Category Archives: family law

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, morality, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare, Substantive Due Process

Decoding a High-Stakes Legislative Study: “No-Fault” Push in the UK

by Standerinfamilycourt

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 2012 New 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-powers but 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”.

Quoting the “Equality Statement” within David Gauke’s report,

“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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Church Discipline, citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, morality, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare, Substantive Due Process

Deja-Vu All Over Again: The “No-Fault” Elite Legal and Media Scam Job in the UK

The Stats & Facts Of Divorce In The UK


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 is the voice of British church leadership (Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist) in defending the biblical Matthew 19:4-6 family?  (Indeed, it appears that the Queen’s counterpart to the U.S. Attorney General are aggressively pushing this deeply flawed policy legislation which 20 years ago failed its pilot testing in the UK and was scrapped).

Where is the mention of the sad fact that enactment of unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws has caused U.S. church doctrine to decay and church morality to utterly disintegrate?

Where is the mention that enactment of forced, “no-blame” divorce has rendered most U.S. states unable to balance their budgets?

Where is the disclosure that many of the states depend on Federal funds derived from taking children away from their fit parents and trafficking them to foster homes to narrow their deficit gaps?

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 that enactment of these statutes has literally ballooned the size of state and Federal government in the U.S.?

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?

Where is the mention of all the U.S. constitutional attorneys who have testified before state legislatures that they believe the U.S. unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws violate the Respondent’s fundamental constitutional rights in numerous ways?

Indeed, where is the mention of the mounting traffic in repeal and reform measures being filed each year in the various U.S. state legislatures because the system is failing?

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”.

And, oh, the shrieking, howling headlines from “across the pond” last year when Mrs. Owens (who most likely was recruited by the greedy elite special interests for the rarity and emotional pull of her case) lost her high court challenge by unanimous decision and was forced to wait one more year to immorally abandon her elderly husband while taking spoils.
“The courts can’t make Tini Owens love her husband!” whined Suzanne Moore at The Guardian.
“Nobody’s fault but the law”  echoed her Guardian colleague, Owen Bowcott.
“Tini Owens is locked into an unhappy marriage – this is why we need ‘no fault’ divorce”  (Guardian, again – Laura Barton).
“Tini Owens forced to stay married…”  howled the UK Daily Mail.

“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, must the 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!

 

 

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, morality, Prayer, Religious freedom

One of the Worst Downstream Effects of State-Imposed Divorce

by Standerinfamilycourt

 

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!

Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Substantive Due Process

Who’s John Gentry, and What’s He Up To? Why?…And Will He Succeed?

5 Comments


by Standerinfamilycourt

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.

John Gentry is a familiar and influential voice at parents’ rights rallies, where justified protests take place over the Federal Title IV-D program which effectively separates parents from their children for the corrupt profit of the state, enabled by widespread judicial corruption and lack of independent  oversight.   Survivors of the “family court” system almost need no further explanation of what’s going on.    They know.

( 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 3 in 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!

Senator Stephens’ (who practices estate and geriatric law when the legislature is not in session) official January 25 response:

“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 people peaceably 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 assembly as a MEMBER of the assembly. Although you appear to have read our rules, you have ignored Rule 9 – No one may address the speaker except 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…Nanette Mitchell, 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.

(   SIFC: Jeff Morgan’s March, 2019 interviews on youtube with Gentry and (separately) with Tennessee attorney Connie Reguli, linked above, also shed considerable light on these subsequent events.)

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 process of 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!

 

 

 

 

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, morality, Spiritual Warfare, Substantive Due Process

Sorry, But 50/50 Shared Parenting Won’t Solve the Constitutional Problem Or Help Raise Better Kids

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by Standerinfamilycourt

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 three ways 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 the   fiery 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!

Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom, Substantive Due Process

Does Any State Have a Materially-Constitutional “No-Fault” Law? Yes, Surprisingly!

by Standerinfamilycourt

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!    –  Isaiah 5:20

What does a materially-constitutional “no-fault” divorce law look like?     Above all, for a unilateral divorce law to be constitutional, there must be no front-door (nor back-door) means to force a divorce on any unwilling spouse who has done nothing to seriously harm the marriage or family members: to the full extent that such harm is not objectively provable with hard evidence.    Beyond that, no spouse should be deprived of property,  parental rights, free association, free exercise of religious conscience, nor be subjected to arbitrary, vague charges that cannot be understood in advance sufficiently to avoid running afoul of them.    In other words, any law that removes these explicit fundamental Bill of Rights protections without regard to proof of marital fault, over which the defendant has had reasonable self-control, should be deemed unconstitutional on its face.

Additionally, notwithstanding abusive past judicial precedents such as Maynard v. Hill,  if the state law retroactively renders a contract unenforceable, this is a violation of Article 1 Section 10.    After 50 years of divorce-on-demand laws which changed the marital contract from enforceable to unenforceable in most states, this primarily impacts a dwindling number of marriages that were contracted prior to the mid-1970’s, since in virtually all states, licensed civil marriages undertaken after enactment of a state’s unilateral “no-fault” law are merely registered cohabitations, voidable at-will after a defined waiting or living-apart period.

Finally, there should be no violation of the separation-of-powers between the branches of government, as laid out in Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution.    Most liberal, socialist schemes do indeed involve violation of the separation-of-powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government, or between the legislative and executive branches.     For example, when a Federal Judge or Justice proclaims a new fundamental right, such as “privacy” without undergoing the rigorous Congress-based, state ratification-based process of amending the Constitution, there has been a violation of separation-of-powers.    Hence, judicial precedents and subsequent legislation which rely on an alleged right to  “privacy” to legalize or expand abortion, overrule sodomy or adultery prohibitions, require state-paid contraception (and the like), would have been seen as constitutionally invalid by our nation’s founders.

Under this same principle,  a legislature may not pass a law that strips the judicial branch of its assigned powers under Article 3 (and its state constitution counterparts), by channeling matters through a court only for appearance sake, while reducing the role of the judges from discretionary to purely administrative.    Similarly, legislatures may not delegate powers reserved to them to another branch.    There used to be individual legislative divorces enacted as special laws in the legislature which fell into disfavor in case law.   Yet “no-fault” unilateral divorce laws are essentially legislative divorces in blanket form, with the states’ family courts administering them in a way that generally does not require judicial discretion.

When any state’s divorce statute eliminates objective fault-based grounds for divorce and declares that the court “shall” * grant a contested divorce upon administratively-valid petition, with no discretionary consideration of the facts in the case as they relate to allegations about undefined terms such as “irreconcilable differences” or “the best interest of the child / children / family”,  a violation of Article 3 has resulted.     Under this exacting standard, it is reasonable to argue that even mutually-consenting “no-fault” divorce is unconstitutional on these same separation-of-powers grounds, even though fundamental rights of neither spouse would be violated under a strictly consensual divorce law, whereas the fundamental rights of the children of the marriage, and the objective state interest in limiting the cost of services to families, might still be compromised.        (Hence, in this blog, use of the term “materially-constitutional” will refer to a state statute where the fundamental 1st and 14th Amendment rights of neither spouse is violated, and both spouses receive equal protection under the law, taken as a whole.)

* Existing Texas statute uses the term “may” instead of “shall”, but under the heavy-handed influence of the Texas Bar Association, their “family courts” consistently administer the law as though the judges have no independent discretion to deny unilateral divorce petitions.   Texas is presently considering HB922 and HB926 (formerly HB93 and HB65, respectively), which will remove non-consenting no-fault grounds, but leave all other divorce provisions except the very brief 60-day waiting period unchanged.   

