectively).    That is, it is deemed constitutional unless it intrinsically, or by its means of implementation, it deprives a citizen or class of citizens of one or more fundamental rights.    In one recent example, various U.S. Circuit Courts have ruled that homosexual couples legally married in one state have a fundamental right to stay married if they move to another state:

JudgeSutton

What are some other fundamental rights?    They are basically anything in the Bill of Rights, or that an authoritative ruling has established as a binding precedent: (free exercise of religion, life, defense of property,  family privacy, parental rights in the education and direction of their children, the equal right to bring a defense against a criminal or civil accusation that would strip life, liberty or property, etc.).

If it’s established that a citizen’s fundamental right is being infringed by a state law, then it is no longer good enough just to have a legitimate state purpose behind it.    In that case, the state must prove two additional things for the law to still be deemed constitutional:   (1) that the state interest is compelling, AND (2) they are implementing it by choosing among available alternatives only the means that least infringes or deprives citizens of that fundamental right.   The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times that the 14th  Amendment requires this.   Meeting both the compelling interest and the least restrictive means tests becomes very difficult for the state where there are indeed fundamental rights being intruded upon!

And how should valid but competing fundamental rights be balanced?   For example, in late term abortions, shouldn’t a 7-month pre-born child’s right to life be prioritized over the mother’s asserted  right to privacy?   Does the state truly have a compelling interest in guaranteeing the mother’s right to privacy under the 14th Amendment, to the extent that it actually supercedes another person’s right to life?

How should someone’s fundamental right to liberty and freedom of association be balanced against their innocent spouse’s right to protection of property, to defend against a civil accusation (as “irreconcilable differences” most surely is) that would strip their freedom of association (with children) or strip their property (such as their retirement funds while the other spouse has committed financial abuse in pursuing an affair)?

Many states do not allow marital fault to be considered in either dividing property or determining child custody.   What is the state’s compelling reason for this, given that a dozen or so states do take marital fault into consideration for these purposes, and given that not doing so sets an offending spouse up to actually profit from their own destructive acts against the marriage?   In fact there may be some legitimate state reasons for this,  but this surely does not offset a non-offending spouse’s fundamental right to due process over their property and parental rights!   In practice, some states may only allow the defrauded spouse to prove any financial abuse in court if they agree with the state and their petitioning spouse that a marriage is “irreconcilable”,  which may conflict with their biblical convictions, and conflict with any right a few states still give to bring evidence that irreconcilable differences do not actually exist (as in the case of an emotionally ill spouse who in reality needs treatment more than they truthfully need a divorce).   What about a discarded spouse’s right of conscience, guaranteed by the 1st Amendment and by most state constitutions, to act according to their biblical conviction if they believe and obey the truly startling and radical words of Jesus (Luke 16:18):

 “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”    

The state may have a legitimate reason for seeking to provide a low-cost exit from a marriage, but since all 50 states’ current no-fault laws infringe on the fundamental constitutional rights to stay married, and to family privacy and self-governance for both spouses and any children, what’s the compelling state reason for not having minimum requirements and evidence of professional counseling before accepting only one spouse’s opinion concluding that “all efforts to reconcile have failed”, or that “future efforts to reconcile would not be in the best interests of the family”?   What’s the compelling state interest in not considering other impacted family members’ views on their best interests?   What’s the compelling state interest in facilitating and sanctioning adultery in preference to the existing low-conflict marriage, or in shielding the offending party from incurring meaningful natural financial consequences of divorcing for selfish reasons?    Given the vast amount of damning evidence on the cost of unilateral divorce to state and local governments (hence, taxpayers) over the past 45 years, isn’t the compelling state interest actually in the opposite direction?

It’s also instructive to look at what marriage has become under the no-fault regime.   Unilateral divorce was supposed to “reduce acrimony” (although stripping all of the fundamental rights of one spouse to give blatant legal preference to the other makes it seem like the framers were smoking something),  it was supposed to “protect the children from harm in watching their parents deal with conflict” (never mind the tenfold physical and emotional abuse that is typically in store for the kids at the hands of the live-in boyfriend or girlfriend that has replaced the legitimate mother or father).    When individual sexual autonomy started to trump the compelling interests of society and the extended family as a whole, the meaning of government’s role in protecting marriage profoundly shifted.   Another recent ruling on a gay marriage case stated this point brilliantly, in SIFC’s estimation:

“One starts from the premise that governments got into the business of defining marriage, not to regulate love but to regulate sex…..one can well appreciate why the citizenry would think that a reasonable first concern of any society is the need to regulate male-female relationships and the unique procreative possibilities of them.   One way to pursue this objective is to encourage couples to enter lasting relationships through subsidies and other benefits and to discourage them from ending such relationships through these and other means.     People may not need the government’s encouragement to have sex.   And they may not need the government’s encouragement to propagate the species.  But they may well need the government’s encouragement to create and maintain stable relationships within which children may flourish.”

– DeBoer v Snyder,   November 6, 2014

Judge Jeffrey Sutton,  U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals

Unilateral divorce laws intrude into the integrity of the family in a tyrannical attempt to regulate mere affection.   Or, as Texas attorney Ed Truncellito describes our post-1970’s stripped-down version of matrimony in  his blog  “Why No One Is Married“:

“In truth, our no-fault laws, as implemented, abolished true marriage…….Although cohabitation is handicapped in many ways, it unfortunately has one important advantage: ordinary cohabitation keeps government out of the home.    In contrast, the registered cohabitation that we still call “marriage” invokes the jurisdiction of government officers. They receive authority to manage the lives of both spouses and their children with legal force. ”  

 

So given all this, what would a constitutional no-fault law look like?

(1) Irreconcilable differences as a non evidence-based ground for divorce would be available only by mutual or cross petition — with fully agreed child and property terms, otherwise it would revert to fault-based procedure to protect the due process rights of the non-offending spouse who for moral or religious reasons does not want to end the marriage.

(What we currently have, while deceitfully called “no-fault”,  is actually forced, unilateral, guaranteed divorce that excuses and often rewards destructive behavior toward the marriage).

(2) Proof and balanced consideration of marital fault would be restored in all contested cases where property and child custody matters could not be agreed between the spouses, and would be done without intrusive and non evidence-based court assessments of when the marriage allegedly broke down.   Proof of dissipation and marital fault would be merged and would simply follow the full proven time frame(s) of the offense(s).

(3) Contested, non-mutual out-of-state and offshore divorce decrees where the grounds and agreed settlement terms do not conform with (1) above will not be honored against assets and child arrangements domiciled in the state, and in-state marital fault proceedings will be required to effect those divisions.

(4) Equal evidence parameters and time frames to bring proof of fault would be restored to both spouses by abolishing court rules and operating procedures which are currently designed to suppress evidence of fault in order to give preference to the Petitioner over the Respondent.

Will these reforms force people to stay married against their wills?   That’s an interesting question since studies show that 80% of spouses in this country are divorced against their will.    It’s also an interesting question because additional studies show a high rate of remarriage to the same first spouse after civil divorce  and even after subsequent remarriage(s).   Other studies show a 60-70% divorce rate for second and subsequent remarriages, and a 97% failure rate for any relationship begun in adultery (this may include cohabitation and marriage combined).     In practice, these reforms will more likely just even out the power balance between spouses in resolving their differences, possibly increasing the percentage of mutual petitions if honest reconciliation efforts fail.   It will certainly make non-mutual divorces more expensive in some cases.    In a rare few cases, people unhappily married to a non-offending religious objector to divorce may not be able to obtain an in-state divorce because they can’t prove serious fault where none exists.   Under the Fourteenth Amendment, that’s as it should be.

Parting wisdom from Jesus:   “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning……”

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”    – Matthew 19:10

 

Indeed.   One may freely choose their behavior,  but they should not get to also choose the consequences.

 

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt. com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, Discipleship, family law, Fundamental Rights, Spiritual Warfare

One “Stander’s” Vote

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HopeInTheLambby Standerinfamilycourt

“Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear
Is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
 A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding,
But he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.”  – Prov. 28:15

“But the vine was plucked up in fury,
    cast down to the ground;
the east wind dried up its fruit;
    they were stripped off and withered.
As for its strong stem,
    fire consumed it.” – Ezekiel 9:12

“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.”  – Amos  4:11

“If you will return, O [ United States, the nation I, the Most High established], says the Lord, if you will return to Me, and if you will put away your abominable false gods out of My sight and not stray or waver,  And if you swear, As the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment and justice, and in righteousness (uprightness in every area and relation), then the nations will bless themselves in Him and in Him will they glory.”  – Jeremiah 4: 1-3

“Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much.”  (Jesus)                          – Luke 16:10

 

Not that there’s any special recognition due me, but in between election days this stander/citizen, like so many others across the country, I fasted and prayed extensively for godly leadership to be restored to our nation through the 2014 mid-term election.    I’ve  been personally serious about this since at least 2008, when my only practical choice for President of the United States was between a rabidly pro-abortion (and, as it turned out, pro-faux marriage) ultra-liberal and a conservative serial adulterer who had abandoned two prior wives, including a disabled one, because his god is his appetite.    Neither candidate seemed likely to serve our nation unselfishly, nor honor God in doing so.

