The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him. – Proverbs 18:17
As sure as death and taxes, any time a “family law” reform bill is before a state legislature which seeks to curb unconstitutional, non-consensual “no-fault” grounds being allowed to shred a family at the selfish whims of one of the spouses, there are two media responses:
(1) loud howling about people “trapped” in “bad marriages” (the Left), and
(2) deafening silence (the hypocritical Right).
“standerinfamilycourt” humbly submits (and will demonstrate) that these objections are overblown and way out of proportion in the “fairness” picture.
The model reformed“no-fault” statute will do a few essential things (all are a necessary minimum):
(1) limit the use of subjective grounds like “insupportability”, “irreconcilable differences” and “irretrievable breakdown” to a mutual, joint petition, where all the terms and conditions are agreed by the parties at arms-length (rather than by strong-arm). The mutual petition part is important here. No-fault dissolutions should never be obtainable by default judgment, or where the effects of divorce are not mutually agreed. All default judgments should be fault-based, without exception.
(2) restore the availability of fault-based grounds in the alternative, which is important because many state legislatures have eliminated and disallowed these.
(3) ensure that desertion or “living apart” grounds are only available to the non-offending party.
(4) ensure that marital misconduct is a material consideration in child custody and property division judgments if the parties cannot agree these things mutually and state them on a joint petition.
Yes, this kind of reform will (at least temporarily) leave some parties legally married against their wishes. However, there are several reasons why both the time frame of delay in legally “dissolving” the marriage, and the number of such cases has been greatly exaggerated. This is especially true in contrast with the millions involuntarily divorced today against their consciences and against the best interest of the children and grandchildren of the marriage.
Here’s why:
=> although this 1980’s statistic needs to be refreshed by a study, 20% of dissolution requests are mutually agreed between the spouses. It is quite possible that the legalization of homosexual “marriages” has increased this figure a bit.
=> of the remaining 75-80%, perhaps half (under current law ) do involve fault grounds, but the Petitioner is choosing “no-fault” grounds for cost and privacy reasons. Cost should not be as big a deal as it’s made out here, since the statutorily at-fault party can ultimately be made responsible for the costs if the non-offending party has no resources for filing and legal costs.
=> in the case of endangerment, there will be restored fault-based grounds and fault-based remedies available immediately., as covered above.
Of the remaining 40% of potentially negatively-impacted parties being compelled to remain legally married longer than they’d prefer, the following mitigations still remain:
=> nothing in this reform prevents an unhappy spouse from separating and living apart — an act that is biblically forbidden in an original marriage unless there is danger to family members (covered above), and living as immorally as they wish with whomever they wish. They will simply no longer be rewarded by the powers-that-be for doing so.
=> in the case of abandonment, the story is the same, with perhaps a delay of a year or two. This is not really an unreasonable delay for the sake of restoring the ongoing integrity of our Constitution and our society.
One canard that keeps surfacing is very true, but very selectively applied by the shameless propagandists who skillfully trade in emotional manipulation: “you can’t force people to stay married”. Indeed! We’ve shown here that over a year or two time frame, anyone who wants to legally “dissolve” their marriage, or cause it to be “dissolved”, has a clear path to doing so under virtually all circumstances in a meaningful “family law” reform scenario. The more accurate saying is “you can’t force someone to live with a person they don’t wish to”, but their legal marital state is irrelevant in any case. What is relevant is WHO PAYS under the law.
The emotionally manipulative howling in the press is really about the economics and incentives changing from those that reward the offending spouse and divorce industry, to those that protect the spouse who is committed to family integrity and the true best interests of the children and grandchildren.
Non-consensual “no-fault” divorce laws strip non-offending spouses of their free speech, free religious exercise and conscience rights, along with other fundamental Bill of Rights protections including the right to raise their children according to their convictions, the right to free association with family members on both sides of the family, their property rights, 4th amendment rights against warrantless search of their finances without being accused of a crime, their right to live under an enforceable marriage contract, their right to a jury trial when confiscation of those things is sought by the state. The best and only way to distract from all of these harsh truths is to howl loudly about very shallow considerations. In interests horribly adverse to the nation as a whole, they strip us of the separation-of-powers guaranteed by Article 3, allowing the legislatures of these states to override constitutional separation-of-powers protections by legislating away true judicial discretion, true cause of action, and true due process.
Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable.
– Proverbs 14:34 (Douay-Rheims Version)
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames. – Sir Thomas More
Given his 1535 martyrdom for refusing to recognize Henry VIII’s divorce and adulterous remarriage to Ann Boleyn, does it seem at least a little reasonable to believe that Sir Thomas More might have been deeply troubled about the Marxist social engineering a successor Lord Chancellor named Gauke is currently cramming down the throats of over 80% of the UK citizens, a sample of whom resoundingly told Parliamentrecently they don’t want 6-month forced family-shredding (no-defense divorce) to become the immoral law in their country?
When Ireland was about legalize abortion a couple of years ago, every one of these groups, whose logos appear above, tracked and wrote about it on an almost weekly basis. When gay marriage was in the process of being legalized in numerous countries abroad (not the least of which was the UK), it was the top daily headline for every one of them. The push to radically expand unilateral “no-fault” divorce has been all over the UK papers for more than a year now, ever since a British high court did the right thing by the nation’s families last year in denying a 67-year old woman who had no legitimate grounds to seek a divorce against her 80-year old husband of 40 years. It wasn’t that this woman would never be divorced from her God-joined one-flesh mate under the UK civil law, however (unless the Lord brought her to repentance). It was only that it had been just 4 years since she moved out of their main house, and this decision made her await the final year under existing law to fully go her own selfish way with a chunk of the sizable marital estate.
You guys decided to sit this one out for some reason. One can only imagine if instead of an elderly heterosexual couple, this had been Elton John and his lovely “husband” David Furness being denied a quickie divorce under existing law. Would any of you have been able to resist sparring back at the outraged tabloids? Yet, in over a year’s time, not one of you has even shown awareness that traditional marriage in the UK literally is on its last lonely stand.
Believers who care about this issue were scratching our heads, but still willing to forgive and support you when two U.S. states in the last four years took the tremendously courageous step of very seriously attempting the repeal of forced family-shredding-on-demand by requiring that “no-fault” grounds only be allowed upon a joint petition or other form of documented mutual consent, but for public purposes, you chose to sit that one out as well.
“standerinfamilycourt” means no disrespect, but 90% of the infringement of religious liberty in the name of the Sexual Revolution can be traced directly back to that grossly irresponsible bill Gov. Ronald Reagan signed on September 5, 1969. In fact, innocent “Respondents” on the receiving end of a unilateral “no-fault” petition, having been charged with the made-up crime of “irreconcilable differences”, have suffered the earliest, worst and most numerous of religious freedom violations, including loss of God-assigned parental rights to influence and discipline, loss of ability to choose and direct their childrens’ parochial education, severe financial reprisals in court for not acquiescing to the petition, restraining orders where there was no lawful cause, jail time, loss of licenses, and on and on. And don’t forget, scripture tells us that if a Christian (or anyone else, for that matter) is “divorced” by their spouse, it is immoral to “remarry” for as long as that spouse remains alive, an act which Christ repeatedly called ongoing adultery. That item alone makes unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws the most severe of all religious freedom violations, other than religious acts deemed to be capital violations.
If your mission statements are sincere, how can you possibly be silently sitting these events out? How can you be so embarrassed to be seen with your brothers and sisters in Christ who care as much about this issue as all of the Apostles and early church fathers did?
At least Mr. Reagan eventually admitted that his signature on the death warrant for the institution of binding holy matrimony was his worst act in all of his years of public service.
The people of the UK have a tiny window of time before this destructive law is imposed upon them against their majority will. We’re going to be nice in this post and not say anything about how inexcusably the industry special interest group that is backing this is violating the Article 73 separation-of-powers provisions in the British constitution, but we would like to introduce you to your embattled counterparts in the UK who actively fight for the sanctity of heterosexual marriage in its own right. “Standerinfamilycourt” is pleading with you to come to their aid in any way you possibly can while this time window remains briefly open due to Brexit preoccupation (the hand of the Lord, perhaps?) And we all know you can give these family warriors at least the moral support they need right now!
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mr. Thomas Pascoe and Mr. Colin Hart, of the Coalition for Marriage (C4M). Please consider giving these gentlemen a hand in not allowing the liberal press and ruling elites to control the debate with the sort of narrative that the past 50 years’ track record in this country has overwhelmingly disproven.
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. – Hebrews 13:4
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:32-33
Video credit: Jeff Morgan. Matthew Johnston interviewing Dr. Stephen Baskerville, February, 2019
Our blog spends most of its time and words mapping out the moral space between scripture and unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws, all the while being well aware that this is “taboo” space which is alleged to be at odds with the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Actually, this moral space consists of three moral sub-spaces:
(1) the moral space between scripture and the allowance of fault-based divorce which does not violate the Constitution, but severely violates scripture (Matt.19:6,8 ) – Space “A”
(2) the moral space between fault-based unilateral divorce (Romans 13:4) and mutual-consent “no-fault” divorce – Space “B”,
and, finally
(3) the moral space between mutual-consent “no-fault” divorce and forced, unilateral “no-fault” divorce (Isaiah 5:20) – Space “C”.
(please click to enlarge picture)
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
“standerinfamilycourt” began pondering this due to the repeated persistence, in a small strategy discussion group, of a Catholic man who refuses to budge from Space “A” on both moral and constitutional grounds. He therefore stands opposed to the apparent consensus of the majority in that group: that our divorce law reform objective, particularly insofar as it encompasses the legislatures, should be Space “A” + Space “B”. It’s not at all that this gentleman believes per the bible that death is the only thing which severs and dissolves holy matrimony. On the contrary, as a “good Catholic”, he also believes that an “annulment” decree from the bishop does this, but in that case he would argue that some extrabiblical “defect” somehow made it “not a marriage”.