Because of the high cost of serving (or mitigating societal ills from) broken families, a few states have experimented with opt-in “covenant marriage” laws (Arkansas, Arizona, and Louisiana) while maintaining all their regular divorce-on-demand machinery for those who don’t opt-in.  Since there are no 1st nor 14th Amendment protections for those who don’t opt-in at the time of the marriage, these states don’t qualify as having constitutional divorce statutes.    These states have extremely low rates of voluntary participation in these measures, and Arkansas in particular remains among the states with the highest divorce rates.

“Standerinfamilycourt” cannot possibly be familiar with key provisions of all of the various state divorce laws, though the “model” UMDA (Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act) provides a general roadmap,  and various state-by-state tables are available which capture the variations in how the “no-fault” model was enacted and / or implemented in any given state.     Not too long ago, a comrade in the effort to repeal unilateral grounds for divorce pointed out that there are two states,  Mississippi and South Dakota, with consent-only  “no-fault” grounds.    Knowing how deceptively the historical practices around “no-fault” laws have developed in the various states (sometimes, even despite well-meaning original statutes), and seeing the relative divorce rates in those states compared with other states,  SIFC was skeptical, and so, purposed to analyze both of these state statutes in detail to see to what extent this was likely to be true, as the laws were applied to real families.     Texas, for example, will not have eliminated forced divorce on “no-fault” grounds simply by passing HB922, because existing law will be unchanged in a crucial provision that allows either spouse to file (purportedly) fault-based grounds based on living apart for 3 years, even if the filing spouse has refused to live with the non-filing spouse (who did not consent to the separation and therefore was not actually responsible for the alleged fault).    Could there be a similar situation going on in Mississippi or South Dakota?

With somewhere between 75% and 80% of divorces nationwide opposed by one of the spouses, typically, a state’s divorce rate correlates with barriers to finalizing a divorce, such as the length of any waiting period or statutory living apart period required.    Yet, neither Mississippi nor South Dakota figure in the states with the lowest divorce rate — both states are pretty much “middle of the pack” in their rates of marriage “dissolution”.     Both states appear to have had their consent-based “no-fault” laws in place for a considerable length of time, not as a result of the sort of repeal that is being sought in Texas.    According to 2017 statistics from the American Community Survey,  South Dakota ranks 9th highest with a divorce rate of 13.59 per 1000 married couples of all ages.     Mississippi’s rate is somewhat lower, at around 12 per 1000 married couples, as compared to states with the highest rates at 17-19 per 1000, and states with the lowest rates at 5-7 per 1000 married couples.   If unilateral divorce is indeed restricted to fault-based grounds in these two states, why isn’t either state’s divorce rate in the lower ranges?

Why would South Dakota, for example, still rank only 33rd out of 50 states in protecting families, if unilateral “no-fault” divorce is restricted by statute ?    We’re about to find out.    Before looking at the state specifics, we need to reflect for a moment on the coercive power of the state bar associations in shielding the lucrative divorce trade, also in controlling all three branches of state government, and the degree to which the state budget benefits from Federal Title IV-D funds from court operating rules and from legislation that confiscates children from the families those courts have shredded.     Then we need to look at whether other provisions in the divorce law which deprive law-abiding citizens who want to keep their families together of their due process and fundamental rights are counterbalancing the consent-only provision.    There is also the religion factor, which layers over all of the other factors in law.   States with the lowest divorce rates (sadly) tend to have the smallest “conservative” Protestant and Jewish populations, and a typically-higher Catholic population.    Lastly, there is the dwindling marriage rate among younger citizens due to a law-driven deliberate preference for cohabitation, and ultimately causing the “per 1000 married couples” measures to disproportionately consist of divorced and remarried older citizens, especially in states where non-consensual “no-fault” grounds are the only grounds available.    The map below shows data for those age 30 and under, where Mississippi likely has a higher young marriage rate than South Dakota, and a bit higher consensual divorce rate in that young age bracket.

 

In a picture where there are many “moving parts”,  restricting to consent-only “no-fault” grounds most likely offsets other factors in keeping that state’s divorce rate lower than it would otherwise be, and improvements on other battle fronts (notably, the behavior and doctrine of the church) would catalyze with adopting a materially constitutional statute in lowering that state’s divorce rate.

Here is a summary table of the specifics of each state’s consent-only “no-fault” grounds, and surrounding statutes influencing the net degree of family protection.    Mississippi appears to have enacted its “no-fault” law in 1972, while South Dakota’s base “no-fault” law was enacted in 1976, and modified in 1985, possibly to add back the mutual consent feature.

Deep Dive – No Fault by Consent Only (version 1).xlsb

In this table (click on document to expand), red shading indicates provisions in the law defective enough to override all or most benefits from requiring mutual consent for “no-fault” divorce grounds such as “irreconcilable differences”.     Yellow shading indicates cautionary areas (“it depends”), and green shading indicates provisions that are materially consistent with Bill of Rights fundamental protections for the non-offending spouse and innocent family members.    Demonstrably, most of the green and none of the red is associated with key provisions in the Mississippi statute, making it the most protective toward rightful families, of all the family codes in the nation, whereas South Dakota has left a few “back doors” open, whereby a unilateral divorce may ultimately be obtained without an innocent spouse’s consent, if traditional back-up allegations are pursued to exploit longstanding vagueness of definitions in the statute, such as “mental cruelty”.

“standerinfamilycourt’s” Conclusions:  
Obviously we see the old adage, “the devil is in the details” when we take a close look at the consent-only “no-fault” divorce laws, with a critical eye to whether they nevertheless still effectively function as unilateral laws with delayed timing–by which people can still be manipulated by determined “family law” practitioners who, in the larger picture, continue to have an enormous financial conflict of interest with the true best interests of the family and the objective best interests of even the state.

South Dakota’s divorce statute is obviously better than that of 48 other U.S. states, but it still contains perverse financial incentives that boost the divorce industry at everyone else’s expense, and that encourage divorce coercion, because marital fault is not considered in either child custody (hence, still subjecting the citizens of the state to Title IV-D abuses) or in property division.   Additionally,  definitions of “abuse” as an alternative ground for divorce in the statute remain more vague than in Mississippi’s statute, which is a problem because “mental cruelty” has long been the next reliable “go-to” when other unilateral grounds are not available.    Finally, the provision for defaulted, implied consent in South Dakota creates a weaker law than in Mississippi, and opens the door for process service abuses, which is also a potential issue with Texas’ HB922, as currently drafted.

All things considered, Mississippi comes the closest of all 50 U.S. states to having a substantially constitutional “no-fault” divorce law that is only unilateral when it comes to fault-based grounds.     Among the best features of Mississippi’s statute:

->  No potential for abuse of a non-consenting spouse via default judgment provisions (rather than explicit appearance via joint petition, or service of process compliance).

->  60 day waiting period, even with written mutual consent.

->  Some consideration of marital fault in property division, if the consenting parties cannot agree, and the offended spouse would be at a disadvantage.

->  Strong consideration of marital fault in child custody decisions

->  Fairly explicit and actionable definition of physical and mental abuse, in terms of defining severity, extent, duration and other terms that in most states are vaguely defined by intention.    Limited “back door” available by resorting to cruelty allegations if “no-fault” fails to secure a “dissolution” decree.

– >The abandoner cannot allege “abandonment” nor “living apart” as back-door unilateral grounds, if unable to gain the non-offending spouse’s consent to the dissolution.

(Had the case against “SIFC”  been brought in Mississippi, instead of Illinois, it is highly doubtful the petitioner would have prevailed on any grounds.  Had the case been brought in South Dakota, the petitioner would likely have had to resort to false charges of “mental cruelty” in order to prevail, or there would have had to be a risky strategy of process service fraud leading to a default in-absentia judgment that could likely have been successfully challenged upon discovery.)