2008 would not be the last time I had to hold my nose from the moral stench while casting my ballot.    It is simply the escalating curse our nation has been under at God’s hand since the 1970’s when the twin abominations of abortion on demand, and unilateral divorce were imposed across our land – the worship of Baal and the worship of Asherah (the absolute right to immoral remarriage), respectively.    I believe  God was especially provoked to bring progressive discipline on our nation  when His bride the Church was not only silent about the latter,  but chose to widely embrace it.

It was an amazing week, the week of November 4, 2014 across our nation.   I once again complained about the lack of acceptable candidates on the ballot, this time for governor of our state.    One of the candidates had signed the marriage redefinition bill in 2013, flouting God’s (Matthew 19:4-6) timeless definition of marriage.   The other is yet another serial adulterer who also supports abortion-on-demand.    The U.S.  Senate race was just as bad:  a choice between the liberal incumbent with the near-100% voting record against the sanctity of marriage, life and traditional family versus yet another adulterer who had recently made a public statement that he now favored marriage redefinition despite his 2013 state legislature vote against it.    The state family policy counsel published a link to an interesting viewpoint on how to handle that situation while staying true to my godly responsibility to cast my ballot for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God.    Early on election morning, I was personally messaged by its leader, which the Holy Spirit quickened in me as confirmation that this was how God wanted me to vote in resolution of my moral dilemma.   I was grateful not to have had to abstain in those two races, or write-in a throwaway name.

Aside from these legislative and executive candidates, several judgeships were on the ballot.   How many times in my roughly 40 years of adult citizenship had I gone into the voting booth with not a clue who these individuals are who hold such sway that with a mere stroke of a pen they can override what GOD has permanently joined as one person  (Matt. 19:5-6), and change the course of a family for GENERATIONS to come?   I spent a year, approximately 10 court sessions, finding out precisely who these black-robed marriage executioners are!      Once again our state family policy council has greatly improved my citizenship by reporting on who is endorsing and financially supporting those candidacies.   (It also helps to have an increased acquaintance with seasoned attorneys!)

With our constitutional appeal awaiting trial next spring, I realized I could also be voting on retention of two of the judges who may potentially be on the panel who will hear our case.   Of all the previous constitutional challenges to the unilateral divorce laws which I researched in other states, 2 or 3 pivotal decisions that could have spared our nation (particularly the budgets of local governments) some 40 years of evil fallout from this unconstitutional unilateral divorce law turned on the opinion of only 1 judge out of 3, while the dissenting judge’s opinion was actually far more creditable.   You can bet I burned up Google the night before, trying to find out all I possibly could!

 

And the outcome?   The nation was abundantly blessed that the Lord established a meaningful check on the despotic power of the current Chief Executive.    The cause itself of socially conservative godly government was also blessed when diverse candidates by age, race and gender in an overwhelming number of  states replaced liberals who were poised to continue and to step up their attacks on the traditional family.   Our own state didn’t fare so well in comparison, but largely because the fruit had already been “cast from the vine” (Ezekiel 9:12) long before the ballots were even compiled.     Nevertheless, God seems to be hearing the prayers of the saints for the leadership of our nation as a whole.

I’d urge that before we get too smug about drubbing the liberals, we keep seeking the Lord for our further repentance as a nation.    I believe He’s watching to see how we steward the graciousness He’s extended to us.   Will we return to Him?   Most of the national legal ministries do not consider unilateral divorce – which tramples on the very image of God’s covenant with ALL  of us, to be a fundamental rights or religious freedom problem,  and they fail to grasp (or admit) the very real connection between marriage redefinition 2014 and marriage redefinition 1969.    This is despite the various organizational mission statements on which they raise donor funds:

Organization A –  “Restoring the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family.”

Organization B – ” …free legal assistance to Bible-believing churches and Christians who are experiencing difficulty in practicing their religious faith.”   

Organization C – “the spread of the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family..”

And so forth.    One admirable exception of “walking the talk” is the Family Research Council who in 2006 materially supported a serious legislative challenge to Michigan’s unilateral divorce law.    Cynically, it seems there are far more numerous powerful individuals whose adultery or commercial interests have benefited from state unilateral divorce laws (some of whom are most likely large donors to these ministries)  than there are homosexuals who have benefited from  the current wave of state marriage redefinition.   (Always best to gore someone else’s ox if you are a 501(c)3.)

Did God directly reward righteous political courage around the (heterosexual) sanctity of marriage issue last Tuesday?    I’ll let the reader ask Him and judge.  The following states have either enacted covenant marriage laws or mounted recent legislative challenge attempts to their longstanding unilateral divorce laws:

Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa, Michigan,  Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Georgia

The following states defeated a liberal incumbent to fill a Senate seat with a conservative, family-values replacement, checking the President’s amoral social agenda by the resulting gained majority of seats:

Iowa, Arkansas, South Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado, and South Dakota.  (Louisiana’s Senate race was forced into a run-off election for early December, and Kansas held on to  its conservative senator.)

 

Two days later, it got even more exciting as state traditional marriage referenda and traditional marriage definition legislation were upheld by the 6th Federal Circuit in their ruling on the case DeBoer vs.  Snyder  for 4 states:

Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan.

 

Our state, on the other hand, failed to benefit from the strong citizen showing in 2013 in the state capitol which miraculously held off marriage redefinition for several months after it seemed sure to pass quickly, stunning the whole nation and chagrining the media.    Meanwhile, the unwillingness of that family policy council to publicly oppose and EXPOSE the truly catastrophic pending “family” law bill that would shorten the unilateral divorce waiting period to 6 months from 2 years, would remove any option for fault-based grounds, as well as remove legal sanctions against deliberate spouse-poachers and firms (such as employers) who knowingly allow spouse-poaching to occur, the near-universal silence ultimately allowed this repugnant legislation to pass 90-17 in one legislative chamber without the public’s knowledge or meaningful media publicity.    The real enemy of true marriage is Satan, and you don’t beat him with the resources of mere men, you beat him with the unmerited favor of God in response to obeying Him completely and trusting Him with any consequences of putting His kingdom first.   Tough to walk out before a very human ministry board, but no less what it takes.

As a result of policy leadership  mis-steps, one of the two states with heretofore the lowest divorce rates may gain the unsavory distinction of being the only state resisting the national trend of rethinking no-consequences unilateral divorce in the face of very well-documented societal damage resulting from it.   Citizens should keep in mind from past occurrence that a doubling of the divorce rates has in the past led to a proportional ramp-up in government fiscal woes, something our state could not recover from in its current financial condition.   As a Divinely-orchestrated result of all the foregoing, we now have a Republican governor who’s on record as not concerning himself with “social issues” other than the unfettered access to abortuaries,  and who is poised to retool his state party accordingly.    We have a state senator who failed to unseat an ultra-liberal U.S. senator because the Lord saw no reason to swap one LGBT partisan out for another.    And He had already delivered the U.S. Senate to the faithful without any help from our state.

I think He truly does care very deeply about this unilateral divorce issue, and He let us all know it. FB profile 7xtjw

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare

Enemies of Religious Freedom=> God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

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Standerinfamilycourt.com  Blog Commentary:   This post is to remind that there are influential people out there who fervently wish the latter portion of the 1st Amendment didn’t exist at all.    People who think that the founding fathers’ purpose in the Establishment clause was to protect government from religion (amazing how even some law professors didn’t pay attention in history class),  while most of us are perfectly clear from the context of WHY this nation was founded that it was the other way around.     These forces rejoiced when a Supreme Court decision about peyote mushrooms 25 years ago significantly watered down the Free Exercise clause.   Were these forces infuriated when Congress tried to restore it with 1993 legislation which was intended to appropriately balance the interests, and to apply the law to all 50 states?  Did they rejoice when the U.S. Supreme Court slapped down the portion of that law that applied to the states?   Did they settle into a glowering resentment as a few states subsequently adopted verbatim  Federal language in state legislation?   Hard to say.  By some accounts even the ACLU was onboard with RFRA in the early days (must have been the peyote mushrooms at issue) , and the Congressional record reflects broad bipartisan support of that legislation, but most states didn’t rush to adopt RFRA’s in that era.

Then came the very wise 2014 Burwell v Hobby Lobby decision – which dealt with forced provision of contraception to employees.   Despite the loud howling that society was going to unravel if employers weren’t uniformly compelled  to be the source of all birth control,  this crowd knew that considerably more  was at stake for the homosexual agenda, the abortion agenda, and as they may soon find out….the unilateral divorce agenda.   Religious freedom protection,  when done in a way that merely restores and reaffirms the balanced constitutional intent in the original language of the 1st Amendment,  is absolutely lethal  to virtually every aspect of the liberal social agenda.    What we’ve witnessed since 1990 is a football game between activist judges and the people of the United States marked by a series of back and forth interceptions.