At the same time, a brilliant young legal scholar in the group also believes in reform encompassing only Space “A” – on technical constitutional grounds related to Articles 3 and 10 of the Constitution, but for pragmatic reasons, can settle for Space “A” + Space “B”, so long as this result doesn’t get overturned in court on those same constitutional grounds. (“Get ‘er done”!) The difference between the two gentlemen is in their motives and reasoning in arriving at the same end point. Our Catholic friend believes there are some instances other than physical death which lead God to assent to “dissolution” if church leadership does, and absent leadership corruption (a huge presumption), this would normally track with fault-based jurisprudence which would be better for the children of the marriage than their parents having an option to decide together to end their marriage. (Church traditionelevated above God’s commandment, by perceived “delegation”). Meanwhile, our millennial believes that God has delegated so much authority to the state that the Establishment Clause must override God’s law in order to prevent a “theocracy”. (State over God, because the alternative in a pluralistic society might be worse.) SIFC cannot agree with either view, because of Who God says He is, and the outright blasphemy involved with corrupting in any measure one of the key symbols of His holiness and His relationship with His people.
That said, SIFC can also “live with” a pragmatic reform result of Space “A” + Space “B”….but upon deep reflection, believes that if Jesus Christ were in this discussion group, He’d say that even Space “A” is too much “daylight” between the instructions He left us with and what we as Christian citizens will settle for in our family laws. Space “A” actually reflects the Pharisaical school of Shammai which He rebuked in Matthew 19, while Spaces “A” + “B” + “C” reflect the Pharisaical school of Hillel which He also rebuked in Matthew 19.
Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter heaven. Matthew 5:20
He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.” Matthew 19:8
Christ’s position would be: only God, and not civil government has authority over holy matrimony, and nothing short of holy matrimony is actually moral:
Space “A” + Space “B” + Space “C” – Space “A” minus Space “B” minus Space “C” = zero human authority to create holy matrimony or grant a divorce from it.
Christ would grant civil government the authority to track marriage and death records to support the union, but would say that all divorce is man-made and of no effect in the kingdom of God, unless the “marriage” it purports to “dissolve” was invalid and kingdom-unlawful to begin with. He would say that all authentic marriage is only God-made, and anything outside of that is adultery, which sends people to hell if they don’t repent of it, and for which He will eventually judge our unrepentant nation, especially if the shepherds of His church remain complicit. By contrast, one recent state is attempting to keep the usurped authority for the state to continue granting unilateral “no-fault”dissolutions, but prospectively only record God-joined unions (and all manner of other man-fabricated cohabitation arrangements) upon affidavit, and doing so in order that the state’s judges may escape perceived persecution and actual liability at the hand of the homosexualist community from conscience-based refusal to officiate sodomous weddings.
“Standerinfamilycourt” is sincerely wrestling with this….
So…just how acceptable in God’s sight is it to advocate for change in a law that is presently sending people to hell by the millions, in favor of a reformed law that maybe only sends people to hell by the thousands (on the prevention side), and increases the legal avenues for repentance which avoids hell (on the rectification side)?
How much more or less acceptable in God’s sight is it to advocate for a law that prohibits divorce altogether (that is, strikes the dissolution statute in its entirety — whether or not there exist what men might consider to be “fault-based grounds”), thereby sending few or no one to hell because they divorced their true spouse, but sending some to hell because they can no longer civilly-divorce a faux spouse, and which also closes off all avenues of biblical repentance via man’s law? After all, it can’t be emphasized often enough: the law is a teacher, (especially with regard to the unregenerated who have no way of being counseled from within by the Holy Spirit), for better or for worse.
“standerinfamilycourt” may never have the answer to this dilemma until actually standing before the throne of God, when all of a believer’s life works will be judged to see what survives the fire:
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. 1 Cor. 3:10-17
“standerinfamilycourt” is right to be concerned that all of the very costly and difficult activism, in terms of changing man’s divorce law, is only “wood, hay and stubble”. But if legal reform could also change hearts, reduce the massive number of people dying in a state of adultery, and increase theharvest of godly offspring who ultimately become citizens of heaven, that becomes a precious metal which will withstand the fire.
In Mathew 6, Jesus told us to seek His righteousness (presumably for ourselves, but perhaps also for others) while we’re first seeking the kingdom of God. In Matthew 5:6, He declared, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Both verses clearly promise a fulfillment from Him if our heart motives are what they should be, and we’re doing our part to obey the seeking, hungering and thirsting part.
Many earnest believers will argue either (1) “No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of this life, that he might please the one having enlisted him” (2 Timothy 2:4), and therefore eschews all political involvement by Christians, or (2) God’s law of marriage only applies to the redeemed. Although the first idea has some merit, the second is completely contrary to Christ’s instructions, so “standerinfamilycourt” respectfully rejects both notions, in times like these.
It seems, therefore, the moral focus needs to be on the net effect on souls arriving in the kingdom of God, in clean wedding garments. That is all that will survive the fiery test of our life works. Obviously, if the “dissolution” statutes were all repealed from the lawbooks of all 50 states and not replaced, the expected result would be a wave of both righteous and unrighteous marital abandonments, the former resulting in repentance from adultery , and the latter resulting in a massive, if not unprecedented, increase in adultery because of the cultural intolerance of being told by government what to do. As predominantly immoral as our society has grown in the past five decades (encouraged by the enactment of increasingly immoral civil laws), perhaps the effects would initially “wash”, then who knows what would follow after that?
Situational ethics and moral relativism are never healthy things, and are downright nauseating to SIFC. This is the mistake Moses appears to have made, in endeavoring to “manage” sin in a pretty identical situation (Deuteronomy 24:1-4) instead of strongly rebuking it, and Christ showed that He was less than impressed with this. After all, it was not Moses whom Christ commended as the “greatest among all men born of woman”. It was instead His cousin, John, who sacrificed his very head to try and warn two adulterers to repent to escape hell. The kingdom of God suffers violence, not appeasement and accommodation! In accepting moral Space “A” or moral Space “A” + “B” for pragmatic reasons, there is both situational ethics and moral relativism involved, because human compromise is being aimed at seeking to prevent a perceived greater evil anticipated from a stricter law, due to inherently evil human nature.
Talk like this can be very unsettling to those who have never had the constitutionally-false notion of a thick wall of separation between church and state meaningfully, intellectually challenged. Certainly, among millennials, there is a long-fed fear (much of it, historical-revisionism-driven and propaganda-driven) causing this generation to struggle in particular with the Establishment Clause, and almost elevating it over the Free Exercise, clause out of concern, (perhaps) that Christianity will lose its moral authority and representation if Allah, Buddha, Krishna and Marx are not given equal place with the Most High God of the bible in our society. A lot of it has to do with the time period in which boomers vs. millennials and generation X-ers lived and grew up. And that has a lot to do with (believe it or not) the downstream effects of enactment of unilateral “no-fault” divorce. Those of us whose hair is now graying grew up for at least a couple of decades during a time when Christian values indeed dominated, and families under all religions actually thrived, even if they were prevented from dominating or having equal representation. That’s because we still HAD our families, directly due to Judeo-Christian domination of power structures and government.
In another February interview, Dr. Baskerville told World Magazine , “The churches withdrew from private life? And the state moved in. What had been the role of pastors and priests became the role of lawyers, judges, and social workers. The church has never tried to reclaim its turf, and has been a major contributor of secularization, of people feeling the church is not part of their life when it’s not enforcing the marriage contract.
“What can be done now? The church has got to step in. Much of the history of the Christian church has been brave churchmen speaking out when the state overreaches its authority. This whole area of sexual morality is, frankly, our turf and God’s turf. The state has a role but is overstepping.”
Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar’s. And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s. And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace. – Luke 20: 22-26
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse posted another excellent question from that interview on the Ruth Institute facebook page: Q: Were churches sleeping when no-fault divorce emerged?
A: Some churches did raise their voices, but much of their attention was diverted at the time by Vietnam and civil rights. There was very little debate, very little discussion. No-fault divorce, the welfare state, and the cohabitation explosion were all usurpations of the church’s role by the state. Governmental power was inserted into a realm of private life that had been the realm of the churches.”
All of the above is true enough, of course, but does not represent the whole picture, at least with regard to the Protestant churches:
[standerinfamilycourt 3/6/2019 on this Ruth Institute Post ]Martin Luther & co are partly to blame for the church apathy. Forced divorce would be a much bigger issue had he not turned over the authority to the civil state to regulate holy matrimony in order to obtain access to man-made “dissolution” certificates, then established the Reformation church on the outright heresy that original holy matrimony bonds can be severed by anything but death. The real insult to the church is that the civil state is deigning to regulate marriage at all, much less on a “no-fault” basis, but heresy reigns supreme, and revised bibles back it up. For the church to do much to oppose state regulation of marriage, much less any kind of tyrannical divorce law, they would have to acknowledge that all resulting “remarriages” are morally and spiritually invalid adultery in all cases. When they can get away, and indeed grow rich, with not doing so, that’s too big a morsel for most to bite off.
One of Martin Luther’s more outrageous quotes (actually acknowledging that only death dissolves holy matrimony, and providing a very creative solution) goes thusly…
Dr. Morse’s Roman Catholic Church has their own canon law, and has continued to claim its authority over marriage, notwithstanding the state’s competing claim to that authority. Both claims are overstated and distorted from a kingdom of God perspective.
Perhaps it’s best to step back and look at the behavior of our nation’s founders and their choices with regard to allocating authority over marriage, between human government (Caesar) and God’s commandment that marriage was indissoluble except by physical death. It was these men who claimed “certain inalienable rights” directly from God, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is interesting to note that neither the U.S. Constitution nor any of the original state constitutions eventually ratified in the thirteen colonies even attempted to allocate the authority to regulate marriage to civil government at all, even though Federalism and Article 10 left the states this space. Based on this, SIFC believes it is fair to say that our nation’s founders started off on the conservative end of Space “A”, fairly aligned with biblical instruction, and this is one of the reasons God incubated and fostered our nation, making it extraordinary in its greatness. In other words, there wasn’t a lot of moral space between the Bible and the Constitution until case law and legislatures put the moral separation space there later.
A Word About Our Founders, the Framers of the Constitution Were all of our principal founders followers disciples of Jesus Christ? No. Many were deists and humanist subscribers to natural law, including Thomas Payne, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen and Benjamin Franklin. Others, like John Jay, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, Noah Webster were unequivocal about following Christ. Virtually all of them knew and expressed an overt warning that the form of government they had designed and bequeathed to the future citizens of this nation would only continue to function in an environment of national biblical morality.
Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence said: “Without morals a nation cannot subsist for any length of time.”
John Adams said, “Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.”
Though widely assumed to be a deist, Benjamin Franklin said, “God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid?”