Why should it matter to take a deep look at what’s working in states like Mississippi, as we seek to repeal unilateral “no fault” grounds in additional states, such as Texas?    One big reason is to be prepared for the likely charge from the powerful “family law” lobby that these laws have not significantly reduced the divorce rate enough that the “threats” to women, gays, and abused spouses from repealing unilateral grounds for divorce is justified.    Looking at the above map, this will surely become a more prominent challenge if and when the movement begins to pick up steam–and purely emotional arguments can no longer carry the day, as they do today.    We need to be armed with facts that demonstrate exactly why having a constitutionally-defensible statute may not have had the impact we would hope for, especially as it relates to those “back doors” left open in some states.  The second reason is to clearly recognize and target other barriers to family preservation that lie outside the law — for example, immoral church practices, which might become more susceptible to reform under a tighter law.    The third reason is to gain important comfort that the state of Mississippi has managed to survive for 43 years, over the entire divorce-on-demand era, as the only state with a materially constitutional consensual-only “no-fault” law which powerful special interests have never succeeded in overturning in court based on “privacy” challenges.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.   –  Philippians 2:3-4

www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

 

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, morality, Substantive Due Process

Was Maynard v Hill An Abusive SCOTUS Ruling? Is it Really Relevant Today?

by Standerinfamilycourt

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no [hu]man separate….Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.    –  Matthew 19:6,8

And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”   Then He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”
– Matthew 22: 20-22

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
–  Declaration of Independence, 1776

This will be a long but important read.   Take it in manageable settings as necessary, but “standerinfamilycourt” worked hard to make the content very worthwhile to those who hope to see unilateral “no-fault” divorce abolished in our lifetime, and no longer a part of our grandchildren’s adult reality as citizens.    A special callout and thanks is in order to Matthew Johnston and Jeff Morgan for providing much of the expertise and content for this blog post.   My assessment, however, of these materials is independent, and these two gentlemen may not agree with “standerfamilycourt’s” take on every point discussed here.   I trust they will agree with much of it.

U.S. history is littered with ill-conceived and ideological Supreme Court decisions that have unjustly been applied for many decades afterward as controlling precedent, under the principle of stare decisis in a way that singles out entire groups of citizens for wholesale denial of their fundamental rights, often in defense of the Sexual Revolution.    Typically this happens because the original faulty decision itself denied due process to one of the parties.     The 1888 case, Maynard v. Hill, is in my view, one of those really bad decisions.   It  laid down two highly erroneous principles that eventually made the marriage contract unenforceable in the United States once the political climate ripened for toxic, Marxist legislation, in effect outlawing the permanent wedded union (as Jesus defined holy matrimony), almost a century before enactment of unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws in most U.S. states drove more nails into the marriage coffin.   Maynard v Hill is one of the key cases that has been relied upon by various state Supreme Courts to rebuff any and all 1st and 14th Amendment challenges to nonconsensual “no-fault” laws, as enacted since then.  This came despite the fact that many top constitutional attorneys today see these laws as unconstitutional in many different aspects.

First, this case unjustifiably removed the critical protection of Article 1 Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution from the marriage contract based on a very questionable rationale, to be discussed in depth below.

Next, this case asserted the superiority of the state’s claim of “publc policy” over the marriage relationship, above the private nature of the marriage contract between husband and wife, whereas any such claimed authority can only be traced back to a usurpation, from God’s perspective, by the 16th century Reformers who insisted that the state regulate holy matrimony.   This was authority that Christ told us God reserved to Himself, according to His law.   The state’s delegated role from the hand of God is to recognize and defend rightful marriages, not deign to create nor terminate them, according to Jesus’ pronouncement in Matthew 19:6 and 8.

Finally, the majority Justices upheld the actions of a territorial legislature (where there was not yet a state constitution), while operating under authority delegated to them by the U.S. Congress. This, while denying the accused, but possibly blameless, wife in another state her right to basic notice and procedural due process.   This legislature unilaterally divorced her from her husband in absentia, at his adulterous request which was not based on any legitimate grounds.   Indeed, at the time, there were no laws even defining grounds for divorce in the new territory.  This Supreme Court held valid a special law specifically passed to “dissolve” her marriage, despite the fact that in doing so, the territorial legislature deprived her of liberty and property without allowing her any opportunity for representation, or even serving her notice that they were taking this action.   She found out a few years later, according to the complaint in the case eventually brought by her heirs.

This case was brought by the Ohio covenant children of David and Lydia Maynard after both of their parents’ deaths, in an estate dispute over land that had been granted in Oregon territory (at the time of the ruling, the land had since become part of Washington state) to David after he abandoned Lydia under false pretenses in Ohio, and took up with another woman on his way out west.    The land grant apparently had strings attached, such that twice as much land was granted to a married couple, which then had to be cultivated for a period of time within a certain time window.    Shortly after securing both pieces of land based on his marriage to Lydia, he then requested his divorce be granted by the legislature.   David had grown extremely influential as a founder of Seattle, and had held considerable sway with the legislature by the time he made his request.   The divorce  was granted  upon his request, with documents external to the SCOTUS opinion showing that David accused his wife of adultery in his petition, and submitted hearsay letters from friends claiming to know individuals who had allegedly witnessed Mrs. Maynard in clandestine activities or compromising situations back in Ohio.    However, because he could not legalize his adulterous union with his mistress within the time window for perfecting the land claim, the Territory revoked the grant of the portion of the land that had been granted to David based on his marriage to Lydia.   In other words, Mr. Maynard’s attempted bait-and-switch scheme failed, and he suffered his just reward as a consequence.   It was the validity of the special legislative divorce, and of the land grant revocation, that the couple’s adult children were challenging, in part arguing that Article 1 Section 10 prevented the legislature of Oregon Territory from impairing the marital contract between David and Lydia by granting the divorce-in-absentia via special law aimed at that particular marriage, and without any notice to one of the parties being so assailed.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
( – Article 1 Section 10,  U.S. Constitution)

Since the facts of the case state that the legislature of Oregon Territory was operating under the temporary authority delegation by an act of the U.S. Congress in the absence of a state constitution…

“The act of congress creating the territory of Oregon and establishing a government for it, passed on the 14th of August, 1848, vested the legislative power and authority of the territory in an assembly consisting of two boards, a council and a house of representatives. 9 St. c. 177, 4. It declared that the legislative power of the territory should ‘extend to all rightful subjects of legislation not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States,’

…it seems reasonable that Congress should not have been deemed to be able to delegate authority to a territory that they did not at least possess themselves, either to pass special laws which defeated the separation-of-powers already integral to the U.S. Constitution (Article 3), or to carve out a relatively untested exception to the Contracts Clause.   Yet, the authority to pass a special law granting a legislative divorce was justified by the majority, by relying on the history of U.S. states and territories who did not yet have a constitution who were following the English tradition of Parliament granting legislative divorces, and also upon the fact that various states were slow to transition from legislative divorces via special laws to a judicial procedure, in some cases even after a state constitution establishing separation-of-powers was ratified.   It seems natural, given that divorces were so rare in the 18th and 19th centuries, that change in this area would not have been a burning priority.    Eventually, however, many states constructed or amended their constitutions to require that divorces only be granted by a judicial process, a fact which the opinion acknowledges but dismisses on a very weak rationale, claiming that the historical reliance on legislative divorces justified the practice where there was not yet a state constitution, while completely ignoring the due process concerns that likely led to those provisions being adopted in various state constitutions.

With regard to the due process owed to Lydia Maynard, the 14th Amendment was not ratified until 1868, some 13 years after this legislative divorce was granted, but this was still 20 years prior to this landmark decision upholding the validity of the divorce-in-absentia for estate purposes.    The court completely failed to apply the provisions of the 5th Amendment, ratified along with the Bill of Rights in 1791, to secure Mrs. Maynard’s right to the most basic procedural due process,  including notice of the proceeding, which should have been more than justified by the fact that the territorial legislature was operating under delegated authority from the U.S. Congress.