This week some sickening news broke in the wake of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down Idaho’s constitutional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.    An ordained ministry couple who run a wedding chapel in Coeur D’Alene is under threat of being jailed because they refuse to officiate a homosexual wedding that mocks God.    A few years ago, a Christian father in Massachusetts was  jailed when he exercised his parental rights and held his 5-year old out of mandatory public school pornographic homosexual indocrination classes (to which he was not even entitled to advance parental notice).    In New Mexico, a Christian photographer was fined for referring a homosexual couple on because she could not ethically shoot another faux wedding that was morally repugnant to her.   She was told by her state high court that violating her deeply held convictions was the price for the privilege of doing business in the state.    The original Free Exercise clause should  have been adequate protection for each of these innocent citizens against those who would criminalize biblical ethics, but since it was not, these states were permitted to enforce criminal sanctions against them because those states either lacked a RFRA, or the version enacted varied from the Federal version in a way that made it ineffective.

In reading the piece below, the critical thinker won’t be fooled by the extreme negative examples offered up by Prof. Hamilton.   Why?  Because wherever there is an attempt to apply RFRA inappropriately, to wit:

[ “…the forced marriage of adolescents into polygamous marriages, the violence of white supremacist or radical jihadist prison gangs…The perpetrators of 9/11 were religious zealots. So were the parents who let their children die. Roman Catholic bishops covered up for child abusers and endangered one child after another to protect the religious institution from scandal.”  ]   such facts will reliably trigger a situation where the governing authority will have no problem meeting their burden of demonstrating a compelling interest.    In such situations, “Gavel” wins (as does God), but Prof. Hamilton didn’t finish those  stories for her audience, and it’s unclear that religious freedom defenses were actually asserted in any of these situations.    The liberal camp is desperately trying to get the religious freedom ball back by means of a “fake”.    Prof.  Hamilton and her cohort would have us believe the balance of interests reflected in state and Federal RFRA laws is “extreme”.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness,  self-control; against such things there is no law.”    Galatians 5:22-23

All this said, standerinfamilycourt.com heartily salutes Prof. Hamilton for her excellent job of cataloging the up to the minute status of the various states’ RFRA legislation, an invaluable service.  I’d propose that defenders of religious freedom might use Prof. Hamilton’s useful link to keep one eye on their state legislative agenda in the months ahead.

 

God vs. the Gavel
The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty
By:

Marci A. Hamilton

October 1, 2014
BookTalk

by Marci A. Hamilton, the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

*This post originally appeared on Hamilton and Griffin on Rights.

How do you talk about the unspeakable? A decade ago, it was taboo to criticize religion or religious believers in print. They were a benign presence in America right next to apple pie.   I wrote God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law then to defeat this taboo, because it was masking a reality most Americans would want to know.

There I stacked up transgressions of religious actors, including the sexual abuse and medical neglect (to death) of children, the forced marriage of adolescents into polygamous marriages, the violence of white supremacist or radical jihadist prison gangs, and even the questionable dealings of religious developers who forced incompatible uses like homeless shelters into residential neighborhoods. It was all for religion, with results that were not so benign.

The destruction of the taboo was necessary in a just society. The perpetrators of 9/11 were religious zealots. So were the parents who let their children die. Roman Catholic bishops covered up for child abusers and endangered one child after another to protect the religious institution from scandal. Then the same pattern appeared across virtually all religious denominations. These were atrocities.

Before these criminal acts reminded us of the power of religion to be both transcendent and horrible, Congress had ratcheted up the rights of religious believers by passing the misbegotten Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993 and 2000. Hardly anyone understood what it meant either time and no one was thinking of jihadists, clergy child predators, or children dying from medical neglect, in part because mainstream religious lobbyists intentionally presented a wholesome face to Congress, arguing that religious believers faced discrimination across the country that needed to be corrected by the statute.

What could possibly be wrong with “restoring” religious freedom? A lot, when it is not an actual restoration but rather a new concoction that handed believers rights to avoid the law that they never had before.

Then RFRA metastasized as religious lobbyists demanded the enactment of state RFRAs, with the argument that if it was good for the federal government, it was good for the states. Nineteen states have followed suit, and lobbyists are still pushing in the rest.

I wrote God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty, to unmask RFRA for what it is and to explain to the American public what it desperately needs to know: the opaque, legalistic mumbo jumbo of RFRA and the culture it has generated carve out a pathway to child abuse and neglect, discrimination, and tyranny. The Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case and decision were shocking to many Americans, but not to me. It is only one example of what happens when we give religious actors extreme rights.

My goal with The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty is to educate as many as possible about the perils of extreme religious liberty, the need to fight for the protection of the vulnerable, and the wisdom of repealing the RFRAs. Even religious liberty needs to be leavened with common sense.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC Further Note:   Marci Hamilton was lead counsel for the city of Boerne, Texas, in the religious freedom case  Boerne v. Flores before the U.S. Supreme Court.   In this case, the Supreme court ruled that the Federal RFRA passed by Congress could not be applied to the states.   This prompted several states to legislatively adopt their own versions of RFRA,  many of them verbatim versions of the Federal law.

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Spiritual Warfare

Our Story (7 Times Around the Jericho Wall) – Part 3

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IlSupCtStatue2

by Standerinfamilycourt.com

“For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons.

For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds,

[Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)”  

   –  2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 (Amplified)

Part 3:  PREPARATION FOR APPEAL CONTINUES….

Blogger’s Note:   the discussion that follows reflects only my own research and independent thought, and does not necessarily reflect the advice of my attorneys.  

Only God could bring down the fortified wall of Jericho that had stood for 3,000 years, and was the most formidable wall in the history of the world at that time.    In the same way, this appeal won’t be what pulls the tyrannical unilateral divorce law down, but the prayers and the honor of God’s glory behind this appeal (and hopefully more appeals to come in more states) that will pull the law down.   The principle of Federalism in our American tradition requires that this be a state-by-state process, as we’ve seen with those who wish to complete the destruction of marriage by further redefinition.    Only a mighty act of God (and uncharacteristic acts of human courage and leadership) could ever result in the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to take up the unilateral divorce issue, even if there’s constitutional victory for us at the state level.    I’m still praying for this, for nothing will be too hard for El Elyon, God Most High.

I mentioned in my first post that our constitutional law attorneys advised us that we will have to lose all of the technical points in our appeal before any constitutional arguments will be ruled on.    Now that’s discouraging- like peering up a fortified wall!

From my simple-minded layperson perspective, it’s pretty hard to separate the technical from the constitutional on several of the key points, and it hasn’t gotten any easier with all the research I’ve done since that summer day in downtown Chicago.    It seems that “abuse of discretion” and denial of equal protection or violation of my right of free religious exercise intertwine symbiotically – are cross-motivated, if you will.   I know I’ve had at least one wrestling conversation with my attorney debating whether we argue that the law itself is unconstitutional, or the law as applied to the facts of my case is unconstitutional…”arguments and theories and reasonings and and lofty things that set themselves up against the knowledge of God”  (Hopefully I’ll get a chance to understand a lot more than I do now about that distinction.)

The religious freedom case will, unfortunately, be too narrow to help anyone besides me, but if we are successful,  I’m told it will set a precedent that will be binding in the future and hopefully reform boorish behavior on the bench.   That is, if angry leftists don’t take legislative steps in response to any court victory of ours to change the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act, perhaps to gut it, or to once again single out marriage law as an exclusion.    The Hobby Lobby decision this past summer thrilled us, but really riled up the liberal forces because they realize what upholding strong conscience protections will do to curb both the pro-abortion and the LGBT political agendas.    Just wait til they get their wake-up call that the City of No-Fault is also under serious RFRA attack!   A couple of my previous posts discuss RFRA and its implications for our cause of restoring balanced constitutional protections to marriage law.

For these reasons (narrowness of impact and the political vulnerability of RFRA in our liberal-dominated state), my strong preference is to “swing for the fences”,  to supplement the religious freedom portion of our case with a simultaneous effort to persuade the court to look at Respondents as a “suspect class”,  disfavored and treated with animus by the entrenched powerful interests against whom we are politically weak and are therefore stripped of a host of fundamental rights when we’ve done nothing to harm our marriages.    I believe this would greatly bolster our 14th Amendment equal protection and due process arguments, and make any motivation to gut Illinois RFRA moot, with regard to our particular cause, at least.

Why does all this matter?   In the case of religious freedom, New Mexico also had a RFRA, but unfortunately because their law excludes “laws of general applicability” from RFRA protections, it was self-defeating (not exactly sure what it actually purported to accomplish other than window-dressing).    As a result, Elane Photography was told by a pompous, arrogant judge that checking her Christian convictions at the door was the price she had to pay as a citizen for the “privilege of being in business”.   Hence, she would apply her unique artistic talent to the dignification of homosexual marriage ceremonies to which she is morally opposed, a form of forced speech which in other circumstances  has been found to violate the 1st Amendment.    The U.S. Supreme Court, unfortunately, concurred with New Mexico by declining to review, since a 1993 prior ruling set a precedent that made it much harder to apply the bare 1st Amendment religious freedom protections without an effective RFRA.   It probably didn’t take liberal interests too long to figure out that a RFRA which excludes “laws of general applicability” works a heck of a lot better for them than one that is verbatim the Federal version, since this New Mexico decision came in approximately the same time frame as the  Hobby Lobby decision.