( SIFC: That can be the rise of a nation for a kingdom purpose, or it can be tolerated rise of a malevolent stronghold into an empire to punish an unrepentant nation that once enjoyed His extreme favor, and in yesteryear faithfully carried out that purpose, but now is leading the world into deeper debauchery and idolatry.)
Also, observed by Ben Franklin: “Only virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
George Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports”, and, “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the bible.”
John Adams declared, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
(Tell us 21st century citizens about that, Mr. 2nd U.S. President!)
Finally, Noah Webster said, “…the moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis for all our civil constitutions and laws…All the miseries and evils that men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from the despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the bible.”
It is frequently argued today that we can’t go back to what we first had as a nation (as if the Lord God were indifferent), because our nation’s residents are no longer homogenous enough for it to work, therefore, we have no practical choice but to govern according to the prevailing cultural morality. (Much of this, it can be quite accurately observed, is said with the motive of coddling and appeasing the homosexualists.) “standerinfamilycourt” hereby prophesies that if we continue on as a nation with this ridiculous fallacy, the Muslim caliphate ultimately will not share that opinion with us, and will not hesitate to impose Shariah law on a morally-unruly citizenry. There is plenty of historical precedent for this in the bible and recorded world history. God owes the United States of America nothing, but He allowed first the Assyrians and then the Persians to overtake the nation of Israel. After seven decades of subjection, He required an intense purge of unlawful “marriages” and restored societal morality before He would restore sovereignty to His favored nation whose religious leadership was complicit in the systemic evil.
The following is only a theory on SIFC’s part, but it has been well-tested by the first nearly 200 years of our nation, when Baptists, Anabaptists and Methodists (who were socially disdained back in England) got along just fine with the Anglicans and Presbyterians. Later on, the Jews and Catholics got along just fine with the Protestant leaders and citizens under the civil marriage laws that prevailed until 1970. God’s moral favor gave cover for civil governments to impose that morality on the Mormons and Muslims, a circumstance that today shows signs of beginning to break down. Civil law does not need to prohibit man’s consensual divorce in order to appease God and wisely govern the people, but it must never forcefamily dissolution and fragmentation on innocent family members while morally and financially rewarding the guilty family members. Society begins to break down at the point when obeying God’s biblical family law (whose very core is Gen. 2:21-24 and Matthew 19:4-6,8) becomes either very difficult or impossible under the corrupted civil laws of men.
Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people. – Proverbs 14:34
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him. – Proverbs 18:17
The “senior members of the Judiciary, the Family Mediation Task Force, Resolution (the national organization of family lawyers)” have the perfectly “simple” solution to the Solomonic dilemma posed above: make it henceforth unlawful for another to come and examine him.
(At least, until they’re all back in court afterward, fighting over the level of support and visitation of the children, upon which the next 10 years of fees may be billed, post-decree.)
Thomas Pascoe of the Coalition for Marriage called the House of Commons legislative “impact assessment” supporting enactment of “no-fault” divorce in the UK, on the premise that it will reduce conflict, “very flawed”. We call it, “not very original” – nor experientially true. We couldn’t agree more with Mr. Pascoe. In fact, after studying the study, we find his critique quite tactfully understated with regard to the entire study’s design, purpose and independence. Based on U.S. experience, we have much to say about the validity of the very premise that conflict over the involuntary dissolution of one’s marriage, and abridgment of parental and property rights, while innocent of any objective and provable charge, can or should be “managed” by the state as a primary goal of marriage regulation. The U.S. experience shows the acrimony can only be postponed until after the “dissolution” is imposed, and that this particular state-of-affairs has a long track record of being extremely lucrative for the legal community, while imposing absolute totalitarianism on the citizenry as a whole, outside of the protected special class.
In Part 2 of our coverage of these developments, we do a “deep dive” into the validity of the report, gleaning what we can about sponsorship, financing for the study, design, independence and objectivity. We do so from a U.S. experience-base of almost 50 years concerning the on-the-ground ability of the government to “manage conflict” in an adversarial divorce petition over inalienable property and parental rights, especially one where there’s no defense available to the “Respondent”, as is the appalling case in most U.S. states. We concede that the British constitution differs in various respects with the U.S. Constitution when we use terms like “inalienable”, and we forthrightly concede that these things have eroded over time in the U.S. due primarily to judicial corruption.
Undertaking this task has actually required the reading of several ancillary reports in addition to the House of Commons recommendation (briefing) report, including the public vetting results, and a 171-page commissioned “research” paper financed by a liberal public policy foundation (which states in a foreword that it also funded 1980’s research pushing unilateral divorce-on-demand), and spearheaded by a family law professor. This centerpiece research paper focuses primarily on administrative convenience for the courts, and “public perception” of the law, and not at all on evidence surrounding family integrity or outcomes (which should be paramount).
Pointedly not considered in the design of this “study” was any highly relevant U.S. data resulting from similar policies as here proposed, or whether the unilateral divorce laws enacted in the United States and Canada are sustainable in light of their extensive, progressive damage to the constitutional republics involved, nor even where similar policies (“postcard divorces”) had to be repealed even under communist regimes before those societies uttlerly collapsed. Most tellingly, Professor Tinder ignored Dr. Mark Regnerus’ landmark 2012New Family Structures Study which was longitudinal over 15,000 subjects and a 30 year time period, and showed (among other things), that children raised in step-parent homes resulting from divorce did as almost poorly in their adult outcomes as children raised in single-parent homes – a clear rebuke on public policy which promotes non-widowed remarriage. Indeed, the study was not concerned at all with family structure outcomes; did not ask that question, therefore did not consider any of the abundant data along those lines. Despite engaging a statistics firm, this study did not even do a competent root cause analysis on the study questions it did ask, to validate the problem statement before defining “alternatives” and jumping to predetermined recommendations.
A properly-validated study would have examined the proposals from persistent reform efforts in other “no-fault” countries such as the United States, at least to have reasonable assurance that all viable reform models were being considered in this study. We further note that if the problem statement and root cause analysis had been properly constructed, the rather trivial complaints which the study said “justified” reform would have been more properly attributed to the lack of availability of a joint petition based on “irretrievable breakdown”, rather than mis-attributed to fault-based grounds — as was the true case in the United States in 1969.
It is quite implausible that Resolution would not have been aware of the steady wave “no-fault” reform bills over the last 15 years or so before legislatures in Michigan, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma, where the persistent reform consensus has been around providing a combination of consent-only “no fault” grounds by mutual petition, and fault-based grounds that would apply in the event consent cannot be obtained. The best of these reform efforts also seek to apply fault-based property and child custody standards which have the goal of reforming the perverse financial incentives involved in the family law industry’s practice of actively contributing to the promotion of family breakup, to judicial collusion and corruption, and to preemptive control of all related legislative committees. It is also implausible that the lobbying organization “Resolution” would not be aware of the commercial advocacy of their counterparts in the various state bar associations and family law associations in the U.S. Surely, they would be aware of the rapidly-growing Parents’ Rights movement backlash in North America that has resulted from the very policies which this “reform” campaign advocates. Instead, this “study” takes a mere “snapshot” of existing problematic legislation which these intensifying reform efforts are aimed at, and disingenuously complains that the UK is “out of step” with what is occurring abroad.
In “standerinfamilycourt’s” humble opinion, the only portion of these study documents that were not primarily lobbying propaganda was the very interesting public vetting results (which were basically ignored in the final recommendations), along with very valid criticisms in Section 5 of the report.
The official recommendation for the new legislation reads as follows:
“The Government proposes that there will still be only one ground for divorce: that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. However, this would be established in a new way. The Government proposes to move away completely from both the ability to allege “fault” and the ability to contest (defend) the divorce: We propose to move away from an approach that requires justification to the court of the reason for the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage to a process that requires notification to the court of irretrievable breakdown. We also propose to remove the ability of a spouse, as a general rule, to contest the divorce (this is formally called defending in the legal process…). The Government reasons that if one spouse has concluded that the marriage is over, then the legal process should respect that decision and should not place impediments in the way of a spouse who wants to bring the marriage to a legal end. Importantly, this change would also prevent the legal process from being used to exercise coercive control by one spouse over the other spouse who may be a victim of domestic abuse.
“The Government therefore proposes to repeal the requirement for petitioners to give evidence of one or more facts and to replace it with a process of giving notice of irretrievable breakdown. In this process, the person seeking the divorce (or potentially the couple jointly) would give notice to the court of the intention to divorce, stating their belief that the marriage had broken down irretrievably. Irretrievable breakdown would therefore continue to be the sole ground for divorce. In the two-stage decree process that we propose to retain, the court would not be able to grant the first and interim decree (the decree nisi) if it was not satisfied that the marriage had broken down irretrievably.”
( SIFC : Notice the clever pretense of a residual “judicial discretion function” in the last sentence, mimicking a pseudo separation-of-powersbut no longer with any actual substance, since explicitly all that will be legally required is the Petitioner’s subjective assertion which would then bind the judges to just one possible decision, once appealed. Under the U.S. Constitution this sort of window-dressing would be an imperative due to Articles 3 and 10.)
How did the vetting population feel about this? And who were they?
Overwhelmingly, these UK citizens are opposed to the main legislative recommendation to remove fundamental family protections, but their voice is clearly being ignored. This figure tracks right along with data gathered three decades ago in the U.S. that showed 80% of Respondents to a “no-fault” petition alleging “irretrievable breakdown” opposed the dissolution of the marriage based on religion and conscience, even if they could not afford to formally contest. Clearly, these UK citizens know when their civil rights and the sovereignty of the family are at risk, and when they don’t buy into the problem definition to begin with.
Based on who the vetting population consisted of, it is clear to see who made up the 15% minority in favor of forced, non-consensual divorce.
Independence in the research study?
SIFC found that in digging into the Nuffield study on which the legislative recommendations almost entirely rely, the backward-engineering (n.b. desired solution defines the “problem” which scopes the “research”), and cozy relationships between the legislators, judiciary and the family law industry didn’t take long at all to detect. Clicking over to the webpage of one of the partners in the study, statistician firm Bryson Purdon Social Research, we find their list of current and past projects shows that they are regularly hired by legislators. The acknowledgments page of the study gushes about the extensive contributions of the family law lobbying association in the UK called Resolution, several members of which served as advisors and “recruited interviewees”.
It would have been great to compare the list of officers and trustees of the Nuffield Foundation with those of Resolution, but unfortunately, the latter was unavailable to non-members. We have already mentioned the study director’s extensive ties to family law. As a touching finish, we read this dedication: “This report is dedicated to the memory of Sir Nicholas Wall, a former President of the Family Division (of the Judiciary) and an advocate of divorce law reform.