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
(- 5th Amendment, U.S. Constitution)

 

Quoting from the majority opinion:

“The facts alleged in the bill of complaint, that no cause existed for the divorce, and that it was obtained without the knowledge of the wife cannot affect the validity of the act.   Knowledge or ignorance of parties of intended legislation does not affect its validity if within the competency of the legislature.”

That unduly harsh statement may be true where public notice is posted for the intended enactment of general laws, but how could such a judicial statement have overridden anyone’s basic rights to due process with regard to notice and representation under the U.S.  Constitution?   They call these things fundamental rights for a reason!  It would have been enlightening to read the dissenting opinions of Stanley Matthews and Horace Gray, but unfortunately, this blogger was unable to locate the text for those dissents online without a subscription service.

With regard to barring the application of Article 1 Section 10 to the marriage contract, the majority opinion quotes this isolated statement  by Chief Justice John Marshall in Dartmouth College v Woodward (decided 1819), as follows:

“As was said by Chief Justice MARSHALL in the Dartmouth College Case, not by way of judgment, but in answer to objections urged to positions taken: ‘The provision of the constitution never has been understood to embrace other contracts than those which respect property or some object of value, and confer rights which may be asserted in a court of justice. It never has been understood to restrict the general right of the legislature to legislate on the subject of divorce.’ “

John Marshall, of course, was one of the nation’s founding statesmen who participated in the historic constitutional convention process,  himself becoming a delegate in 1788 to the state convention that had been formed to ratify it, so he should certainly have been an excellent authority on the original intent of Article 1, Section 10.    However, was the 1888 Supreme Court majority accurate in their presumption that Marshall was inclusively referring to unprovoked (unilateral) divorce, where the petitioner was actually creating the contractual breach he was seeking “relief” from, when the former Chief Justice made the statement upon which the 1888 court (very selectively) relied  to support their interpretation of the founders’ intent?   Or… was Marshall simply stating that Article 1 Section 10 was not intended to impair the authority of the legislature to regulate divorce on a fault-basis that is consistent with the innocent party’s fundamental rights, including property and causeless government non-interference with family sovereignty?

One historical source indicates that Article 1 Section 10 was actually added to the final draft after no discussion had taken place in the Constitutional Convention:

” [The post-Convention drafting committee] made at least one important change to what the Convention had agreed to;  {Rufus} King [of Massachusetts] wanted to prevent states from interfering in contracts.  Although the Convention never took up the matter, his language was now inserted, creating the contract clause.[24]:243

In light of this, it is at least possible that Marshall’s statement, delivered 30 years after ratification, was not coming from firsthand debate or interactions with the drafters or Rufus King, even though he had been a part of the larger ratification process.    There is at least some historical evidence that John Marshall did know King personally and continued to correspond with him in the years following ratification.

Chief Justice Marshall authored the majority opinion for Dartmouth College v Woodward, directly referring to the relevance to marriage contracts as follows:

“…it has been argued that the word “contract,” in its broadest sense, would comprehend the political relations between the government and its citizens, would extend to offices held within a State, for State purposes, and to many of those laws concerning civil institutions, which must change with circumstances and be modified by ordinary legislation, which deeply concern the public, and which, to preserve good government, the public judgment must control. That even marriage is a contract, and its obligations are affected by the laws respecting divorces. That the clause in the Constitution, if construed in its greatest latitude,would prohibit these laws. Taken in its broad, unlimited sense, the clause would be an unprofitable and vexatious interference with the internal concerns of a State, would unnecessarily and unwisely embarrass its legislation, and render immutable those civil institutions, which are established for purposes of internal government, and which, to subserve those purposes, ought to vary with varying circumstances.  That, as the framers of the Constitution could never have intended to insert in that instrument a provision so unnecessary, so mischievous, and so repugnant to its general spirit, the term “contract” must be understood in a more limited sense.  That it must be understood as intended to guard against a power of at least doubtful utility, the abuse of which had been extensively felt, and to restrain the legislature in future from violating the right to property. That, anterior to the formation of the Constitution, a course of legislation had prevailed in many, if not in all, of the States, which weakened the confidence of man in man, and embarrassed all transactions between individuals, by dispensing with a faithful performance of engagements….Those acts enable some tribunals not to impair a marriage contract, but to liberate one of the parties, because it has been broken by the other.When any State legislature shall pass an act annulling all marriage contracts, or allowing either party to annul it, without the consent of the other, it will be time enough to inquire, whether such an act be constitutional

It is important to note that neither the legislative act, nor the SCOTUS opinion refers to the charge of adultery that other sources indicate David Maynard tried to register with the legislature.  Marshall continues thusly at a later juncture in his opinion…

“Could a law, compelling a specific performance, by giving a new remedy, be justly deemed an excess of legislative power? Thus far the contract of marriage has been considered with reference to general laws regulating divorces upon breaches of that contract.  (Note: for the benefit of the innocent party is strongly implied here.)... But if the argument means to assert that the legislative power to dissolve such a contract, without any breach on either side, against the wishes of the parties, and without any judicial inquiry to ascertain a breach, I certainly am not prepared to admit such a power, or that its exercise would not entrench upon the prohibition of the Constitution. If, under the faith of existing laws, a contract of marriage be duly solemnized, or a marriage settlement be made (and marriage is always in law a valuable consideration for a contract), it is not easy to perceive why a dissolution of its obligations, without any default or assent of the parties, may not as well fall within the prohibition as any other contract for a valuable consideration.  A man has just as good a right to his wife as to the property acquired under a marriage contract. He has a legal right to her society and her fortune, and to divest such right, without his default and against his will, would be as flagrant a violation of the principles of justice as the confiscation of his own estate.”  
(Presumably, Marshall would have held the same true of David Maynard’s similarly-situated original wife.)

Marshall goes on in Dartmouth College v Woodward to confirm his personal uncertainty, even with his own superior and contemporary proximity to the founders, vis-à-vis the 1888 court, about the intent of Article 1 Section 10 to exclude or include the marriage contract:

“It is more than possible that the preservation of rights of this description was not particularly in the view of the framers of the Constitution when the clause under consideration was introduced into that instrument. It is probable that interferences of more frequent occurrence, to which the temptation was stronger, and of which the mischief was more extensive, constituted the great motive for imposing this restriction on the State legislatures. But although a particular and a rare case may not, in itself, be of sufficient magnitude to induce a rule, yet it must be governed by the rule, when established, unless some plain and strong reason for excluding it can be given. It is not enough to say that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was framed, nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case, being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction so obviously absurd or mischievous or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify those who expound the Constitution in making it an exception.”

In light of the full context of what Chief Justice Marshall stated in that majority opinion, would it really be unreasonable to conclude that Justice Stephen Field was guilty of taking the portion of Marshall’s statement which he selectively quoted, materially out of context?     After all, for the Maynards, there was no general law in Oregon Territory regarding divorces, which is why a special law had to be custom-crafted under stealth, one that impaired the marriage contract which had been broken by the party requesting the divorce, not the “other” whom Marshall specifically pointed to the need to protect.     The Chief Justice indicated he was still fine with the parties themselves agreeing to annul their own contract by mutual consent (except that the matter was not yet legally “ripe” before his court), but in this 1853 Maynard instance, the party who was back home presumably honoring that marriage contract was deprived of notice of her husband’s hurried request to annul it legislatively.     Had Justice Field shown true deference to stare decisis, he would have addressed these highly relevant points raised by Marshall, some of which had now indeed become ripe for review with the case before the 1888 court.    Instead, it appears he stood Marshall’s very specific contrary guidance on its head by ignoring the portion that did not suit the court majority, for purely ideological reasons, under their conception of “public policy”.