With regard to equal protection and due process under the 14th Amendment, all of the prior constitutional challenges to the unilateral divorce law in various states failed because there was not yet sufficient case precedents to empower the courts to apply any higher standard than “rational basis” to the cases.    Under this easy (sleazy) standard of review, all a state had to do is demonstrate that the law served a “legitimate” purpose, such as easing the cost of divorce on battered spouses, or ensuring that homemakers received a fair share of their employed spouse’s retirement if divorce was necessary.    They didn’t have to prove that the law actually accomplished any particular objective, so bad laws could live on even if some disfavored group was negatively and unfairly impacted or if profound unintended consequences resulted for society as a whole.

Precedents and criteria for “heightened” review started to slowly build in 1976, but really started to escalate just in the last two years with the HHS mandate cases (such as Hobby Lobby), and with the homosexual marriage cases.    Many of the latter have come over the summer of 2014 alone.    I remember sitting in that downtown Chicago law office in early July and relating how I had been repeatedly denied due process in both of our trials.   Both attorneys looked at me and said something to the effect of  “Well, they gave you a day in court and let you present evidence, right?”

(To which I replied, “By that standard, Jesus received due process!” )    That’s what “rational basis” does to the due process rights of disfavored parties – it makes them evaporate.

Under intermediate or heightened scrutiny, it becomes possible to make the case that the law has not accomplished its purpose and that there were better options available that either were not considered or were rejected.    Under heightened  or strict scrutiny, we can start to argue that the state didn’t have a good enough reason to elevate the rights of one spouse over the fundamental rights of the other by excluding marital misconduct from the equation.    Or that if they truly wanted, as they claimed, to stop “perjury collusion” in the case of two people who both wanted out of their marriage, it was neither rational nor necessary to impose unilateral divorce on everyone else, including contesting spouses who were morally opposed to divorce and had done absolutely nothing to harm their marriage or spouse.

It was well and good that I stood a pretty fair chance of prevailing on a religious discrimination argument.   RFRA explicitly compels the application of strict scrutiny if I can prove that the law was compelling me to violate my deeply-held religious convictions.    Since to preserve my dissipation claim, I was under pressure to agree that my marriage was “irretrievably broken”, was expected to have taken action to threaten divorce or actually file a divorce petition which would disobey God who only created marriage, not divorce.   I was further expected to separate our finances,  another violation of God’s prescribed order for the family roles.   I think we can make that case of showing that the law significantly burdens my biblical convictions.   That forces opposing counsel or the state of Illinois to prove that the state has a compelling interest in dismissing my dissipation claim for my failure to meet those expectations, which I doubt they can do.   Whatever that compelling interest might purport to be, they then have to prove there wasn’t a less burdensome route to achieving that interest.

In the Hobby Lobby case, the U.S. Supreme Court skipped discussion of “compelling interest” and jumped straight to the obvious circumstance that there were many less restrictive means of achieving their aim of providing no-cost contraceptives and abortifacients to Hobby Lobby employees.    So, I had to dig out another HHS case on a local pair of firms that had worked their way through the 7th Circuit to see a good definition of “compelling interest”.   State appellate judges are influenced by but not bound by Federal court definitions,  as I understand.   In Korte v Sebelius, November, 2013,  that Federal court described a compelling government interest as follows:

“only those interests of the highest order and those not otherwise served can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion….only the gravest abuses endangering paramount interests give occasion for permissible limitation.  The regulated conduct must pose some substantial threat to public safety, peace or order… Finally, a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest of the highest order when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited. “

It’s hard to imagine what could be said to convince the court that my conscience-based refusal to declare my marriage irretrievably broken or file for divorce or separate our finances was a “grave” abuse or that it threatened a state interest of the “paramount, highest order”, or posed a public threat of any sort.   It did consume higher than average court resources, I suppose – but just whose fault is that?  I neither asked to be in court, nor harmed my marriage or husband.  Is it not more true that the exclusion of marital misconduct provision in the the law itself creates the appreciable damage to the state’s interest in conserving court resources?

As I said before, all of that was well and good, but as Kingdom-builder and as a taxpayer, I am still not satisfied!   I believe the law discriminates just as badly against a disfavored and powerless class of people who may not hold any religious convictions at all, but hold moral convictions around the wholeness and integrity of their families.    The contribution of unilateral divorce to the poverty rates is well enough documented that the National Organization of Women stood in formal opposition to the 2010 New York legislation that enacted unilateral divorce in the 50th U.S. state because of the proven harsh economic impacts on women and children.    In other words, NOW recognized that UMDA (Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act) was not meeting its stated objectives after more than a 40 year run.

While many of the cases I’d been studying on equal protection and due process can be googled for free, as I became more serious about studying this myself, I learned that I could use a nearby university law library for free, much the way pioneer Judith Brumbaugh did 30 years ago in her fight against Florida’s unilateral divorce law.   Attorney funds are low after spending almost $100,000 in trials, and I could get by well for myself by narrowly focusing the attorneys on my religious freedom relief valve, but as more Federal courts weighed in over the summer on fundamental rights, “suspect” classes, and levels of scrutiny, I was determined to learn more and try to do as much damage to this immoral law as one woman, who has been given a providential opportunity, can do.    I realized I have the opportunity right now to inspire and empower people in other states, and expand the benefit of my efforts in my own state.    As the power and move of God would have it, the summer drew to a close while some Federal judges were chastising folks I truly admire at various religious freedom legal ministries because their state government clients seem fine with unilateral divorce despite its proven toxicity to society and its corrosiveness to marriage as an institution.   Amen!

I’m looking forward excitedly to working with as many religious freedom ministries as I can, though this particular cause is not politically popular with them.   Not realizing they prefer to be contacted  through attorneys,  I contacted five of them on my own initiative several months ago when it looked apparent that the court was going to brutalize me over my strong religious objections to divorce, and an appeal, one that I might not have enough money to see through, was going to be unavoidable.    I had a sense back then where God was taking this and why.    Yet they all told me pretty much the same thing, that they “didn’t do family law” (- unless, of course, there happened to be homosexuality involved.)   Never mind that I explained I already had a family law attorney and was merely looking for a constitutional specialist.   They didn’t think my case was a true religious freedom case at its core.   Any burden on my free exercise of religion was “only incidental”.     I was so relieved that I was able to engage a constitutional religious freedom attorney with my own resources, and one whom these ministries regularly work with.    Because this battle is the Lord’s,  and the true weapons of our warfare must be spiritual weapons, I was so pleased to see the following clauses in their representation agreement:

Priority of Building the Kingdom:  This representation is undertaken by Client and the Firm to build the Kingdom of God according to the teachings of Jesus and the Bible.  Consequently, it shall be interpreted and performed with that objective.

(This blogger believes it’s not worth doing for any other goal or in any other spirit!)

Prayer:  The parties shall pray for each other frequently.   The Firm as a whole shall pray for Client monthly.

(Blogger is grateful beyond words.)

The next few weeks will have us going over trial transcripts and agreeing an approach to the appeal while meeting the various submission deadlines set by the appeals court.    I related earlier how the Lord providentially supplied the funds I needed years in advance of the need, but actually as the attack on our marriage was starting.   I’m now down to the “loaves and fishes”,  but confident that God will continue to provide all our needs.   That may include people as importantly as funds if my efforts are to benefit others.   What if the Lord moves my prodigal husband to repentance before the appeal runs its course?   Our case if not pursued with others as a class would become immediately moot, yet my highest priority would have to be my husband’s restoration to that Kingdom.   His soul is on the line here!    I covet the prayers of the saints that the Lord will have His way in everything.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
    Blessed are all who wait for him!

  – Isaiah 30: 18

Our Story:  7 Times Around the Jericho Wall – Part 1

Our Story:  7 Times Around the Jericho Wall- Part 2

No Day in Court for (Stander) “Jane Doe”, Our Story – Part 4

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

www. standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Equal Protection, family law, Religious freedom

Alliance Defending Freedom: Two Ways We Should NOT Respond to the “Redefinition” of Marriage

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ADF_marriage

 

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:    This tireless public interest and religious freedom law ministry is revered by this Christian blogger.   Nevertheless, like several of their peer ministries, ADF has the same political blind spot which was recently described by impartial observers such as Eric Metaxas and Rev.  Al Mohler:  for patronage reasons, they won’t publicly acknowledge the 900-lb. gorilla in the room – namely, the impact of “no-fault” divorce, on our mutual traditional marriage cause.    As more marriage redefinition rulings are handed down across the country, that’s begun to cost religious freedom legal ministries like ADF!   Federal 9th Circuit Judge Steven Reinhardt, in fact, called these attorneys out on it just this past week in his ruling on Idaho / Nevada case Latta v. Otter (page 36), as ADF was attempting to represent the State of Idaho’s effort to defend their constitutional definition of marriage which, except for the endorsement of unilateral divorce, mirrored God’s definition.