Rationale for disregarding overwhelmingly negative public input On page 16 of the study, we read the following (bold emphasis added by SIFC):
“In our national opinion survey, 71% thought that fault should remain part of the law. However, the general public are unlikely to be aware that the current law does not in fact seek to make a definitive allocation of blame or of the very limited scrutiny that the court can undertake in practice.
(SIFC: In other words, the ignorant peasantry simply “doesn’t understand” that the current statute is meant to preserve an appearance, and isn’t meant to foster the best family outcomes, renovate the system from the ground up so that the judiciary can manage its case load, preserve fundamental rights of innocent family members or promote any meaningful changes in the existing power structures for the good of society as a whole.)
“Drawing on qualitative interviews with the parties, we drew a contrast between two different and mutually exclusive moralities in relation to divorce: a traditional one based on ideas about individual justice for the petitioner, and a responsibility morality based on the ‘good divorce’ where the focus is on harm-minimisation, especially in relation to children. The first emphasises the importance of a strict adherence to and finding of fault; the second would eliminate fault if possible.
“We also traced how adherents of both moralities experienced the divorce process. In general, the experience of both groups was largely negative, but for different reasons. For some embracing a justice morality, the pragmatic orientation of the justice system could be deeply frustrating, whilst for others the experience of fault turned out to be problematic due to the conflict and upset it generated. Those embracing a responsibility morality also found the experience difficult. Some were using fault pragmatically but found the process slow and painful; whilst some who were avoiding fault on principle found the long separation required to avoid fault very difficult in practical terms and also left them feeling they had lost control of private family decisions. A small number of interviewees a dopting the justice morality wanted the role of fault to be strengthened, but for most the removal of fault was strongly preferred. ”
( SIFC : The removal of fault may have been “preferred” for Resolution’s hand-picked interviewees for the study, but this was certainly not born out in Commons’ vetting effort with the general public, which showed an even stronger result at 83% than the still-overwhelming 71% found in the study. We should also note that the last statement directly contradicts the beginning statement in this quote: so, which is it, Resolution?)
Why is increasing the role of fault important to this “small number of interviewees”? Dr. Stephen Baskerville, Professor of Government and Public Policy at Patrick Henry College, and author of two enormously important books, “Taken into Custody” (2007) and “The New Politics of Sex: The Sexual Revolution, Civil Liberties, and the Growth of Governmental Power” (2017) travels all over Europe explaining this very eloquently…
Dr. Baskerville (~ 2 minutes): “Nobody’s claiming we have to force somebody to live in a house with somebody they don’t want to live with. The question is…who bears the consequences? It’s a legal contract, or it should be, and if one walks away from it, what are the consequences? Who gets the house? Who gets the children or property and so forth ? Under what circumstances does the state have the role to come in and start allocating things? So fine, if someone wants to leave a marriage then I think we have no choice but to allow them to do that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here in the divorce machinery is positive state action against the other spouse. Why should that spouse who wants to leave the marriage without legal grounds…
( SIFC : excluding purely subjective legal grounds not based in any provable offense against the marriage or family members)
“… shouldn’t he or she leave with just the clothes on their backs, what they can get in a suitcase, and nothing else? Do they have the right to take the children, take the house, take the property with them when they leave? And this, of course, is where the state has to step in and say…has to allocate fault. They have to say where justice and injustice is.”
We provide this additional brief link to another key segment of the February, 2019 interview with Dr. Baskerville, for important further context. The study respondents in favor of increasing the role of fault know that the true best moral interest of the children and the only avenue to actual, objective justice, upon which a sustainable society depends, absolutely requires the application of fault, at least with respect to the effects of the divorce. The real barrier to this policy alternative, of course, is the hoped-for business model of the family law special interests, including the sponsors and designers of this “research study”.
“The aim of the policy is to reduce conflict between couples involved in divorce, dissolution and legal separation. The policy objectives are in line with wider strategic objectives to deliver a modern courts and justice system, including to provide a fair and effective justice system which supports better outcomes for children and families.
“The objectives are:
• To ensure that the decision to divorce or dissolve a civil partnership continues to be a considered one
• To minimise the adversarial nature of the legal process, to reduce conflict and to support better outcomes by maximising the opportunity for the parties to agree arrangements for the future
• To make the legal process fair, transparent, and easier to navigate
• To reduce the opportunities for an abuser to misuse the legal process to perpetrate further abuse”
These are purely ideological statements, with an undertone of making the law as LGBTQ-friendly as possible (code word: “Equality”). We point out that if a justice system which supports better outcomes for children and families were really the objective, then the research study would have been designed accordingly around family structure outcomes, and Dr. Regnerus’ rigorous 2012 NFSS study would have been invaluable support in reaching that outcome.
Because the April, 2019 position paper by Lord Chancellor David Gauke brings no other independent evidence to bear other than this heavily-biased and less-than-arm’s-length “research” (extensively requoted verbatim in the final recommendations, including the incomplete set of policy alternatives)– and the public citizen input has been patently ignored and discounted, “standerinfamilycourt” rests our case against the validity of “support” for this legislation here, rather than picking apart the legislative conclusions point-by-point (which was nevertheless tempting!)
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
https://cordellcordell.co.uk/news/divorce_in_the_uk_stats_and_facts/
by Standerinfamilycourt
And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” – Mark 10:11-12
This blog post has been in-progress for the better part of a year now. In a way, there’s both good and bad in that happenstance. On the “good” side, the British “wheels of progress” have ground very slowly – God be praised! On the bad side, we’ve witnessed an adulterous royal “wedding” (to which the U.S. sent its second most godless Anglican clergyman to take part in the nuptials), and….the echo chamber of the UK media has had little pushback as they trot out the same unsupportable arguments that have long been discredited and overwhelmingly disproven by the five decades of ruinous track record for unilateral “no-fault” divorce in the U.S.
A hopelessly flawed official report (“study” result) was published in the House of Commons in October, 2018 with enactment recommendations. Part 2 of this post will break down that “study” for our readers, in detail.
Since last spring, “standerinfamilycourt” has been reading an avalanche of articles that look and sound like they have literally been plucked from a dusty 1969 box, and retyped to add the requisite “u’s” and replace the “z’s” with “s’s”. Those articles were “snake oil” back then, when U.S. church and government leaders were shamefully duped by the latent cultural Marxism taking dead aim at the U.S. Bill of Rights, and they’re still “snake oil” in their recycled state as they’re being dusted off (again) in London.
Where’s the mention of the direct impact this regime has had on the willingness of U.S. young people to ever marry at all, rather than cohabit (and thereby keep the reckless totalitarian government out of their homes altogether), and the concupiscent attorneys out of their pockets?
Where is the mention of all the constitutional challenges being renewed by citizens in numerous states to try to overturn the various U.S. state laws and vindicate their violated fundamental rights?
The chief argument that seems to be carrying the day in the UK (according to the media and the official Parliamentary report) is the utterly bizarre notion that forcibly shredding someone’s family and destroying their generations, robbing their family’s hard-earned wealth and materially compromising most family members’ futures will somehow “reduce conflict”. Hello?
Another key U.S. reality that goes unmentioned in the UK (one-sided) debate: the bulk of attorney fees in the United States’ $100 billion-a-year “family law” industrial complex come not from the divorce itself, but from years and years of subsequent legal conflict between family members for so long as the children remain minors. Fifty years of U.S. experience have exposed this spurious “reduced acrimony” argument as completely untrue, so it’s beyond ridiculous that in a day and age of worldwide instant media access, elite special interests are pulling this over on the British public! If only the BBC would dare to air the U.S. documentary DivorceCorp,and give the railroaded British citizens a truthful look at their future under this “reform”.
“Barbaric!” they all hissed. Several of us would argue that what’s really barbaric is what the U.S. has been saddled with for decades, which was the literal incubator that has since led to a veritable Pandora’s Box of ever-worsening religious freedom and parental rights violations, for both intact and government-shattered families.
Not one of these liberal “rags” showed the least bit of concern or compassion for Tini’s grieving family members – the ones with the clean hands! How outrageous of every one of them to demonize this faithful and gracious husband who has every right and responsibility before God to keep his family whole.
The real fault in the Tini Owens case, contrary to the media hype and thick emotional huckstering, is that existing UK law still allows for an entirely unilateral divorce to be had by the offending party after 5 years of self-imposed non-cohabitation, and probably allows an abandoner to also take half of the family assets, which in the case of the Owenses, was considerable:
“They built up a hugely successful £5million-a-year mushroom growing business and amassed four ‘nice houses’, including a stunning £630,000 Cotswolds farmhouse, where the family lived, and holiday homes in Wales and France.” – Daily Mail, July, 2018
Much hand-wringing ensued the refusal of the appeals courts to hear the case, rather than state the obvious: Ms. Owens had separated from Mr. Owens in 2015, and according to one media source, had been in an adulterous relationship from 2012, so Mr. Owens could have filed a fault-based petition against her in due time much shorter than 5 years, but apparently feared God and had compassion for his wife. The reality is that the UK government did not owe Mrs. Owens a financial reward for selfishly breaking up her 40-year marriage and leaving her blameless husband four years ago. It is against sound public policy, indeed, for them to do so.
Three things tend to be a commonality with elite social engineering, as we’ve painfully learned here in the “colonies”: emotional pitches run absolutely amok in the media, the laser-like focus always locks onto the most extreme outlier case that could possibly be dredged up, as if this rare case was going to bind and ruin the whole nation, and lastly, there is a conspicuous absence of grassroots demand for the “urgent” change outside of commercially-paid and sponsored “surveys”.
As was the case in the U.S., and continues to be, there are a few quality voices speaking out against this poorly-justified piece of legislation, including Thomas Pascoe, campaign director at Coalition for Marriage, who recently said in an interview, “We already have no-fault divorce, but it takes between two years when both parties agree and five when they do not. This standstill period recognises the gravity of divorce. It allows both parties time to try and save the marriage and allows both time to make reasonable adjustments to their lives where no agreement can be found.”
Similarly, Colin Hart of the Christian Institute points out the resoundingly obvious truth that “no-blame” actually constitutes no justice.