The majority in Maynard went on to cite language in an earlier decision,  Butler v. Pennsylvania, 10 How. 402, where the question arose whether a reduction of the per diem compensation to certain canal commissioners below that originally provided when they took office, was an impairment of a contract with them within the constitutional prohibition; the court, holding that it was not such an impairment, said: ‘The contracts designed to be protected by the tenth section of the first article of that instrument are contracts by which perfect rights, certain, definite, fixed private rights of property, are vested. ‘It is also to be observed that, while marriage is often termed by text writers and in decisions of courts as a civil contract, generally to indicate that it must be founded upon the agreement of the parties, and does not require any religious ceremony for its solemnization, it is something more than a mere contract.”

Hold the phone!   Obviously, if it is a “given” that Object A is a recognized member of Group B, and a constitutional principle applies to all members of Group B, then it won’t do to claim that a particular constitutional principle naming Group B shouldn’t apply to Object A just because Object A has some additional qualities.   This is known as basic subset mathematics.

Further, the court used a circular argument which failed to take into account that the only element that would cause the marital estate vesting not to be “fixed” by the inherent indissolubility of the marriage bond is some sort of fault-basis, or barring that, their own failure to uphold the rule of law on behalf of the innocent spouse.    They were, in effect, arguing that the possibility that someone might unlawfully abandon their marriage (or, indeed, that a rogue territorial legislature might violate the Constitution by enacting a special law without legal notice against that innocent spouse)  “unvests” and “unperfects” the property rights that were conferred at the publicly-witnessed lawful wedding…(“I herewith plight thee my troth.”)

The majority in Maynard also had a considerable amount to say about “public policy”, most of it flawed and leaning too much toward social expediency, at the longterm expense of societal integrity.    This should sound very familiar to the readers of this blog, since it has been quoted ad nauseum by self-interested attorneys, jurists and legislators alike ever since–as if it came down from the mountain on stone tablets.    For example:

“…when the validity of acts dissolving the bonds of matrimony is assailed; the legitimacy of many children, the peace of many families, and the settlement of many estates depending upon its being sustained. ”

and…

“Many causes may arise, physical, moral, and intellectual, such as the contracting by one of the parties of an incurable disease like leprosy, or confirmed insanity, or hopeless idiocy, or a conviction of a felony, which would render the continuance of the marriage relation intolerable to the other party, and productive of no possible benefit to society.When the object of the relation has been thus defeated, and no jurisdiction is vested in the judicial tribunals to grant a divorce, it is not perceived that any principle should prevent the legislature itself from interfering, and putting an end to the relation in the interest of the parties as well as of society. If the act declaring the divorce should attempt to interfere with the rights of property vested in either party, a different question would be presented.”

Apparently, these Maynard Justices saw “public policy” as more of a concern as respects the fundamental rights of the subsequent family rather than of due process sustaining the fundamental rights of the original covenant family….“love the one you’re with”.    Evidently, the choice of an illicit relationship by the party seeking to morally and financially abandon their family joins all of these other selfish reasons why honoring marriage vows would be “productive of no possible benefit to society”, and “intolerable to the petitioning party.”    And in fact, the furtive act declaring the divorce did inevitably interfere with the rights of property vested in the innocent wife, if not in Oregon Territory, then back home in Ohio, whether that distant legislature intended this or not.

The intrusion on property rights from state interference without due cause upon the marriage contract is even more egregious in today’s society due to this malodorous precedent, with not only equity in homes and businesses at stake, but also employment-derived retirement assets as a “gray divorce” couple is at or near retirement age, or perhaps already retired.   Because of concealed dissipation to finance an extramarital affair in the period before the guilty party files for unilateral “no-fault” divorce, unequal IRA and 401K balances will be a growing problem that didn’t exist back when most states took marital fault into strong consideration in dividing assets.  In effect, many of today’s “family courts” are actually rewarding adulterous spouses for breaking up their own marriage, and transferring considerable wealth from earner to rival paramour, all while blaming the “Respondent” for choosing not to file their own petition – a clear religious freedom violation.    And wouldn’t you know it?  Quite ironically, there are divorce case precedents where solely for the purposes of dividing marital assets, the marriage contract is indeed deemed in a certain amount of doublespeak to be an “economic partnership”, by golly  –  MVR v TMR,  New York (1982) 115 Misc 2d 674

The last thing to re-examine in assessing this Maynard case for validity in the current marriage debate is whether, in light of ratification of the U.S. Constitution which was specifically drafted to address the many flaws in English Parliamentary law,  was the English parliamentary legal history–even continuing in the colonies as it did–still a reasonable basis upon which to hold the continued practice of legislative enactment of special laws constitutional?    After all, the Maynard majority acknowledged that several states had by that time incorporated specific prohibitions against special laws to grant divorces  into their constitutions and pointed those cases toward the judiciary for a reason: to assure constitutional separation of powers, protection of constitutional due process, and individual fundamental rights.   This trend therefore was far from something unknown to the majority, since they explicitly ceded this fact.   More likely, this constitutional advance in the various states was ideologically objectionable to them.   In the 1848 Ohio Supreme Court case, Bingham-v-Miller-1848 (1), we read concerning the general constitutionality of legislative divorces:

“The constitution confers no such power.  The legislature is not sovereign; nor are all of the departments of government combined.  The people, only, are sovereign.  Nor can the matter be helped by implication, for the [Ohio] constitution in express terms declares that ‘all powers not hereby delegated, remain with the people…The constitution confers no power to grant divorces; from whence then can the legislature derive it?   Not, like the British parliament, from sovereignty, because the legislature does not possess it; not from the constitution, because it does not confer it…

“The British Parliament is clothed, according to their notions, with sovereign power, and may do what they like;  many if not all the legislatures of the colonies, and the old states, possessed and exercised both legislative and judicial power… Our legislature is clothed with the simple power to enact laws, and do some other things expressly authorized by the constitution.  Beyond this, the legislature has no power at all.   To grant a divorce is not to enact a law at all;  an expression of the will of the lawmaking power that a marriage is dissolved is no law at all.   It is a decree, an order, a judgment but not a law …”

Surely, back in 1819, Justice Marshall would have been acutely aware of from whence our Declaration of Independence explicitly states that the people’s sovereignty over fundamental rights emanates, and this was clearly not the British Parliament (to mildly understate it).    On this basis alone, we can safely bet that legislative divorces and special laws would have been repugnant to Marshall’s  experience as a Constitutional founder, though he was reportedly a deist and didn’t have the strong Christian worldview of many of his peers.   And curiously, the majority opinion in Maynard cited several state-level cases in support of their conclusion from a variety of eastern and midwestern states including Pennsylvania, New York and Indiana but, very curiously, did not mention Bingham at all.   Perhaps the dissenting opinion did, given its very high relevance.

One thing we learn from this case is that denial of fundamental due process has always been an essential element of easy, sleazy divorce, even back in the late 19th century when Marxist elements were beginning to emerge and influence the policy-making elites.   Marshall’s voice, on the other hand, called back from the purer days in U.S. history before some of our intellectual elites began to succumb to Marxist ideologies – it would be interesting to note the extent the two dissenting Justices had vainly attempted to echo him.

All of this matters a great deal today, because anyone who looks at contemporary unilateral “no-fault” grounds for divorce, which prevail without mutual consent in 48 states as of this writing,  along with their their surrounding, implementing statutes, cannot help but notice that in reducing the judiciary function to an administrative, ministerial role, where there is to be no finding of marital fault in most states for any aspect of unravelling a family,  these laws amount to nothing more than the outlawed special laws of yesterday in blanket form,  implemented by running them through specialized courts for appearance sake, in order to masquerade as general laws that non-substantively purport to require a judicial function.    Yet, we all know that judges feel compelled by the law to accept the assertions in the petition and rule against the “Respondent” 100% of the time without regard to whether the allegation of “irreconcilable differences”, “irretrievable breakdown”, “insupportability”, etc. is factually true.   In an increasing number of these cases,  the pair has been successfully married for decades and suddenly became “irreconcilable” or “insupportable” according to the legal fiction.   In other cases, we have statistics that at least 5% of supposedly “irreconcilable” couples reconcile with each other, even after subsequent marriages to others.