Matthew 19:4-6 – And [Jesus] answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,  and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?   So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore GOD has joined together, let no man separate.” ]

FB profile 7xtjw

 

October 17, 2014 Blog By Alliance Defending Freedom

Same-sex marriage is now legal in Arizona. A ruling today by U.S. District Judge John Sedwick will keep state officials from enforcing a law passed in 1996 and a 2008 constitutional amendment approved by voters that protected marriage as between one man and one woman. Arizona now joins nearly half of the states in the country which have had same-sex marriage imposed upon them by the judiciary and not through the will of the people.

While this news is troubling, there are at least two ways we should NOT respond, because both wrong responses reject three important truths about marriage.

1. Woe is Us!

Don’t mistake me. This is a terrible decision – throwing out 2,000 years of history recognizing marriage as between a man and a woman, disregarding the purpose and role of marriage in society, and prioritizing the sexual desires of adults over giving children the opportunity to grow up with both mom and a dad. “Redefining” marriage will hurt society…..

 

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:  first of all, it should never be necessary to put quote marks around the word Redefining in the same sense as one would put quote marks around Marriage when applied to the faux versions attributed to homosexuals or polygamists.   Marriage redefinition (along with “prioritizing the sexual desires of adults over giving children the opportunity to grow up with both mom and dad“) has been with us for a long time:  a national heterosexual tradition of some 45 years’ standing!]FB profile 7xtjw 

 

….But hand-wringing, an all-is-lost attitude, pointing fingers, blame shifting, getting angry and verbally attacking those who oppose us – these responses do nothing to build up marriage.

2. Just Throw in the Towel.

Now, more than ever, the pressure is on to give up and accept the new sexual morality. Christian organizations, churches, business people, all of us face a choice – to give up or keep standing for what we know is right, even when it’s unpopular.

There are at least three reasons that both of these responses are wrong:

1. Marriage is marriage. True marriage is between a man and a woman because the two genders coming together sexually in a lifelong commitment separates it from every other relationship.

 

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:  sadly, there hasn’t been enough legal separation between lifelong commitment coupling and “serial monogamy” coupling in our culture, due to the first wave of marriage redefinition.   Treating the two forms of marriage as equivalently moral is precisely what’s opening up the door to treating other forms of sexual immorality as equal to true marriage.  ]

 

 

…..Only male-female relationships can produce children, and having parents committed to each other is best for children. A woman can be a great mom, but she can never be a dad, and a great dad can never be a mom.

Dr. Russell Moore wrote recently: “We have no authority to revise what Jesus has handed down to us ….

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:  Indeed!  What Jesus handed down to us was LIFELONG.   Too bad there was not an ADF around in the 1970’s to argue this  point when UMDA – the “Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act” was undermining religious freedom and deconstructing God’s definition of marriage,  on a state-by-state basis.] FB profile 7xtjw

…..Our vision of marriage is not the equivalent of a church constitution and by-laws, adaptable by a majority vote. Marriage is not simply a cultural or legal practice, but is instead an icon of the union between Christ and his church, embedded in the creation (Eph. 5:22-31). Without a Christian vision of marriage, we have no Christian vision of the gospel.”

2.  Marriage is creative, diverse, and beautiful. Marriage is a lifelong union between husband and wife. Humanity has always been, and will always be, composed of men and women. That can’t change, and that’s why the timeless institution of marriage can’t be changed by a court. Marriage celebrates humanity’s diversity, not only because of the complementary of the sexes in marriage, but because throughout history and across cultures, different races and ethnicities have always married.

Yes, the divorce rate is high. Now, more than ever, we must commit to strengthening our own marriages, affirming the value of marriage publicly, and championing the beauty of marriage in our culture.

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:  My hope is that ADF and peer legal ministries will step up to assist non-offending spouses (who “walk the talk”) to  fight religious discrimination in family law court — at least at the appellate level – -and sign up to combat the unconstitutional stripping of property and parental rights from anyone who dares resist the divorce mill regime in various states….while honoring marriage as “creative, diverse and beautiful.” ] FB profile 7xtjw

3. This is not just about marriage.

Redefining marriage policy is about more than just creating same-sex marriage – it is about deconstructing the role and nature of marriage in our society.

It’s about marginalizing the Christian sexual ethic and enforcing a new sexual morality. Those who disagree with this new morality are first marginalized, then punished. We’re already seeing this happen with the city of Houston issuing subpoenas for pastors’ communications, the ousting of Mozilla CEO Brandon Eich, and attacks on Christian business people, like Rob and Cynthia Gifford of Liberty Ridge Farm, Jim and Mary O’Reilly of Wildflower Inn, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake Shop, Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene’s Flowers, Blaine Adamson of Hands on Originals, Elaine and Jon Huguenin of Elane Photography, and Melissa and Aaron Klein, owners of a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa.

For these people, and the many more who will risk everything for their right to live by their faith, we will continue to stand for marriage. And because we understand what marriage is, we will continue to promote the truth, value, and beauty of marriage in our culture.

 

FB profile 7xtjw[Standerinfamilycourt  Blog Commentary:  But, ADF, you must realize that the same marginalization has been happening for decades to those who attempted to stand up against court-sanctioned adultery (as opposed to homosexuality).   Will you consider standing for those who dare to risk everything to honor their indissoluble wedding vows even when an intrusive government official issues a death certificate on a 30 or 40-yr. marriage and forcibly cleaves an extended multi-generation family for no proven cause?   Will you stand for covenant spouses who are systematically being stripped of their 1st and 14th Amendment rights  to freedom of conscience, equal protection, and parental / property rights for contesting an unjust government intrusion into the life of their family and future generations? ]

Credit:  Alliance Defending Freedom, Scotsdale, AZ

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, morality

Suffer the Little Children: Cohabitation and the Abuse of America’s Children

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by W. Bradford Wilcox,  April 22nd, 2011 –  The Witherspoon Institute / Public Discourse

Blogger’s Commentary:    The direct connection between rising rates of unmarried cohabitation and the entrenched stronghold of unilateral divorce has been repeatedly chronicled in recent years.    The much trumpeted “declining / levelling divorce rate”  attributed by both proponents and justified critics of the “no-fault” laws  to easy, unilateral divorce is unmistakable.   But what is a bit more mistakable is the fact that the divorce rate decline has ALSO been shown to be directly linked to the rise in unmarried cohabitation.   This is important context for the excellent, informed piece that follows about impacts of both evils on innocent, defenseless children, courtesy of the national family law system.    

Jesus’ Commentary:   (Amplified Bible)  “Temptations (snares, traps set to entice to sin) are sure to come, but woe to him by or through whom they come!

 It would be more profitable for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were hurled into the sea than that he should cause to sin or be a snare to one of these little ones [lowly in rank or influence].     Luke 17:1-3

Cohabitation does not serve the “best interest” of children, regardless of what the courts say.

In just one month last year, Tyari Smith Sr. of suburban New Orleans shot and killed his 2-year-old son, Tyari Smith Jr., and his girlfriend, Marie Chavez, because she was considering leaving him and heading back home to California. A week later, 4-month-old Aiden Caro was thrown into a couch by his mother’s boyfriend, Samuel Harris, when Harris could not get him to stop crying. Shortly thereafter, the Louisville baby stopped crying forever. The next week, in Gaston, South Carolina, 5-month-old Joshua Dial was shaken by his mother’s boyfriend “in a manner so violent that the baby immediately lost consciousness and suffered severe brain trauma,” according to local police reports. Joshua died soon thereafter.

Are these tragic cases of fatal child abuse around the nation in one month just random expressions of the dark side of the human condition? Not according to a recent federal study of child abuse and neglect, the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect.

This new federal study indicates that these cases are simply the tip of the abuse iceberg in American life. According to the report, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are about 11 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married biological parents. Likewise, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents. In other words, one of the most dangerous places for a child in America to find himself in is a home that includes an unrelated male boyfriend—especially when that boyfriend is left to care for a child by himself.

But children living with their own father and mother do not fare much better if their parents are only cohabiting. The federal study of child abuse found that children living with their cohabiting parents are more than four times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than their peers living in a home headed by their married parents. And they are three times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents. In other words, a child is not much safer when she is living in a home with her parents if her parents’ relationship does not enjoy the legal, social, and moral status and guidance that marriage confers on relationships.

This latest study confirms what a mounting body of social science has been telling us for some time now. The science tells us that children are not only more likely to thrive but are also more likely to simply survive when they are raised in an intact home headed by their married parents, rather than in a home headed by a cohabiting couple. For instance, a 2005 study of fatal child abuse in Missouri found that children living with their mother’s boyfriends were more than 45 times more likely to be killed than were children living with their married mother and father.

Cohabitation is also associated with other non-fatal pathologies among children. A 2002 study from the Urban Institute found that 15.7 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds in cohabiting families experienced serious emotional problems (e.g., depression, feelings of inferiority, etc.), compared to just 3.5 percent of children in families headed by married biological or adoptive parents. A 2008 study of more than 12,000 adolescents from across the United States found that teenagers living in a cohabiting household were 116 percent more likely to smoke marijuana, compared to teens living in an intact, married family. And so it goes.