Finally, in the House of Commons briefing paper, Sir Edward Leigh (Conservative) was quoted as having pointed to evidence from other countries which, he said, showed the wider consequences such legislation might have. ” Sir Edward then set out other potential impacts of family breakdown, drawing on evidence from a study in the US which argued that 75% of low-income divorced women with children had not been poor when they were married, but Douglas Allen also points out in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy that “the real negative impact of the no-fault divorce regime was on children, and increasing the divorce rate meant increasing numbers of disadvantaged children.” In the UK, Sir Edward continued, a 2009 review by the then Department for Children, Schools, and Families had found that a child not growing up in a two-parent family household was more likely to experience a number of problems which he detailed. He also spoke of other research on the effects of family breakdown. Sir Edward considered that the potential adverse consequences of no-fault divorce should rule out its introduction.” (Sir Edward was on the right track, but still didn’t have the gist or full evidence of what this kind of legislation has done in the U.S. after the divorce, nor that it has been the least bit successful in curbing “conflict” – a function of disingenuous problem definition by the majority.)
Sadly, none of these voices are availing themselves of the abundance of available, documented evidence that these policies have horribly failed in country after country around the world. History is eerily repeating itself fifty years later, with no lessons learned. As was true in the 1960’s, female attorneys have been conspiring this con job, and gaining the blind support of the elites. According to the president of the UK Supreme Court, Baroness Hale, the majority of “solicitors” (practicing attorneys) in the UK are women. She has been advocating for unilateral, forced divorce since the early 1990’s, as had the feminist U.S. womens’ bar groups. Lady Hale asserts in 2016, more than half of all divorce petitions were submitted on the basis of adultery or “unreasonable behavior” (a.k.a. “emotional abuse”, in U.S. legalspeak). We actually need to be honest about the fact that the main driver of divorce is, and always has been adultery (and the desire to legitimize adulterous relationships). Civilized, sustainable societies don’t incentivize adultery. The objective of these feminists has always been to remove the father from the family (forcibly, if necessary) so that he won’t be in a position to obstruct further social engineering.
These special interests allege that the (existing) law forces separating couples to “make more aggressive allegations against one another” in order to secure a divorce, verbatim the overblown 1969 argument in the U.S. , as if sweeping excrement under an “irreconcilable differences” rug, will take away the stench. On our side of the pond, we know that all this philosophy has accomplished is train our society to lie in ever-broader ways and blame others for our own self-indulgences.
This cartoon points out the U.S. situation where the very same lobbying professionals who were falsely asserting that unilateral divorce-on-demand would “reduce acrimony” – rather than merely postpone it, were actually about to start ramping up their profits by egging the acrimony on during the proceedings and long afterward – to the point of having non-custodial parents jailed and worse.
In the UK, it’s objectively true that such “aggressive” allegations must be made to shorten the waiting period from 5 years to 2 years under current law, while in the U.S. prior to 1970, only one state allowed a couple to mutually agree to end their marriage, while the UK does not allow for mutual consent divorces either, according to the government discussion paper(a fact that conveniently escapes the “problem” definition in the House of Commons analysis – for which there is, in fact, a commercial reason that goes undiscussed). Both were unstable situations, however, mustthe UK repeat the U.S. constitutional travesty of killing a gnat with a sledge hammer and reaping the harsh societal consequences? What would be wrong with instead implementing a mutual consent joint petition, with perhaps a 180 day waiting period? Why not retain fault-based grounds where there’s no consent, but eliminate the waiting period altogether if the charges are proven? As Thomas Pascoe pointed out, no alternative models were adequately considered, which strongly implies that a prescribed “solution” was looking for a “problem”, rather than the other way around.
No-fault divorce was reportedly first introduced by the Family Law Act 1996, but its provisions were later deemed “unworkable” after a pilot attempt and it was repealed. It has been widely supported by prominent members of the judiciary, lawyers and relationship charities (in other words, the elite, and not broad citizenship demands. ) Quoting a 2001 article in the Daily Mail about the repeal,
“The admission came as Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine at last killed off Part Two of the Family Law Act, which would have allowed a husband or wife to ditch their spouse in 12 months without ever having to bear blame or answer for their behaviour.
“Opponents of the law brought in nearly five years ago by John Major’s Tory government, and enthusiastically backed by Labour, insisted no-fault divorce would increase break-ups rather than help families.
“Lord Irvine has now acknowledged that the opponents of the system were right and the law would be repealed.”
So, what has changed, UK?
Between that previous attempt to move toward forced-divorce-on-demand and the current campaign, the Anglican Church liberalized its doctrine in 2002 to promote “remarriages” that Jesus consistently called adulterous, effectively clearing away any temporal reasons for meaningful opposition from the country’s largest and its state church.
Writes a friend of “standerinfamilycourt” who lives in Cornwall,
“It’s been handed over to the Crown prosecution who believe it’s the only way forward now for the Government to pass , So sad
“I spoke to my MP Derek Thomas Conservative MP for St Ives Cornwall, knew him before he was an MP but when I talked to him about divorce and remarriage his face went blank, end of conversation. I will have to write or email him a letter, we are going down the pan quickly here in the UK Brexit abortion now this, yes sad to say the big wigs here follow the States, money to be made let’s go go go.”
Perhaps this Cornish friend will now be able to educate her MP about the five-decade U.S. adventure in state-enforced family shredding, and inform him that a growing number of people in the States don’t think setting back the family clock 50 years is actually that bad an idea. This is not yet a “done deal”. Bad policy was enacted and repealed before in the UK. This is even worse policy, and does not deserve to be enacted, despite the powerful endorsements. Even India had the common sense to repeal faultless unilateral divorce practices in their country, ruling them unconstitutional violations of equal protection and property rights.
Discretion will guard you, Understanding will watch over you… To deliver you from the strange woman, From the adulteress who flatters with her words; That leaves the companion of her youth And forgets the covenant of her God; For her house sinks down to death And her tracks lead to the dead; None who go to her return again, Nor do they reach the paths of life. – Proverbs 2: 11, 16-18
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
The only silver lining in this sorry episode, where Arizona CPS engaged a SWAT team to kick down a family’s door over a reported disagreement with their child’s doctor, is that mainstream media (ABC, in this stance) chose to cover it, probably not understanding the glaring conservative implications, or that anyone “out there” would connect the dots…many dots. Nobody, however, who’s ever sat unwillingly in a “family court”, and experienced the horror of having a CPS, DCS, DFS (etc.) surgically-appended to their family life as a lasting consequence… can fail to connect those dots. Or grieve, as they watch our society literally disintegrating before their own eyes.
Why WAS the SWAT team utilized against an intact family with several children in the house, anyway? Could it be because societal decay causes such a large swath of our society to believe they must keep guns in the house? Could it be because the legal environment which makes a civil marriage certificate one of the most financially and emotionally dangerous documents a young couple could possibly obtain, means a presumption that the parents are less sovereign over their children because they’ve forgone marriage as the basis for their family structure? Or is it simply the profit motive…augmenting and protecting “state inventory” in order narrow an unbalanceable state fiscal budget by accessing Federal Title IV-D funds from a more central government (where widening national debt and fiscal deficits is more politically viable)?
Back in the better days of our U.S. Supreme Court, parental sovereignty was an immovable staple of our jurisprudence, even in cases where parental merit was questionable at best. Today, with 9,000+ cases submitted annually to SCOTUS, and perhaps one-third to half that number submitted to each of the state supreme courts in the course of a year, parental rights have virtually disintegrated with the practical reality that access to the benefit of those prior court precedents protecting parental sovereignty is no longer meaningfully available to most parents. Only the first appellate level in each state is actually required by law to hear a given case, and the system grants immunities to officials who abuse their posts to persecute or loot families…official (including judicial) immunities that must be overcome in the very courts that have grown increasingly inaccessible to most. Sometimes a gun in the house makes all the sense in the world, at this point in a society’s disintegration over the growing unreliability of the rule of law.
So, the remedy (says the local legislator and the media mouthpiece) is to pass legislation to require a warrant before family doors are kicked down and the gendarmerie goes in blasting. (What? You mean, like, actually enforce the 4th Amendment?) Tell that to the Ohio family whose teenager was confiscated because the state deemed it to be “abusive” that they were denying transgender treatments to their own child. No, the remedy, America, is to take the nearest exit ramp off the socialism interstate, and repeal unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws that have for five decades undermined the social and moral structure of this dying republic.
We must not confuse band-aids with eradicating surgery. Since when have we needed additional laws to deliver a fundamental Bill of Rights protection? The answer is clear: we “need” the additional laws because the rule-of-law has broken down due to deep-seated sustainability issues.
And, oh is the way back going to be slow and painful! Multi-generational painful. Parental ability and judgment has been compromised, on a macro level, by this third-generation family-shredding regime. Enactment of divorce-on-demand and (especially) its accompanying ban on consideration of marital fault in apportioning the consequences of forced family-shredding has literally institutionalized breaches of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th commandments into our legislative and judicial systems, while the perverse financial incentives to look the other way have spread woefully to our nation’s churches. Nearly every state legislature in the union has various types of weapon-carry bills before it right now, either to preempt the reactionary gun-control symptoms of school and other mass shootings attributable to societal decay, or to combat the reduced security of our homes and venturings-out, in general.
Even under color of (man’s) law….
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” – Exodus 20:17
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. – Judges 21:25
What happens when a Marine returns to civilian life, becomes a Certified Public Accountant and uses his professional training in an all-out battle to restore the very principles he served overseas to defend? Hopefully, a lot! What follows is a Tennessee tale, that is equally true in virtually all other U.S. states.
( SIFC: John graciously reviewed this article and provided input, which will be inserted below.)
In this 2017 video, Gentry speaks of the mysterious and questionable deaths in 2010 of a former lady state senator from Georgia and her husband. Nancy Schafer had been a leader in the late Phyliss Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and had been campaigning against the child-trafficking abuses facilitated by Title IV-D funds, which she says in a 2009 radio interview had caused her to lose her seat in the Georgia Senate. The deaths were officially ruled a murder-suicide, but many doubt the truth of that, due to the death threats Mrs. Schafer had been receiving because of her efforts and high profile exposure of corruption.
(For a shorter version of a similar speech, click here. )
Mr. Gentry, however, is not actually himself an aggrieved parent. The public record reflects that he married a business owner in 2009, and that she filed a unilateral “no-fault” divorce petition against him in 2014, which he tells us he supported. Both were middle-aged at the time of the marriage, and they were childless. The court records reflect that he spent considerable time in court fighting the settlement provisions of the divorce and then appealing them, but on only various technical complaints, rather than bringing a constitutional challenge of the statute itself.