One of the things the Bingham v Miller jurists did was try to manage the chaos resulting from overturning a law of this nature after decades of unlawful practice,  something the Maynard jurists openly declared that they lacked the fear of God and moral courage to do.

” To deny this long-exercised power, and declare all the consequences resulting from it void, is pregnant with fearful consequences. If it affected only the rights of property, we should not hesitate; but second marriages have been contracted, and children born, and it would bastardize all these, although born under the sanction of apparent wedlock, authorized by an act of the legislature before they were born, and in consequence of which the relation was formed which gave them birth. On account of these children, and for them only, we hesitate. “
– Justice Read, Ohio, 1848

We will be in substantially the same place with the rightful overturn or repeal of unilateral “no-fault” divorce and its effects, except that we will no longer have the legal label of “illegitimate” or “bastard” to contend with, since from about 1987,  U.S. law no longer makes much distinction in the rights of children born in wedlock or out– in a government that has quite clearly lost the moral ability to even define or implement “wedlock”.   Perversely, this will probably prove to be a silver lining for winding down today’s multiple remarriage mess.  The Ohio court stated it had no issue with the property effects reverting back to the status they were prior to imposition of each unlawful dissolution, but only had an issue with the legal and social status of the children of the subsequent union(s).    Although the case text doesn’t explicitly say this, the commentary on it states that the court held those subsequent unions to be  “valid” for the sake of the children.    Today we would ask, “which one(s)?”  However, by Bingham’s own legal theory, it is a serious question whether this Ohio court actually possessed the constitutional authority to do so en masse without actually rehearing any of the cases based on grounds, but it does not appear that this case was appealed any higher.    There was no way to declare all the marriages “valid” out of compassion without setting up a situation of concurrent, Muslim or Mormon style polygamy, in a moral space currently dominated by consecutive polygamy.   Something like this will be the aftermath of correcting the almost unspeakable separation-of-powers evil brought about by unilateral “no-fault” grounds statutes.  Theoretically, only the first marriage will be valid following such an event, but there are complexities even with that.

To conclude, we go back to the error of the Maynard court, and ask an interesting question:

Had the court made the right call on the issue of legislative divorces and special laws under the Article 10 theory that the Bingham court correctly laid out 40 years earlier,  would it have been strictly necessary to address the merits of the contract argument of Article 1 Section 10 applying to marriage, or would it have been wiser to declare that argument “moot” and thereby avoid setting a questionable legal precedent with regard to contracts, one that even John Marshall was uncertain of?   

Both questions had to be addressed once the wrong call was made concerning legislative divorces.   That fatal event turned into a blowtorch on the sustainability of “no-fault” flames, coming as it did at the SCOTUS level.  The Bingham court in Ohio importantly said this about the contract issue:

“Some eminent jurists have denied the power to the legislature, upon the ground that it is a law impairing the obligation of contracts, and therefore prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States. We do not chose to place it upon this ground, because we believe that clause was inserted in the constitution for no such object, but as appliable to contracts of a wholly different nature.   And besides, I believe it not only consistent with the theory of our government, but that our happiness, interest, and safety require us to deny to the general government any possible power not expressly granted, or clearly conferred. It is to the state where we have the control, that we must look for the protection of our dearest rights; and I would be the last to surrender up any right to the general government, and especially so dear a one as that of our domestic relations. This is a matter of our own, and we will keep it so.”

It is clear that there was considerable difference of opinion on the applicability of Article 1 Section 10 to the marriage contract among “eminent jurists” long after Marshall.    Aside from the purism of the legal theory expressed in Bingham, this purism may actually become directly relevant to the constitutional wind-down of the blanket form of legislative divorces we are saddled with today.    For example, in the all-too-common case of someone thrice-“married”, but the law under which they or their civil spouse’s divorce (and therefore, their subsequent civil union) is suddenly declared void by SCOTUS, whose contractual rights prevail?   Aren’t the contract rights of the first spouse just as enforceable under Article 1 Section 10 as the third-and-current civil  spouse?    Perhaps not for marriages contracted after enactment of unilateral “no-fault” laws rendered the civil contract undertaken on the wedding day to be “at-will”, effectively mooting the contract argument that once existed for pretty much anyone under age 65 or so who didn’t first marry fairly young.

It’s fine to say that you can’t “unscramble eggs” or “you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube”,  as we frequently hear with regard to biblically-illicit subsequent marriages, but if unilateral “no-fault” divorce and its parental and property effects are ultimately overturned on an Article 10 / Article 3 argument and separation-of-powers, millions of “marriages”, and probably the bulk of all currently-legal U.S. marriages under prevailing trends, will be voided.    If SIFC were a betting individual, the money would be on the current Justices rejecting the contract argument, not only out of stare decisis, but out  of pure practicality and widespread mootness, to considerably cut down on the enormous and inevitable chaos of conflicting claims.   There are purists among us who say that legislative repeal of unilateral divorce laws needs to take us back to 1969 (1958 for Oklahoma) based on this separation-of-powers constitutional principle, and not allow for even mutual petition “no-fault” grounds.   While that may wind up being the reality in a court result, this will be very unpopular to get through any legislatures where repeal rather than voiding would allow for a more orderly wind-down of divorce-on-demand.

Is what SIFC has just described too remote a possibility for concern? Don’t bet on that!     Legal challenges to pending unilateral “no-fault” divorce petitions have to-date been brought before county circuit judges in several states requesting a summary dismissal of the “no-fault” petition on Article 10 / Article 3 grounds, alleging that the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to rubber-stamp divorces based on blanket legislative mandates that neither require nor permit a genuine judicial discretion.    When that summary judgment is typically denied by the “family court” judge, this then opens up a legal route of Federal challenge outside the usual self-interested state appellate system, and cuts costs for a pro-se challenger down to manageable levels, at least until success is achieved at the first Federal level where the judge’s immunity is successfully challenged because of the lack of subject matter jurisdiction.   At this point, the state AG and organizations like the ACLU will fiercely seek to defend existing laws and entrenched financial interests, probably hoping to empty their opponent’s purse before they prevail up the legal chain to SCOTUS.     This sort of Federal appeal is also available to those whose wrongful divorce has already been finalized against their will,  and for a few years thereafter, even following an unsuccessful state constitutional challenge on 1st and 14th Amendment grounds.   These circumstances increase the possibility that constitutional challenges can be brought in numerous states (hence, Federal circuits) by people who might have deep enough pockets to sustain them, and thereby increase the likelihood that SCOTUS will see a “Federal question”,  and ultimately agree to hear a case all nine justices would probably much rather not hear.   It is also possible that as these cases gather traction in the lower Federal courts, there will be a huge push to amend state constitutions to remove the defect being challenged, by carving out a specific delegation which allows the “family courts” to carry on as usual, much easier to do (and much harder to organize effective opposition to),  on the individual state level –when the other side has control of the money, the media and the popular culture.

Clearly there needs to be a strategic and proactive discussion among the movers and shakers in the marriage permanence movement about how the aftermath of successful constitutional challenge on this basis might be optimally managed, and what sort of strategic alliances need to be cultivated ahead of such a successful development, to have a chance of preventing unilateral “no-fault” divorce from reinventing itself on state constitutions, if so overturned.

(    For comic relief, juicy details and more of the humanistic, anti-family academic mindset concerning this case, SIFC recommends Steven H. Hobbs’ “Love on the Oregon Trail:  What the Story of Maynard v Hill Teaches Us About Marriage and Democratic Self-Governance” – 2003).