One reason that children do not tend to thrive in cohabiting households, besides the abuse factor, is that these homes are much more unstable than are married households. One recent University of Michigan study found that children born to cohabiting parents were 119 percent more likely to see their parents break up than children born to married parents. And, as anyone who has children can attest, children do not do well when they are exposed to changing routines, homes, and, especially, caretakers.

This growing body of new research has been deliberately ignored by the ACLU, which has been engaged in a longstanding legal campaign to gut state laws designed to support and strengthen marriage as the preferred relationship for the bearing, rearing, and adoption of children. This month in Arkansas, for instance, the ACLU convinced the Arkansas Supreme Court, in Cole v. Arkansas, to strike down a state law that prohibits cohabiting couples from adopting or fostering children. The ACLU argued that the Arkansas law violated federal and state constitutional rights to privacy and served “no child welfare purpose at all.” The Arkansas Supreme Court bought this argument, ruling that the Arkansas law, Act 1, violated cohabitors’ “fundamental right to privacy… to engage in private, consensual, noncommercial intimacy in the privacy of their homes.”

But what about the rights of the children in Arkansas to be raised in a safe and stable home? The state of Arkansas argued, rightly, that cohabiting homes are no place for children in need of safe and stable homes. Infants, toddlers, and older children who have been given up by their parents, or who have been removed by the state from the custody of their parents, need safe and stable homes above all else. And the latest federal study provides yet more evidence that households headed by cohabiting couples are not likely to supply good homes for such children. Apparently, none of this mattered to an Arkansas Supreme Court keen to put adults’ desires ahead of children’s needs.

Thankfully, the family news from the states has not been all bad this month. On Monday, Arizona governor Jan Brewer approved a law that gives married parents preference in the adoption process in her state. Arizona thereby joins a number of other states—such as Mississippi, Utah, and Virginia—that privilege married couples in the adoption process.

Let’s just hope that the courts in Arizona and these other states do not fall prey to the ACLU’s ongoing campaign to disconnect parenthood from marriage. Because—as study after study tells us—children are more likely to thrive and to simply survive when they are raised in an intact, married home. This is no small social fact, given that the primary purpose of family law is not to serve the desires of adults but rather the “best interests” of children.

W. Bradford Wilcox is Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute. He is also an adoptive father.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Lets Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Church Discipline, citizenship, Discipleship, Marriage Restoration, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

Could We Ever Get the “No-Fault” Genie Back Into the Bottle?

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genie-bottleBy Standerinfamilycourt.com

This blogger has a new companion Facebook page Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional.   Like anyone advocating for an unpopular-but-just cause, I’m acquainted with many like-minded men and women who believe God created marriage only, and man / Satan created the dissolution of marriage, in utter rebellion against God.   Those of us who are “divorced” in men’s eyes from the husband or wife of our youth, are still very much married in God’s eyes, since He’s the party who will never exit a covenant union nor allow a non-covenant relationship to prosper.   Men and women who have been standing for years, are believing God for the restoration of their stolen and ruptured marriages.

Note:  standerinfamilycourt.com  recognizes that the remainder of this post may offend some Christians and others who are in subsequent civil marriages following a civil divorce, and may offend some pastors who have officiated these unions under the official but errant policy or position of their church body.    Our intent is not to offend or judge – the Protestant church has taught an unbiblical doctrine on this matter ever since the Reformation, which has gone mostly unchallenged.   As Jesus himself directly pointed out to an offended crowd, Judaism’s similar error goes all the way back to the days of Moses.   We apologize for the emotionally distressful impact of what we have to say, but not for speaking the truth of God that others need to hear for the good of society as a whole.    Our prayer is that individuals in that situation would hear from the Holy Spirit on this matter and that pastors whose practice is to officiate adulterous remarriages (where a covenant spouse is still living, born again or not, remarried or not) would repent before God for offending an unbreakable covenant to which the Lord of Hosts, the God of Angel Armies remains a party, regardless of any godless act of fallen human government.

One of the hopes for both this blog and for the facebook page is that our constitutional challenge case would develop a following and possibly even build to a class of Illinoisans with a direct common interest in the outcome of this case.   What if my prodigal suddenly repents in the middle of the proceedings?   God is in control, and is ardently pursuing him!   If there were multiple parties with legal “standing” to our constitutional challenge, the cause shouldn’t die or the case become moot if marriage reconciliation occurs for one family or another who come along as a party to the case.   There is no question that such an event must take priority over any other cause – wholeness in our families is just too irreplaceable and impacts too many generations to forgo for any public cause. Then, too, winning this battle in Illinois would only mean the same thing would need to happen in 49 other states plus the District of Columbia, since there’s no national fix to this national tragedy.  God needs to raise up many others with the gutsy resolve to walk the very expensive and emotionally-draining, lonely path He assigned to me in this state.

 

So I’ve been pondering why fellow standers seem mostly reticent to embrace the overthrow of unilateral divorce in the courts?   One possibility that occurred to me is the covenant husband or wife of their youth has entered into a non-covenant marriage with an adultery partner.   Is it possible that many standers fear that if the law changes, their spouse will not be able to exit that adulterous civil contract?

 

The husband of my youth is also under duress to marry the other woman now that he has obtained his “piece of paper”,  so I’ve definitely wrestled with this issue myself.   He’s being compelled to legalize his adultery with someone who has been divorced for some 30 years and who has grandkids just like we have grandkids from our 40 year covenant marriage.   Standers are spiritual warriors who have the audacity to pray that the 30 years of divorce will be bridged and that prodigal spouses in that other family will exit their adultery and allow God to restore their covenant marriage according to His will and way.   I recently shared on Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional a glorious story about God doing just that, restoring a marriage after 28 years of divorce!   – “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Mark 10:27

 

This last nugget from the word of God is why I came to understand that I mustn’t fear that what’s good for the country as a whole might work out badly for my particular family, should the Lord remove the profuse thicket of (prayed-in) Hosea style thorn bushes currently restraining my prodigal from legalizing his adultery.   The spiritual battle of standing for restoration of a covenant marriage has always been about fighting on one’s knees, and this dilemma is just another aspect of the same.

 

We must understand that the falsehood we’ve been sold as “no fault” divorce is actually a one-way street that in reality amounts to unilateral divorce – the two are always mentioned interchangeably but are in no way the same.   My prayer is that the overthrow of this divorce mill regime will eliminate unilateral divorce, but preserve a true “no fault” option available by mutual petition only.   Where there’s no mutual petition, the party seeking the divorce will have to prove traditional fault.   Yes, this will likely make it harder, slower and costlier than it is today to get out of some non-covenant marriages, but there are several possibilities for the God of all creation to move and overcome such circumstances:

(1) there may be some kind of substantial abusive behavior in a home built on such a shabby foundation which included premarital adultery, such that there would be provable cause-based grounds

(2) God will reignite the eros, phileo and agape between the adultery partner and their own covenant spouse, in response to our prayers for their family, such that there develops a mutual “no-fault” agreement to exit the non-covenant marriage

(3) since repeal of unilateral divorce would be a slow state-by-state process, the Lord might move the non-covenants to another state where unilateral divorce is still available

(4) in His sovereignty, God removes the life of an interloping non-covenant partner. (God spells divorce “D-E-A-T-H”.)

 

Even in the natural, the outlook for an adulterous remarriage, or any second or subsequent marriage for that matter, is not so good.  If a 40 year lifetime of shared pursuits and experiences can be so easily discarded, what’s the prognosis for a so-called “significant other” who wasn’t quite significant enough not to be lied to, hidden from family and cheated on over a period of years?   How much trust, security and confidence could there be in a relationship that was birthed in selfishness, theft and treachery?

 

“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”   Matthew 7:26-27

 

God has been working in me uniquely and individually to believe Him in all circumstances that there’s no way He will promise and not fulfill (Numbers 23:19), even at the most hopeless points in the journey – when I’ve been losing in court, and treated as the wrongdoer by the human judge, slandered in a shrill chorus by both that judge and opposing counsel.   And when to my dread, I can’t avoid enraging the man I love and escalating the conflict with every new development in this long contest of spiritual wills.   God still leads me beside the still waters as promised, and will prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies (abundant vindication), in His timing and His orchestration.

It took time and much grief to get the nation into this messy situation in the first place.  Purging this evil from our society is also going to be messy, but before a holy God, we really have no choice.    He will pour out sufficient grace to get us all through it, glorifying Himself beyond all we could ask or imagine.   He is able.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

citizenship, family law, marriage

“Shout-Out” to Family-Friendly Legislators – Thanks!

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Springfield IIby standerinfamilycourt  9/29/2014

Last week I posted about HB1452, which would considerably harshen Illinois’ unilateral (“No-Fault”) divorce law, going against the recent trend of some states to start reigning in unilateral divorce due to the generally poor outcome for families.   (Much touted, quite the opposite delivered).