So what caused him to become so passionately involved in doing battle with CPS-sponsored child trafficking for Federal funds, and with exposing the judicial corruption that enables it ? That’s not entirely clear from any of the available sources, but “standerinfamilycourt” can relate. Though personally blessed to be able to raise two children to adulthood in an intact marriage that thrived for most of their years growing up, SIFC sat many days in the courtroom and watched judges ride roughshod over many young fathers, denying them their God-assigned responsibility of ensuring the safety of their own children after wayward wives had unilaterally divorced them and moved in with someone else. John is gracious not to speak of his estranged wife at all in speeches and interviews, but it seems clear that in all of his pro-se legal filings (of varying effectiveness, over process in his own divorce case), he joins the rest of us in being appalled that a state law can unilaterally deprive one of the parties of their due process protections. But….when we see someone else’s children suffering or being legally abused and endangered because of it, soon enough our own battle wounds are subordinated and we take up the even worse offense suffered by those unfortunate families. CPA’s comply with a strong professional ethics code, and are subject to reliable censure for acts reflecting poorly on the profession, so to see the legal community flouting their standards of professional ethics and getting away with it, is certainly a strong motive for action (to which SIFC can also directly relate.) These two professions have very significant overlaps.
Yet, John does not appear to be an overt champion of repealing unilateral “no-fault” grounds for divorce, per se. He seems to strictly focus on reforming judicial accountability and oversight processes, the widespread lack of which greatly exacerbates the evil effects from 49 states maintaining a profoundly unconstitutional “family law” statute on the books. His main personal beef with the family court system seems to be mostly property-related, believing (according to the Tennessee lower court description) that he was entitled to a share in the business his wife founded before they married.
( SIFC: John’s additional input… “Although I transformed my ex wife failing business into a successful and internationally recognized brand (subsequently closed due to my ex-wife’s inability to operate a business), my “beef” was intellectual property I created, a patent pending product with international distribution, worth millions, was valued by corrupt court as zero and distributed 100% to my ex wife. That product too failed under her care. Very sad. Even with that, I don’t care about the property. My “beef” is about the criminal conduct of all the judges and attorneys (including my own attorneys). Severe deprivation of due process and equal protection.”
Fair enough, since something has to create “standing” to bring access to the courts of appeal. It is rather typical for family courts to automatically deem the “no-fault” Petitioner to be “more credible” than any Respondent who contests any part of the proceedings, and proceed to extract whatever financial penalty is circumstantially available, to teach others a lesson about challenging judicial authority or this state statute. Gentry says in a recent (2019) interview that he has two certiorari requests before the U.S. Supreme Court. The only such request brief (2018) that “standerinfamilycourt” was able to read does not seem to raise a specific, actionable constitutional challenge, nor ask the Court to consider any specific legal questions.
Mr. Gentry has, however (so far, unsuccessfully) attempted, under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, to sue the trial court judge who granted his wife’s civil dissolution petition, hoping in Federal court to pierce though the immunity shield which insulates state judges from liability for actions that are within their subject matter jurisdiction. The public record does not provide the details of whether he based any of his pleadings on an Article 3 separation-of-powers argument, but the state appeals ruling does not reflect that he made such an argument during the trial, nor acted to reserve his right to appeal on this constitutional basis. These constitutional matters generally need to be raised way back at the petition response phase of the initial grounds trial to be deemed to have any standing for appeal (at least, based on SIFC’s personal experience), based on court operating rules and precedents.
Having apparently lost or been denied a hearing in 2017 in the U.S. Sixth Circuit, he has successfully attempted to get his case docketed at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, but it remains to be seen whether it will ever be heard. In this instance, the briefs Gentry submitted in early 2018 for his request for certiorari are publicly available. He requested all eight (at the time) sitting Justices to “recuse themselves” on his theory that they would each have generalized “probable bias”, which he listed in his brief as the “standard of review”. Presumably, he has argued this at each level of the appeals process. SIFC does not really see an effective, specific pleading with respect to Article 3in that document, nor for that matter any immediately actionable request for relief from the court for which he would be deemed to have standing. It could be argued quite reasonably that the best (and perhaps only) way for all of the sitting justices to “recuse themselves” is to simply deny certiorari, and move on to the remaining 8,999+ submissions. The other filed document is a brief request to have filing fees for his “cert” petition waived based on Gentry’s veteran status and service to our country. The record reflects that this was denied him.
( SIFC: John’s additional input… “In the Supreme Court of the United States, the clerk’s office concealed 14 of 17 appendixes that evidenced impeachable conduct of magistrates and judges in the district court and sixth circuit. The impeachable conduct of the federal judges occurred to protect the criminal conduct of the state court judge and attorneys.”
The main point of interest in reading through Gentry’s case and appeal briefs, for those of us hoping to re-route a series of effective constitutional appeals of various state unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws through the Federal courts based on 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, and based on a specific legal question concerning separation-of-powers, is whether what Gentry argued is closely related to what the divorce appeal cases will be arguing. It does not appear that the pleadings will be even remotely similar.
Family law reform activist Jeff Morgan sat down last month and videotaped an interview series with Mr. Gentry in Tennessee concerning his remonstrance efforts before the Tennessee legislature. This particular area of endeavor may hold the more fruitful potential for needed family law reforms vis-à-vis his SCOTUS filings, at least with regard to doing something about the judicial corruption aspect. Those interviews with Jeff are very articulate and credible, with a good grasp on history and original founding documents. The aim of the petition of Gentry’s remonstrance is to goad our legislators to stop shirking their constitutional responsibility to oversee the conduct and ethics (including violation of required separation-of-powers) of the judiciary. It should be pointedly noted, however, that in the case of “adjudicating” unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws, there is no actual provable offense, no lawful cause-of-action, and no constitutionally legitimate judicial role — the bottom line is that the statutes themselves violate the separation of powers in Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution (and the counterpart clauses in all of the state constitutions). In this case, there are both legislative and judicial foxes guarding the chicken coop! Gentry, however, does not seem to be focused on this, because his primary concern is with property and parental rights symptoms of the root problem. There really are too many potent disincentives to better behavior by the judiciary until the root cancer is excised, either by SCOTUS or by legislative repeal of faultless unilateral grounds and repeal of faultless criteria for the property and parental effects of civil “dissolution” .
Gentry’s petition of remonstrance was predictably rebuffed when he brought it in January of this year before the Tennessee legislature. The clerk of the Senate claimed that only sitting legislators could legally bring such a petition, and accused Gentry of misusing the process, according to a January 27 story by Dave Tullis of 92.7 Nooga Radio: “In the missive below, Mr. Stevens calls the Gentry remonstrance illegal, ludicrous. ‘If it were heard, it would set an evil precedent. All manner of other people would stream before the general assembly and take up all of its time with their grievances, he says. No, it is not the purpose of the general assembly to hear grievances. It is the purpose of the general assembly to write laws.’ …That is essentially is his [Sen. Stephens’]argument. His fear of Mr. Gentry’s making personal argument before senate and house is that it will open the gates for an outpouring of public sentiment against the political machinery that he represents.”
Gee, that’s really rough, Sen. Stephens! We can’t have the chickens coming home to roost after decades of legislators and judges taking wholesale advantage of the citizens, for crying out loud!
“While I appreciate the effort you have obviously put forward in this endeavor, you have grossly misunderstood the historical and practical implications of remonstrance. Further, you have misread our rules and constitution. You have no constitutional right to present to the general assembly your remonstrance…
( SIFC: Au Contraire:” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the peoplepeaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”– 1st Amendment, U.S. Constitution
“Section 23. That the citizens have a right, in a peaceable manner, to assemble together for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to those invested with the powers of government for redress of grievances, or other proper purposes, by address of remonstrance. ”
– Article 1, Constitution of the State of Tennessee
Earnestly hoping Mr. Gentry has randomly appeared at the state capital without having bothered to read either founding document, Mr. Stephens continues….. )
” Our rules apply to the members of the general assembly.
James Madison’s famous memorial and remonstrance regarding religious liberty was presented to the Virginia assemblyas a MEMBER of the assembly. Although you appear to have read our rules, you have ignored Rule 9 – No one may address the speakerexcept a member of the senate, and Rule 11, which directs members to only direct their comments to the Speaker.
(SIFC: To carefully preserve the highly-lucrative power stranglehold that members of the bar have carefully nurtured over at least two (arguably, all three) branches of government over the course of the last several decades, their promulgation of “operating rules” haven’t hesitated to trounce on the fundamental rights of ordinary citizens, and do furtive end-runs around these constitutional provisions. This is equally true of court “operating rules” and of legislative chamber rules. Most ordinary citizens aren’t taught about these, even if they’re fortunate enough to have had a good civics class in school, don’t even know that they exist or that many have corrupt purposes, and with the accountability structures also incapacitated by pervasive collusion, this is a very effective means of ensuring that the peasantry may not avail themselves of their fundamental rights unless they are unusually persistent for peasants. Indeed, “standerinfamilycourt”, being very well-educated, otherwise, with a closely-related professional certification, a masters’ degree, considerable business and regulatory law experience, got a first taste of “court rules” as a result of witness stand mode of testimony being repeatedly interrupted and rebuked as “unacceptable” by the family court judge. With all due respect, Senator, legislative rules don’t apply to Mr. Gentry, so your point about “rules” is irrelevant. In fact, your “schooling” of Mr. Gentry conveniently ignores the citizen remonstrances that have occurred in other states, made to the legislature, and not through a representative.)
“To think otherwise is absurd. The citizens of Tennessee, nor any republic, would not stand for the expenditure of their resources by their elected representatives if our legislative attention was diverted from legislative deliberation to, instead, sitting through the presentation of such remonstrances by individual citizens.
“There could be hundreds if not thousands filed. It is absolutely ludicrous to even consider that the drafters of our constitution, let alone the citizens who approved its adoption, would spend the time to create a system of representative government only to completely eviscerate its operation through some supposed right of remonstrance which included the right of a citizen or citizens to commandeer its members of the general assembly for the reading of the entire remonstrance by the chief clerk or to even require said “petitioner” to gain the undivided attention of all 132 members at the same time or of each individual body at the same time.
“The citizens of Tennessee have the right guaranteed in Art. I, Section 23, to express their opposition or support of proposed legislative action, government conduct or policy.