“By Me kings reign, and princes decree righteousness…”
– Proverbs 8:15
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!
Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom, Substantive Due Process

Would a Ruling that Unilateral No-Fault Divorce is Unconstitutional REALLY Be “Legislating from the Bench” ?

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by Standerinfamilycourt

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;–to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;–to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;–to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;–to Controversies between two or more States;–between a State and Citizens of another State; –between Citizens of different States, –between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
United States Constitution, Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.    United States Constitution, Article 10

Two landmark cases of the Sexual Revolution in the U.S., namely Roe v. Wade – 1973 (depriving pre-born children of their fundamental right to life), and Obergefell v. Hodges – 2015, legalizing sodomy as “marriage”, were seen by conservatives and original constructionists (with a fair amount of justification, we daresay) as “legislating from the bench”.    An extra-constitutional fundamental right (to “privacy”) was established without actually amending the Constitution via Congressional and state legislative action as called for in Article 5.    Leading up to those cases, several other cases also turned on a judicially-presumed “right of privacy”, including Eisenstadt v. Baird – 1972 (establishing the right of unmarried individuals to purchase contraceptives) and Lawrence v. Texas – 2003 (declaring state laws against sodomy “unconstitutional”).      It should be noted that the fundamental right that is explicit in the Bill of Rights is the right to freedom of association, which came to be closely associated with a presumed “privacy” right which, even worse, has come to override the priority of other conflicting fundamental rights of impacted parties, in order to arrive at some of these activist, individualist decisions that don’t comport with balancing fundamental rights in a way that is best for society as a whole.

As for prioritizing the protection of fundamental rights that inherently conflict with one another, most reasonable people would concur with the principle:  “My fundamental rights end where yours take up.”     For example, a baby’s right to life was ruled in Roe v. Wade to unduly infringe upon a woman’s right to “free association”, but is that reasonable?    A homosexual pair’s right to “free association”, protected by local SOGI laws (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) was ruled to have priority over a wedding professional’s free exercise of religion in a matter before the U.S. Supreme Court last year with a landmark ruling in his favor delivered in June.

SCOTUS did (effectively) rule in 2015 that homosexual couples have a fundamental right to remain married, but our unilateral divorce laws continue to deny that same fundamental right to innocent heterosexual spouses who oppose the purported “dissolution” of their marriage as profoundly harmful to their immediate and extended families’ true best interests, and significantly infringing on the family members’ rights to free association and free religious exercise.  In fact, the Petitioner’s presumed right to “free association” with an adulterous partner, and “privacy” are treated as trumping their innocent spouse’s right to free religious exercise and conscience, as well as their right to protection of property with due process of law, along with their right to protection of decades of extended family relationships.    My right to bear arms must necessarily yield to your right to life if I misuse my fundamental right in order to advance my individual selfish interest at your expense.    And so forth.

Most immoral laws and court rulings indeed result from immoral prioritization of conflicting fundamental rights – a balancing that always has been unavoidable when it comes to the Bill of Rights protections.    It is popular (and ridiculously false) to claim that “you can’t legislate morality”,  but is that not precisely what laws against murder, rape, battery, larceny and defamation actually do?   Don’t discrimination laws of all types “legislate morality” ?

C.S. Lewis famously said,

“There is no neutral ground in the universe.   Every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

Indeed, if someone isn’t legislating morality, it certainly doesn’t leave just a neutral vacuum.     The evidence is all around us that somebody else is surely going to be legislating immorality –and in constantly increasing amounts,  to the corrosive detriment of the whole of society.    As the morality and sense of the good of the whole thereby disintegrates, the whole nation can go down to historic ruin because immoral laws can be exceedingly difficult to reverse no matter how much vile impact they’ve produced.

This concludes the long introduction to the topic at-hand.
Our U.S. Constitution and state constitutions were designed with an intentional separation-of-powers so that the three branches,  legislative, executive and judicial, historically operated with prudent boundaries; checks-and-balances on each other.    It wasn’t perfect, but it continued to pervasively function well over a long period of time —  until the Sexual Revolution hit in full force in the 1970’s.   In addition, the concept of Federalism served to set boundaries of balance between states’ power and the power of national leaders.     Unfortunately, both of these mechanisms in recent decades have worked together to make the erosion of equal protection in marriage laws enacted with unconstitutional statutory provisions increasingly difficult to counter or overturn, at least with regard to the heterosexuals who (after all) produce the children who become the next generation of citizens.

As we’ve seen since former President Obama swept into office in 2008, it’s been a far different story with regard to homosexuals, who achieved superior protections to all other citizens, and relaxation of those legal boundaries, vis-à-vis heterosexuals .   Homosexuals have typically not been required to undertake the expensive burden of taking marriage cases through all levels of the state courts before a lower Federal court would hear and rule on the case.    Homosexuals have often been extended special privilege in overturning a state marriage law that state judiciary authorities declined to review.    By contrast, heterosexuals in modern times have been forced to bear the expensive burden of exhausting all state channels of review, with SCOTUS being the first allowed Federal  engagement point of review.   The odds of getting a constitutional challenge heard there are approximately 90 to 1 as recently reported.     Reportedly, less than 1% of the 9,000 some cases submitted for SCOTUS docketing ever make it oral arguments.    Unless at least four Justices agree to hear the case, it will never be heard, and no reason need be given.   To make matters worse, the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Court revealed that the Justices had been using a “vetting pool” of clerks, rather than having their own clerks read the cases, reducing the chances of a case which so fundamentally “takes on” the Sexual Revolution having its day in highest court in the land even more remote.    To his credit, Justice Gorsuch announced that he would be joining Justice Alito in breaking with that convenience.    Most recently, Justice Kavanaugh was mum on that issue, so presumably he’s using the “cert” pool, as the now-retired Justice Kennedy did.   That means liberal clerks still probably outnumber conservative clerks in that pool, but “standerinfamilycourt” digresses except to say that even the conservative clerks are going to have an ideological bias against the perception of “legislating from the bench”.

Unfortunately, the whole concept of “legislating from the bench”,  tends to be ideologically charged.   It refers to using courts to violate the constitutional separation of powers in Articles 1 and 3, also the interference with Federalism and states’ rights prohibited by Article 10.    Our constitutional republic is gravely harmed in the clear-cut cases of “legislating from the bench” where special rights have been created for a group of people in a case precedent that will in fact deny fundamental rights to everyone else in order to implement and enforce the same.    Our constitutional republic is equally harmed when an ideological majority uses the concept as an excuse to deny fundamental rights to a group of people whose state constitutions and the Bill of Rights is supposed to guarantee them.   The latter has historically been accomplished either through applying an inappropriate standard of judicial review, or wrongfully declining to hear such a case coming from a lower level.

For example, in 1986, Florida pro-se constitutional challenger Judith Brumbaugh related in her book, “Judge, Please Don’t Strike that Gavel on My Marriage”, that she managed to get her appeal of Florida’s unilateral “no-fault” divorce law docketed at the U.S. Supreme Court.    They ultimately declined to hear the case “for want of a Federal question”.    It was striking that Judith’s request for “cert” even got docketed.   This blog has documented many earlier challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws based on religious freedom and equal protection grounds, where the state appeals courts applied the rational basis standard of review, instead of the strict scrutiny basis that is constitutionally required when fundamental rights are being denied by a state statute.   The latter requires that the states prove a compelling interest in denying those fundamental rights, and that such laws be narrowly-tailored to meet that interest in the least intrusive way upon those rights.    What tends to happen is that SCOTUS will apply Article 10 first, and say there is no “Federal question” (unless conflicting results are found in lower courts in different circuits on the same issue) even when it is clear that not only is the Bill of Rights being violated, but the state courts are tolerating wholesale violations of Articles 1 and 3, and thereby compromising the separation-of-powers between the branches of government.    What’s really happening is the actual inverse of “legislating from the bench”,  that is, taking away true judicial discretion and validating a phony cause-of-action from the floors of the state legislative bodies, while being allowed to do it through what amounts to judicial collusion and self-dealing.