Shamefully, HB1452 passed 90-17 in the Illinois House of Representatives on April 10, 2014, and will be taken up in the Senate during the veto session which commences tomorrow.   I previously detailed the harmful aspects of this bill.    Today, I’d like to extend gratitude to the brave minority of representatives who  put families first and voted NO.     Although belated, I am also mailing each of them a personal note of thanks along with a copy of the letter I’m currently writing to my state senator.

A hearty round of applause, and muchas gracias to:

John E. Bradley (D),  Marion, IL

Adam Brown (R), Champaign, IL

John M. Cabello (R), Loves Park, IL

John D. Cavaletto (R), Salem, IL

Katherine Cloonen (D), Kankakee, IL

Jerry F. Costello (D), Red Bud, IL

C. D. Davidsmeyer (R), Jacksonville, IL

Brad E. Hallbrook (R), Charleston, IL

Josh Harms (R), Watseka, IL

Jeanne M. Ives (R), Wheaton, IL

Dwight Kay (R), Edwardsville, IL

David R. Leitch (R), Peoria, IL

Frank J. Mautino (D), Spring Valley, IL

Bill Mitchell (R), Decatur, IL

Thomas Morrison (R), Palatine, IL

David Reis (R), Olney, IL

Keith Sommer (R), Morton, IL

The results clearly show that standing in the gap for families is a bi-partisan issue.    (With marriage redefinition occurring in 2013 in Illinois and taking effect six weeks after this family law vote, it’s also fascinating to note that two of the three openly homosexual legislators in the Illinois House chose to vote “Present” instead of “Yes”.   Since a significant portion of the bill is about child welfare arrangements, and so much is said about the challenges of gay parenting, this is even more interesting.)

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall

– by standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, family law, marriage, Religious freedom

Illinois HB1452: Family-Toxic Law Stealthily Seeking to Become Vastly More So!

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Heads up, Illinois!             You will not read a word about this in the liberal mainstream media, and (sadly) neither will you hear about this even from the pro-family organizations of this state, nor the alternative Christian media.    The impact on your family, and your children’s families will be devastating if this bill is allowed to quietly pass into law this fall,  as predicted by the Illinois State Bar Association,  after the legislature reconvenes October 1.

I surely don’t mean to “diss” the hardworking, diligent family champions such as the Illinois Family Institute, who work absolutely tirelessly “as unto the Lord” to hold back much toxic social-engineering legislation each year with a limited budget, not to mention having to deal with the less-than-biblical sensibilities of some of their larger donors who rather prefer the current system of church-blessed serial monogamy (based on “biblical grounds”, of course! )  To their huge credit, IFI was instrumental in 2013 in rallying the faithful of this state from south to north, east to west to nearly stop a well-funded freight train of media and big-government support for (further) redefining marriage in Illinois.   Theirs was unquestionably one of the best-organized efforts I’ve ever observed, and their events were, every one of them, purely to God’s glory!    I’ve corresponded more than once with IFI’s leadership about HB1452 and they were cordial and gracious, assuring me they were working diligently behind the scenes in Springfield, but it “wasn’t  time yet” to inform the public about a bill that is taking deadly aim against the persistent remnants of the traditional family in this state, and which hardly anyone in the general public is even aware of.

Despite IFI’s off-the-record assurances, this bill passed in the state house and was referred to the state senate as the 2014 spring session wound down.   An appalling number of conservatives voted for it in the total absence of any public pressure or visibility.   (My state rep was absent that day.)

So with no media or family advocacy coverage, and no mention whatsoever by my own state rep (a conservative), how did I ever find out about this legislation?   I was sitting in the cafeteria of our county judicial center just about a year ago, having lunch with my attorney during a break from defending against the civil charge of “irreconcilable differences” brought by my husband of nearly 40 years against me and our suddenly “irretrievable” marriage.    Despite being assigned a very biased judge, we were having some limited early success in bringing admissible evidence against each of the 4 or 5 points the current law uses to define “irreconcilable differences”.    Mr. W looked at me and told me, “Mrs. V, you know that’s all about to change”.    He went on to explain that the 2 year required separation period was about to be reduced to 6 months, and there would no longer be any space allowed in the law to bring a defense against allegations of “irreconcilable differences”.

Respondent Meme

Even the rankest criminal has the constitutional right in our country to bring evidence to defend himself or herself, and (by extension) defend the integrity of his or her family, but not so for those who stand in the way of unfettered narcissism and sexual anarchy.    To be fair, Illinois was in the tiniest minority of states in seeking to give families space to reconcile – this law will simply imitate the vast majority of other states who already crush familes and subjegate the parental, conscience and property rights of non-offending spouses with lightning speed.    Up to now, Illinois also boasted of a substantially lower divorce rate than most states, as high as it is, but that’s about to radically change, too.

It’s important to understand that very much like the original wave of unilateral (“no-fault”) divorce legislation 40 or so years ago, there is and was no public outcry or broad demand for it.    It was simply foisted unsought on the public by a consortium of feminists and the legal profession,  including some with substantial personal conflicts of interest.   My imminent divorce appeal gave me reason today to try and find out which organizations or special interest groups are actually backing this bill.   I called the office of the sponsor, Rep. Kelly Burke to inquire, and was told it was supported by only one backing organization,  the Children’s Rights Council.    Rep. Burke’s staffer then volunteered, “DHS, the ACLU and the Illinois State Bar Association hold no position”.   REALLY?     Actually, aside from the marriage-assassination provisions, there is a lot in the bill related to child welfare (if you can call massive government intrusion into parental rights without the slightest proof of fault “welfare”), hence the lone backer.

I can only conclude that the media collusion / censorship that affords this bill its stealth makes it unnecessary for various bar groups with a substantial vested economic interest to risk showing their colors to the public.   No opposition is expected or planned for.   They do not expect you to call your state senator and urge them to oppose this bill.    By design, they do not expect you and I, their constituents, to even know about it.   They don’t fear any meaningful opposition from the usual champions of the traditional family whom they know aren’t willing to publicly clean up their own heterosexual house first before protesting in front of someone else’s homosexual abode.    As my religious freedom / constitutional attorney recently put it, “it’s not a very sexy fund-raising cause”.   Sometimes the very best of us forget that nevertheless God is watching and grieving.     Could it be that this is a reason He’s not giving us more traction against the tsunami of homofacism that is steadily stealing our religious liberty, and (ultimately) our democracy?

Those who don’t like to read long blogs can probably jump off now, but for the inquisitive (and patient), I’d like to share and comment on a few of the points and attitudes in the draft legislation.   You are entitled to know whether your legislators are actually representing you well.

13 (750 ILCS 5/102) (from Ch. 40, par. 102)
14 Sec. 102. Purposes; Rules of Construction. This Act shall
15 be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying
16 purposes, which are to:
17 (1) provide adequate procedures for the solemnization and
18 registration of marriage;
19 (2) strengthen and preserve the integrity of marriage and
20   safeguard family relationships; 
21 (3) promote the amicable settlement of disputes that have
22   arisen between parties to a marriage;
23   (4) mitigate the potential harm to the spouses and their
24   children caused by the process of an action brought under this
HB1452 Engrossed – 15 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 Act, and protect children from exposure to conflict and
2 violence legal dissolution of marriage;
3 (5) ensure predictable decision-making for the care of
4 children and for the allocation of parenting time and other
5 parental responsibilities, and avoid prolonged uncertainty by
6 expeditiously resolving issues involving children;
7 (6) recognize the right of children to a healthy
8   relationship with parents, and the responsibility of parents to
9   ensure such a relationship;
10 (7) acknowledge that the determination of children's best
11   interests, and the allocation of parenting time and significant
12   decision-making responsibilities, are among the paramount
13   responsibilities of our system of justice, and to that end:
14 (A) recognize children's right to a strong and healthy
15 relationship with parents, and parents' concomitant right
16 and responsibility to create and maintain such
17 relationships;
18 (B) recognize that, in the absence of domestic violence
19 or any other factor that the court expressly finds to be
20 relevant, proximity to, and frequent contact with, both
21 parents promotes healthy development of children;
22 (C) facilitate parental planning and agreement about
23 the children's upbringing and allocation of parenting time
24 and other parental responsibilities;
25 (D) continue existing parent-child relationships, and
26   secure the maximum involvement and cooperation of parents
HB1452 Engrossed – 16 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 regarding the physical, mental, moral, and emotional
2   well-being of the children during and after the litigation;
3 and
4 (E) promote or order parents to participate in programs
5 designed to educate parents to:
6 (i) minimize or eliminate rancor and the
7   detrimental effect of litigation in any proceeding
8   involving children; and
9 (ii) facilitate the maximum cooperation of parents
10 in raising their children;
11 (8) (5) make reasonable provision for support spouses and
12 minor children during and after an underlying dissolution of
13 marriage, parentage, or parental responsibility allocation
14 action litigation, including provision for timely advances
15 awards of interim fees and costs to all attorneys, experts, and
16 opinion witnesses including guardians ad litem and children's
17 representatives, to achieve substantial parity in parties'
18 access to funds for pre-judgment litigation costs in an action
19 for dissolution of marriage;
20 (9) (6) eliminate the consideration of marital misconduct
21 in the adjudication of rights and duties incident to the legal
22 dissolution of marriage, legal separation and declaration of
23 invalidity of marriage; and
24 (7) secure the maximum involvement and cooperation of both
25 parents regarding the physical, mental, moral and emotional
26 well-being of the children during and after the litigation; and
HB1452 Engrossed – 17 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 (10) (8) make provision for the preservation and
2 conservation of marital assets during the litigation.
3 (Source: P.A. 89-712, eff. 6-1-97.)