“Like all rights, it is not without limitation. The limitation is the procedure for such an “address of remonstrance.” I am unaware of any procedure in law or in our rules that allow a citizen to file a remonstrance, beyond that in T.C.A. 69-5-922.
“Such procedures have been established through the adoption of the rules of the house and senate, respectively. The rules apply to the members. The rules provide for presentation of resolutions, petitions and memorials by members of the general assembly and do not address in any way remonstrances.
“I do not have a copy of Mason’s with me in my district office so I do not know if they address the filing of remonstrances. In any event, any member of the general assembly can file a resolution, petition or memorial which would then proceed through the normal legislative process. I suggest contacting your representative and senator and have your remonstrance presented in the form of a resolution or petition.” [End of Stevens letter]
So, where has Gentry’s effort gone since January? This, too, is very telling of the long journey involved, even when the petitioner is legally correct, and the objecting solons blowing nothing but smoke. David Tullis followed up with another article on March 9, “Senate clerk mum as blocks bid to impeach crooked judges”…
“Whispers about a remonstrance project swirl this week in Nashville as the senate clerk refuses to answer press questions about his rejection of senate rules and a TV station airs a salacious story about Tennessee judges whoring and toking in the tropics.
“Senate clerk Russell Humphrey ignores repeated efforts to interview him about his refusal to give senators copies of the petition for remonstrance on judicial misfeasance and his ignoring senate rules requiring remonstrances to be read to the entire body…NanetteMitchell, journal clerk for the senate, in two phone calls says she will take a message requesting an interview about the remonstrance to Mr. Humphrey. She says he is not available. Mr. Humphrey makes no return call to tell his side of the story…
“Nashville TV station WSMV TV4 obtained travel records from the government of Costa Rica showing that legal personalities in Davidson County visited that country at the same time as did a corrupt judge, Casey Moreland of sessions court.
“The vacationing was highlighted by prostitutes and narcotics, the report says. “According to those documents, in 2013, General Sessions Judge Aaron Holt entered and left Costa Rica on the same dates as Moreland.” Lawyers and a Davidson County district attorney, Glenn Funk, also were in the country at the same time as Judge Moreland, who is under a prison sentence….”
Here is a link to a January 29 interview carried on Nooga Radio, where Gentry responded to these events over the air.
Apparently, even if all the members of the state senate were not distributed copies of the remonstrance document, Gentry gained the ear of his own state representative, and nevertheless wound up testifying before a committee at least twice in March and April, bringing his requests for mandatory drug testing of judges, for abolishment of the judicial conduct council (consisting of judges, not of legislators or their agents), and strengthened recusal rules for both legislators and judges. Whether an independent development or in response to Gentry’s complaint, the legislature considered a measure to rename and reorganize the judicial body to oversee judicial conduct, while (naturally) still leaving it unconstitutionally in the hands of judges, rather than bringing it directly back under the legislature (and mandated separation-of-powers), as the Constitution requires. It also appears that the “window-dressing” exercise (HB0782/SB0722) might have been scrapped or slowed as a result of Gentry’s April 2 committee testimony. It remains to be seen whether an authentic reform measure will replace it at some point.
All this said, Gentry does a valuable service with his studies, of reminding all of us where legislators are specifically violating their own ethics and conflict-of-interest rules (@ ~23 minutes) in the very processof legislating “family laws”, whereas in many states, family law attorneys with a direct pecuniary interest sit on the “family law” committees, and sometimes even chair them, or they are given (by legislative “rules”) what amounts to unilateral veto power over whether or not a committee-approved reform bill ever makes it to the floor for a vote, via routine scheduling. To borrow a football analogy, Gentry’s efforts constitute offensive blocking, but when it comes to comprehensive family law reform (a truly separate issue in its own right) so that state statutes comport with the Constitution, he must not be mistaken for the ball-carrier.
Gentry’s website provides detailed guidance and materials for this process of remonstrance, and petitioning for arms-length judicial oversight in any and all states, as he is currently in the process of carrying out in Tennessee. Remonstrance might possibly make the legislative process (to reform state family laws so that they no longer violate the Constitution, on numerous points) more fair in the future, by neutralizing the powerful conflicting interests, but the remonstrance process will not directly result in the needed separate reform of these separately unconstitutional statutes, whether in Tennessee this occurs by successful Federal court action on the basis of (U.S.) Article 3 challenges of unilateral “no-fault” judicial actions, or it occurs by a successful legislative effort ahead of such a judgment.
Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Or crush the afflicted at the gate; For the Lord will plead their case And take the life of those who rob them. – Proverbs 22: 22-23
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas … But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. “ (Rev. Martin Luther King, April 16, 1963)
Today marks a major milestone in the ministry of “standerinfamilycourt”. Someone was “triggered” over our blog on antinomianism and the Christian media pandering-for-profit to so-called “blended families.” Interestingly, the Facebook crew had just 24 hours earlier, approved this particular post to be “boosted” in a paid ad, deciding at that time, it met their “community standards”.
Of course we weren’t talking about “the Brady Bunch” here when we discussed these “blended families”. Back in the day, it was as reliable as twin beds in the TV-land marital bedroom that “the lovely lady” and the “man named Brady” were both widowed. We were instead talking about those who blatantly disobey New Testament scripture to drag their spouse before a pagan court to get “dissolution” papers, and then further disobey scripture to take advantage of biblically-immoral civil laws that allow them to “remarry” while their true spouse is still living. Jesus repeatedly told us that this amounted to ongoing adultery, as did the Apostle Paul.
For a couple of years, “standerinfamilycourt” has watched many distinguished others (who are vocal online about sexual ethics) get shut down without notice, and based only on someone “reporting” a post as “offensive”, find themselves unable to operate any sites they were associated with, including their personal wall (even if that’s not where the reported “infraction” occurred). Those who have gone before have usually “triggered” someone in the LGBTQ community, or their sympathizers. Meanwhile, since SIFC tends to believe that hand-wringing over mere symptoms (weaponized homosexualism, for example) of the root cancer (church leadership acquiescence to immoral and unconstitutional family laws) is a bit futile, unless surgery is scheduled at the source of the symptoms. “standerinfamilycourt” believes that the conditions others complain of in that realm are part of God’s slowly unfolding progressive judgment on the nation, ongoing for 50 years at least, eroding the privilege of effective constitutional protections, and which our church leadership alone could turn around, if only they weren’t utterly complicit with the breakdown in heterosexual ethics and families. Our site has long been blessed to fly under the radar screen, so to speak, in large part because of this wholistic philosophy. Almost never, in over four years, would a post on our site go after homosexuals for its own sake; always such posts are tied on our pages with owning the truth about evangelical hypocrisy with regard to “sanctified”, legalized adultery-with-paper. As our culture continues to erode, even this is “triggering” people. Such is the identical kind of “hate” John-the-Baptizer, Jesus Christ, the Apostles Paul and Jude, brother of Jesus, regularly expressed. Thank God, the penalty has been greatly reduced in our times for such “hate”. At least for now.
“Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never beconsidered an outsider anywhere within its bounds… ” MLK, April 16, 1963
Because many have “gone before” who are far more articulate than “standerinfamilycourt”, it almost seems redundant to complain (again) about the insult to our free speech protections in the 1st Amendment posed by the prevailing cultural norm: that everyone has some sort of fundamental right “not to be offended – ever“, which trumps free speech on a tech “platform” to which our Federal government grants immunity protections from damages for harmful content, provided they don’t censor content. Indeed, we are coming up on the anniversary of Mark Zuckerberg’s famous testimony before the U.S. senate, when Sen. Cruz asked him something like,“under the standards of the CDA (Communications Decency Act of 1996, section 230), would you call Facebook a “platform” or a “publisher”? The CEO insisted that Facebook was a “platform”. Yet the censorship is legendary at Facebook, and continues to grow without any sort of due process including notice or appeal. If that sounds familiar, think back to the unsubstantiated allegations brought for purely partisan political reasons against Justice Brett Kavanaugh last fall, where the accusers insisted that their mere allegation (never proven) should preempt his very “license to operate” on the bench, or even on the coaching bench. As MLK alludes to the need to do, “standerinfamilycourt” is still “working through” the best way to raise the necessary funds not to sit idly by behind a computer screen, but get out around the country to family policy councils, legislatures, standers’ retreats and other events, toward the end goal of abolishing forced faultless divorce and curbing adulterous remarriage in our country.
About three years ago “standerinfamilycourt” had a much-admired Australian counterpart whose Facebook community page had grown over the prior four years to just a bit larger following than Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional‘s current 780 or so. She was surely reaching the feeds of several thousand people each week, and she knew the traditional marriage activists in her own country well (such as the oft-incarcerated Bill Muhlenberg). Unlike our page, this owner went as aggressively and directly after the LGBTQ community as she did the blight of sanctioned, legalized adultery saturating the church. Then one day without warning, both her personal and her community pages disappeared, never to return. The hope was, by way of explanation, that her estranged, prodigal husband had repented and returned. Unfortunately, the covenant marriage stander community never found out exactly what happened to our comrade “Zipporah Moses”. This alone should reinforce how very precious our free speech protections are to us in the United States. Today’s gestapo are the large corporations rather than government storm troops.
“In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. ” MLK, April 16, 1963
This blog post will be the only open whining planned by “standerinfamilycourt” over this incident. It might be different if “demonetizing” our avenues to donation funds was on-the-line with our site, as was the case with The Activist Mommy, and PragerU. But this ministry just isn’t quite to that point yet, and only beginning to mull over a more formal future, with clarified objectives and a strategy roadmap currently being deliberated. We will continue to defy the Community Standard to the full extent necessary to put the biblical truth or other reliable facts across, but with no intentional offense being targeted at anyone. We aim to do so lovingly, and we do accept the full consequences or penalties for our choices, as graciously as possible, making the most of the time as the days grow evil. But for crying out loud, this time we “triggered” a white, female evangelical with the “offensive”, verbatim word of God!