 

In the above excerpt, I took the liberty of bolding the lofty aims of those-who-know-far-better-than-us.    When a law is being judged for its constitutionality which intrudes on fundamental rights, the following questions are supposed to be asked:

(1) is the law absolutely necessary to achieve the stated objective?   (2) does it actually achieve the stated objective?                                            (3) is there a less intrusive way to achieve the stated objective?

All of these questions seem laughable at best in the context of forced divorce-on-demand.

I also italicized the portions that to me flaunt the arrogance of  these sponsoring legislators, as if the existing law wasn’t presumptuous enough!     Marriage (and the moral right to stay married,  absent a pattern of destructive behavior toward the marriage) is a fundamental right.    That right is given by God, not government.  Intrusion by the government into the life of the family in the absence of proven wrongdoing, at the sole request of the offending spouse and over the objection of the non-offending spouse, in order to supervise the conduct of the family is beyond arrogant – it’s heinous and unconscionable!   I find it hideous that these smug legislators then consider us and not themselves to be the very source of the problem!     The disgusting result, all too often, is that the “improvement” the court has engineered turns out to be exposure of the children to an immoral cohabiting relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend who then abuses the children while their non-offending, non-custodial parent , thanks to the legislative wisdom of disregarding marital misconduct, is left helpless to do anything about it.    That offends God:

“In body and spirit you are his.    And what does he want?  Godly children from your union.”    Malachi 2:15 

Sec. 401. Dissolution of marriage.
5 (a) The court shall enter a judgment of dissolution of
6 marriage when if at the time the action was commenced one of
7 the spouses was a resident of this State or was stationed in
8 this State while a member of the armed services, and the
9 residence or military presence had been maintained for 90 days
10 next preceding the commencement of the action or the making of
11 the finding:
12 Irreconcilable differences have caused the irretrievable
13 breakdown of the marriage and the court determines that efforts
14   at reconciliation have failed or that future attempts at
15   reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best
16   interests of the family.
17 (a-5) If the parties are separated for 6 consecutive
18 months, which period may commence prior to or after the filing
19 of an action for dissolution of marriage under this Act, there
20   will be an irrebuttable presumption that the requirement of
21   irreconcilable differences has been met. ; provided, however,
22 that a finding of residence of a party in any judgment entered
23 under this Act from January 1, 1982 through June 30, 1982 shall
24 satisfy the former domicile requirements of this Act; and if
25 one of the following grounds for dissolution has been proved:
HB1452 Engrossed – 23 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 (1) That, without cause or provocation by the
2 petitioner: the respondent was at the time of such
3 marriage, and continues to be naturally impotent; the
4 respondent had a wife or husband living at the time of the
5 marriage; the respondent had committed adultery subsequent
6 to the marriage; the respondent has wilfully deserted or
7 absented himself or herself from the petitioner for the
8 space of one year, including any period during which
9 litigation may have pended between the spouses for
10 dissolution of marriage or legal separation; the
11 respondent has been guilty of habitual drunkenness for the
12 space of 2 years; the respondent has been guilty of gross
13 and confirmed habits caused by the excessive use of
14 addictive drugs for the space of 2 years, or has attempted
15 the life of the other by poison or other means showing
16 malice, or has been guilty of extreme and repeated physical
17 or mental cruelty, or has been convicted of a felony or
18 other infamous crime; or the respondent has infected the
19 other with a sexually transmitted disease. "Excessive use
20 of addictive drugs", as used in this Section, refers to use
21 of an addictive drug by a person when using the drug
22 becomes a controlling or a dominant purpose of his life; or
23 (2) That the spouses have lived separate and apart for
24 a continuous period in excess of 2 years and irreconcilable
25 differences have caused the irretrievable breakdown of the
26 marriage and the court determines that efforts at
HB1452 Engrossed – 24 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 reconciliation have failed or that future attempts at
2 reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best
3 interests of the family. If the spouses have lived separate
4 and apart for a continuous period of not less than 6 months
5 next preceding the entry of the judgment dissolving the
6 marriage, as evidenced by testimony or affidavits of the
7 spouses, the requirement of living separate and apart for a
8 continuous period in excess of 2 years may be waived upon
9 written stipulation of both spouses filed with the court.
10 At any time after the parties cease to cohabit, the
11 following periods shall be included in the period of
12 separation:
13 (A) any period of cohabitation during which the
14 parties attempted in good faith to reconcile and
15 participated in marriage counseling under the guidance
16 of any of the following: a psychiatrist, a clinical
17 psychologist, a clinical social worker, a marriage and
18 family therapist, a person authorized to provide
19 counseling in accordance with the prescriptions of any
20 religious denomination, or a person regularly engaged
21 in providing family or marriage counseling; and
22 (B) any period of cohabitation under written
23 agreement of the parties to attempt to reconcile.
24 In computing the period during which the spouses have lived
25 separate and apart for purposes of this Section, periods during
26 which the spouses were living separate and apart prior to July
HB1452 Engrossed – 25 – LRB098 02948 HEP 32963 b
1 1, 1984 are included.

 

The vast sea of stricken language above is the removal of any option or requirement to prove fault, or have fault proven as a condition of goverment intrusion into marital privacy and the  conduct of the family.    The italicized arrogance is that the court [ i.e. government intrusion] will determine whether or not reconciliation attempts have failed, and whether reconciliation is in the best interest of the family.   In reality, God decided both of these issues a very long time ago but government here seeks to put itself in the place of God.

Many who are blessed with healthy marriages may be reading this and wondering if the fight against government interference with the family is worth the energy.   I say it is if you are a taxpayer who ever held out a hope that state and federal governments would one day be able to balance their budgets again.    I submit that divorce-on-demand is a key reason why this will never be the case again unless unilateral divorce is repealed or overturned nationwide.    Pastors in the inner city minority communities have watched poverty grow as family law disintegrated into the moral abyss.    Part of it is consequential and part is God’s judment as promised.

“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives.   His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.  Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

All citizens, and especially the entire community of believers should be in the face of their legislators about this law.    Instead of further corrosion of marriage and family, we can insist that faultless divorce be by mutual consent only, and that consequences be restored for destructive behavior that seriously undermines the integrity of the marriage.   As a constitutional matter, we should be demanding that only  under such proven circumstances may a government entity intrude itself into a marriage.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

– by standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

 

citizenship, marriage, morality

Another Honey Maid Whitewash

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I’ve been struggling for days over just what to say about this Honey Maid commercial recently shared by the Coalition for Divorce Reform on their facebook page:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hOC7H32W20&feature=youtu.be.   I truly didn’t want to sound mean, but silence is not appropriate either, it seems.   Many Christians, even, have been given horrible and unbiblical counsel over many years by their pastors, who in turn were just following the official position of their Protestant denomination, whose leadership most likely sold out in the 1970’s to the tide of “no-fault” divorce sweeping the nation at the time.   Those denominational leaders felt compelled to make their position on divorce and remarriage more “relevant”  so as to head off the loss of membership and finances.    Never mind that Jesus was very clear about His views on “blended families” that don’t result solely from widowhood:   (Luke 16:18) “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”

During the last Super Bowl, I believe it was Honey Maid whose similar schmaltz-offering likewise extolled homosexual parenting as though the ample evidence of toxicity in those arrangements wasn’t plainly manifest in news articles about pedophilia and child molestation in those homes,  or in the wistfully dysfunctional accounts of young adults who have been raised in lesbian homes, many of which were established in the aftermath of a heterosexual divorce – a situation that is increasingly common.    Of course, there was conveniently no mention of the results of a 20-year longitudinal study published by the University of Texas in 2012 that  showed the poor wide-ranging outcomes of every kind of childrearing arrangement vs. an intact, married heterosexual family (i.e. God’s model, eloquently described by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-6).

In this latest installment, the toxic outcomes of living out a culture of adulterous remarriage are likewise swept aside in a glisteningly sentimental display of affirmation.   Nowhere is the precipitously higher failure rate of second, third and fourth marriages mentioned.   Nowhere is it mentioned that spouse #2 might just be of the same gender these days.    Nowhere is there mention of the higher rate of teen pregnancy, substance abuse, same-sex attraction, suicide attempts / completions, or next generation marriage failure among the children of these “blended” families.    Nowhere is the high suicide rate among divorced, even remarried men such as Robin Williams mentioned.   Not broken, they say!

Why is it not OK to be broken and just admit it, Honey Maid?    King David, the ultimate “blended family” guy, showed us in Psalms 32 and 51 that the sort of brokenness that brings us to our knees, in sacrifice of our preference to just feel good, is actually the beginning of true wholeness.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  / Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

– by standerinfamilycourt.com