Elizabeth Johnston, “The Activist Mommy” probably has a special place in her wardrobe for her Zuckerberg “slammer attire”, given her “hate” recidivism. We believe her initial “conviction” (more accurately, her accusation via “reporting”) was about a year ago. Early this week she had the delight to report in her blog on legislation introduced in the Florida Senate, which would fine social media firms $75,000 for each occurrence of censorship actions taken for political and religious reasons. Please support FL SB1722 and ask your own state representatives to sponsor similar bills. While this may seem like a slap on the wrist to the tech giants, the cumulative occurrences would soon add up, and just may help to trigger actual enforcement of the Federal law aimed at this, since liability is being imposed on firms for not complying with their claimed status as a “platform” due to the censorship they impose on conservative sites. As it stands now, any person can shut down a site for a period of from 24 hours to indefinitely just by claiming to be “offended”. That’s not due process! And “triggered” people, especially those who claim to be “Christians”, but feel the need to “report” content that quotes holy scripture in disciplined, accurate context, well…..you have no respect for the 1st Amendment, either.
UPDATE 3/14/2019: Well, as it turns out, “standerinfamilycourt” never did get a jail notice, and learned on Thursday that what was going on instead was a widespread and very long outage. Our record it seems is still free of FB felonies, despite the rebuffs and occasional threats we get from offended folks. The timing just happened to coincide with a threat by one of our disgruntled readers to report us. Our functionality was starting to return bit by bit on Wednesday evening. We publish this anyway, because most of the points made within are still perfectly true and valid.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. Luke 6:26
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
Then two women who were harlots came to the king and stood before him.The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.18 It happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us in the house. This woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on it.So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead; but when I looked at him carefully in the morning, behold, he was not my son, whom I had borne.”Then the other woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” But the first woman said, “No! For the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” Thus they spoke before the king.
Then the king said, “ The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’”The king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”Then the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son and said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him.” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him!” Then the king said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.”When all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had [o]handed down, they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to [p]administer justice.
– 1 Kings 3:16-27
Back in biblical times, sons were a big deal, even to “ladies of the night”, because sons were a means of longterm survival if there was no husband in the picture. It was on this basis that Judah’s widowed daughter-in-law repaid his treachery toward her by masquerading as a prostitute to get him to impregnate her, and when it was all said and done, he remarked that she was more righteous than he (duh!) Anyone who has been to “family court” knows that not much has changed: sons and daughters often translate into cash flow of varying reliability, courtesy of the court, for some women, and a few men as well, not to even mention some abusive state entities. It’s understandable, then, that the parent who’s ordered to provide the cash flow would so much rather have parenting time instead. Who can blame them? Given that the states also get Federal payola in the form of Title IV-D payments for collecting those child support payments, we now have those babies being divided threeways in “family court”, instead of in half as proposed in Solomon’s court.
There are lots of videos out there describing this ugly underbelly of Big Divorce, a $100 billion per year industry, that additionally costs state and Federal taxpayers another $100+ billion each year in transferred social costs from unilateral “no-fault” forced divorce laws. While we pointedly disagree with some of the spelling, and the conclusion, the facts and statistics are well-presented in this expose‘.
Trust us when we say that our empathies are always with the innocent Respondent who was forced into “family court” against their will and conscience, when they never did anything to harm their children or family. The typical situation:
Connie Covetous marries Billy Beergut, both previously single, but perhaps they were involved premaritally or cohabited first. Connie finishes school, has a couple of kids, and goes to work in a job making around what Billy makes. It’s still not enough to keep up with HGTV and the Travel Channel, and Billy doesn’t feel compelled to climb the economic ladder to make enough for upward mobility. She’s exhausted. He’s enjoying their kids and his hobbies. Connie starts complaining about Billy to a male coworker she admires, who is climbing the ladder and doing all the things to improve himself that she wishes Billy were doing. The male colleague complains back about his wife who “is taking him for granted”. The two become involved and promise each other to divorce their respective spouses. Under our legal system, it doesn’t matter whether or not those now-surplus spouses consent from the curb. The unilateral petitions will be granted 100% of the time, and a reason doesn’t have to be given. Neither discarded spouse does consent, so Billy is dragged into court, and he’s ordered to pay child support and become a part-time father, by an imperious “black-robe” perched above him. Now Connie’s household income is four times his, and he’s evicted from the family home to boot. Close to 70% of unilateral divorce petitions are filed by women in the United States, as even the divorce attorneys tell us. Only two states require mutual consent for “no-fault” divorce grounds, and technically only one state, Mississippi, has laws that don’t eventually enable a forced divorce against the consent of an innocent partner.
Is mandated 50-50 shared parenting really in the best interest of the child? That depends. Is it right for even 1% of the children’s time to be spent under Connie’s adulterous roof? Arguably, not! The trauma of remarriage has been shown in studies to be even worse for child outcomes than just the divorce, if the children are exposed to the legalized adultery partner. If Billy B. becomes a “stander”, and does not remarry or take on a girlfriend, the childrens’ outcomes will be better than if both parents remarry and are materially well off, no matter how little he’s allowed to see the kids. The kids will see the day-in, day-out moral example their father sets in honoring his marriage vows in the most difficult of circumstances, i.e., immoral civil paper ordering him not to honor those vows to protect and cherish. If, on the other hand, both parents are living in some form of state-licensed or unlicensed adultery, and that’s the forward plan, neither home is any better than the other for the kids, and they will be raised to believe adultery is an unavoidable cultural norm, that nothing in life is that reliable, and they will probably even avoid marriage as adults, having the next generation of kids out of wedlock.
If we go back to 1968 and earlier, we didn’t have these societal issues to any meaningful degree because we had fault-based custody decisions. That system worked well, and the reason it did has already been explained. That system was also much cheaper for the taxpayers of the day (some grandparents will actually remember when we used to balance our state and Federal budgets), and it helped our constitutional republic to thrive because we always raised a majority of solid, moral citizens in sufficient numbers to sustain it. Today that’s rapidly breaking down into cries for socialism among the children of this regime – as if unilateral, forced divorce isn’t already socialism, but clearly, blanket 50/50 shared parenting isn’t the answer from the sociological perspective. It’s only one more layer of socialism, transferring resources from the virtuous to the less virtuous on both a micro and macro level. (“standerinfamilycourt” is only coincidentally in agreement with the legal vultures of the “family court” regime on this one issue. Hopefully that won’t happen again.)
Let’s now look at it from the fundamental rights perspective, and the longstanding legal precedents that have come down under the Bill of Rights. The growing number of shared parenting activists out there are correct that there are due process and equal protection issues involved here, under the 14th amendment. But it’s not necessarily because they aren’t given the same amount of parenting time as the custodial parent, unless both parents are guilty of some equally grievous infraction against the marriage, the safety of the home, or the moral development of the children. In fact, the guy in the video is technically arguing against his own core argument, in a sort of laughable double-speak. For example, at ~5:30 minutes he says,
“creation of the ‘best interest of the children’ state statutes was unconstitutional! And a lie. They are vague value judgements (sic) and cannot be used until after harm to a child has been proven.”
On the contrary, SIFC would humbly propose that the mere filing of a unilateral divorce petition on “no-fault” grounds is prima facie evidence of harm to the child, as well as to grandchildren, both born and unborn. Under those circumstances, it should be a rebuttable presumption that the Petitioner(s) should not get more than supervised visitation, and no overnights, or whatever differing arrangement they mutually agree with the other spouse. That’s equal protection under the law, and the “best interest of the child”, friends. (Sword held at a respectful and safe distance from the baby.) SIFC does agree that the principle of Parens Patriae ~7:10 is definitionally incompatible with “no-fault” because an asserted fault must be established for this power of the state to apply, and that it has been rampantly abused by state courts, which are acting ministerially for legislatures who enacted the entire gamut of “no-fault” laws (not just grounds statutes) unconstitutionally.
The looting of the system evolved over time, escalating dramatically in the 1980’s. The violation of civil rights and constitutional precedent occurring at the first hearing, which this gentleman refers to ~8:10 actually consists of reducing the parental authority of the non-filing spouse below 100% unless there’s some fault basis! And the burden should be on the Petitioning side to prove this under the normal standards of evidence. On the other hand, even if it’s 50/50, the innocent spouse’s civil rights are already being violated by 50% – half the maimed, spiritually dead baby, so to speak. The constitutional issue this gentleman speaks of still remains under his split-the-baby approach, whether he’s being deprived of 50% of this parental sovereignty or 90% of it. Admittedly, 50% is financially less burdensome than 90% in terms of child support, but that’s really a separate property-taking issue, which is also better-adjudicated under a fault-basis. Under a proper repeal of non-consensual divorce on “no-fault” grounds, the divorce simply would not be granted unless the parents came to binding terms on all such matters so that nobody is forfeiting, nor being deprived of, their fundamental 14th amendment protections.
To be sure, most of the proposed legislation before legislatures in many states call for a “rebuttable presumption” that this is in the child’s best interest, something that is likely to prove to be utterly meaningless “window dressing” in practice, given the rampant judicial corruption throughout the family court system, and the high hurdles to court access that most of us experience, should the need arise to rebut the presumption. This will be a mere band-aid on a pustulent boil that needs full lancing and draining. It appears that the industrial family law machine and its lobbyists are somewhat split on the issue, looking as they always do through their primary lens: impact on longterm fee revenue. A few firms embrace it, realizing that nothing is ever really final. Most stand vehemently opposed, proving that pushing through forced divorces quickly, then litigating over children and support collections for years thereafter is the optimal business model. We should keep an eye on the trend in state enactment threat, those of us who hope to abolish non-consensual “no-fault” decrees altogether. Strategically, in the face of enactment of a law that has pretty strong public sympathy, as 50/50 shared parenting has, and seems inevitable — as a matter not of if but when, might there come a day when under those changed circumstances, we could start to persuade the “family law” lobby that forced faultless divorces are no longer in their business interest? Are they aware from their own market research that 80% of unilateral “no-fault” divorces in the U.S. aren’t really mutual, nor over “irreconcilable differences” other than adultery or the desire to pursue adultery legally?
“standerinfamilycourt” is aware that this post is not going to sit well with those who are already-divorced and not looking back, possibly “remarried”, strapped with child support payments and either alienated from their children, or allowed too little time with them. That sucks. Unfortunately, it boils down to the same choice you would have made for their sake if you were civilly still in that marriage. There would be no one on the side, for their sake, with or without the subsequent civil paper condoning it. You’d be on your knees taking your complaint to the Lord about any and all barriers to your being the parent He appointed you to be. You’d be sacrificing and laying down your life in order to raise them right, since you only get one shot at it. The Lord would see this and, in His time, move mountains in your behalf.
Here’s what the Righteous Judge says about the best interest of the child:
And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me;but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!
“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into thefiery hell.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven.For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
by Standerinfamilycourt