Although SCOTUS intervened twice in equal protection cases involving marriage or divorce between homosexuals between 2013 and 2015, the last heterosexual divorce case “standerinfamilycourt” could find that was heard appears to be in 1996 out of Mississippi, and it involved the termination of parental rights for a mother who had suffered a divorce to which she probably acquiesced.    (Mississippi’s “no-fault” law is the only one in the country that was comprehensively enacted in 1972 so as to not force divorce on a non-consenting spouse except on a fault basis.)   The matter at issue was not even the divorce itself, but her inability to pay the transcript costs that blocked her from fighting the termination of her parental rights at the request of her now-“remarried” husband.    There was already significant precedent for the costs of access to courts not to be permitted to deny access to her avenues of initial hearing or appeal.  That case was simply remanded back to the state on that very narrow basis.

In the landmark case, Loving v Virginia (1967) there were no such concerns with violating Article 10.    The Lovings had secured the help of the ACLU to fight the state’s anti-miscegenation laws all the way up through the state appellate system in a class action suit, until certiorari was requested and granted from SCOTUS.   However, neither was there any artificial requirement imposed by SCOTUS to wait for differing outcomes in other regions of the country, lest the spurious claim be made of “want of a Federal question”.    The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) ….

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

….makes such assertions highly questionable when Bill of Rights protections are being denied by state legislatures to its citizens.
The sequence of events in the Loving case, as laid out in the majority SCOTUS opinion:

“On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the ground that the statutes which they had violated were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. The motion not having been decided by October 28, 1964, the Lovings instituted a class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia requesting that a three-judge court be convened to declare the Virginia anti-miscegenation statutes unconstitutional and to enjoin state officials from enforcing their convictions. On January 22, 1965, the state trial judge denied the motion to vacate the sentences, and the Lovings perfected an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. On February 11, 1965, the three-judge District Court continued the case to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the highest state court. The Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and, after modifying the sentence, affirmed the convictions. The Lovings appealed this decision, and we noted probable jurisdiction on December 12, 1966…”

Fundamental rights to stay married, and to live where they wished were on the line in this case that was decided unanimously by the Justices, two and a half years before unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws began to be enacted in the various states.   While it should never be the case, the ugly reality is that the changeable prevailing morality tends to drive landmark SCOTUS decisions and fundamental rights get some lip service, but tend to take a back seat.  For more on the constitutional challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce  that were decided at the state level under an erroneous standard of judicial review, but never heard by SCOTUS, please click here, and here.   Several of the gay marriage cases decided in 2014 cited the right to stay married.

If subsequent state legislation conflicts with a state constitution, there is no violation of Federalism for SCOTUS to enforce the state constitution where a state supreme court denied certiorari.

First-level state appeals are required to be heard, but are sometimes dismissed on technicalities, and hearings for state Supreme Court appeals can be declined without comment, simply based on the number of cases submitted, with “standerinfamilycourt’s” constitutional attorney advising that the state Supreme Court might hear perhaps 5% of the few thousand appeals submitted each session.   Given the influence-peddling on the state level for states that have an elected judiciary, which was ongoing both before and after the jaw-dropping Citizens United ruling by SCOTUS (money is “speech”), it is important, in theory at least, to have an unobstructed path to SCOTUS.    Appellate decisions at the state level, and demonstrably also by SCOTUS, are becoming almost uniformly ideological rather than independent, with the effect that constitutional checks-and-balances between the branches of government are becoming ever-weaker, and stare decisis (ruling by precedent) is pretty much a joke these days.   While in a rare instance there might be a favorable individual challenge where the ruling would be limited in its impact to the law as applied to just that case,  no state appellate court wants to invalidate 50 years worth of unconstitutional marriage dissolutions by admitting the laws are unconstitutional on their face, knowing the social chaos that would result, so these courts will be duplicitous in avoiding ever being put in a situation where they would have to so rule.    Some basis is going to have the be found for taking a constitutional challenge up through the Federal court system despite the long history of being barred from doing so by Article 10 arguments.

In one sense, given the long history of barriers and difficulty of getting any true appellate justice in 1st and 14th Amendment-based challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws, either on the state or Federal levels, the question of whether it would be “legislating from the bench” to declare them unconstitutional on this basis might seem like a moot or futile question.    However, if judges could be sued in Federal court because they ruled while having no true subject matter jurisdiction due to the Article 3 violations entailed in the statute, then this might suddenly become a very relevant question.    As this post is being written, the theory that state divorce statutes unconstitutionally strip judges of the discretion required by Article 3 is being tested in Federal court in several states.    As soon as some initial outcomes are available, the updates will be the subject of a future post.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts.   “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
– Malachi 3: 5-6

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, morality, Substantive Due Process

Dear Texas Lawmakers: A Guest Blog

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– by Kristi  Davis

Dear Members of the Texas State Committee on Juvenile Justice and Family Issues:

I came before you in March of 2017 to testify for HB93 for the repeal of no-fault divorce laws in Texas. My testimony can be viewed online on your website.

Now I would like to present to you an analogy to help bring better understanding of what you are allowing when you have allowed no-fault divorce to continue in our state.

You received your privilege of representing people of our state when those people exercised their privilege to vote and voted for you. You chose to run; they chose to vote. The result is the seat you are now sitting in. All this took place because there are rules in place to create a healthy environment for us to “do government”.

So please imagine this chaotic scenario:

What would you think if one of your constituents walked into the Capitol Building one day and declared that you were no longer their choice for office and must be removed?  This person is not just any constituent; this person voted for you.

And what would you think if they had the erroneous right and ability to remove you simply by making a subjective statement on how they no longer like this relationship you are now in, as voter and representative?

Imagine they could simply file a complaint at the information desk which would guarantee the issue be brought up on the House floor in front of everyone. There really is no need to discuss the issue on the floor, after all, because they need no reason for your removal.  And you will have no opportunity to object to their statement because your side of the story need not be heard. How can you defend yourself, really, when you have not been accused of doing any wrong? The situation has nothing to do with your work performance, anyway. It all comes down to their whims and singular feelings about your relationship. They no longer want you in your seat. That is all that is needed.

What if you wanted to keep your seat? After all, this one voter does not represent your whole constituency; others are involved!
I regret to tell you, the rules were changed years ago that allow one voter, any one voter, to remove you at any time for no reason other than their feelings, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Once the voter objects, your job is gone and your career is over. The entire process can be completed in as little as two months’ time, because we wouldn’t want to inconvenience the public with the legal bill to defend your job.

Please remember: this voter also has access to everything you own and all your private information. They can walk into your office at any time and take your computer, read your emails, force your aides to speak against you, even take over your office and lock your door! They can force your aides to become their aides and work for their campaign to elect someone else in your place. You cannot stop it. But then again, why would you? Even though they voluntarily entered this relationship and chose to vote, you wouldn’t want to force someone to stay enslaved in this voter/representative relationship, would you?

This process could take place at any time, with any representative, as many times as a person would choose, ad nauseum.

Representatives could be shuffled in and out of office the whole session long. I know that making laws is why you are in office, that’s your job, but it’s ok if your job never gets done due to these personal whims of one person. Sure, the whole of the public would pay the price, but aren’t this individual’s desires more important? The courts say this is in the best interest of all your constituents, though years of research would say they are exactly wrong.

Would you think this public policy is not such a great one and needs to be amended or removed?

What would you do if the media folks showed up and opposed your efforts to change these policies? They would make a handsome living off broadcasting these voter objections at the Capitol, after all. But they would not say that out loud; instead, they will tell you that you are being selfish and old-fashioned. They would say that the law is now in the eye of the beholder, subject to redefinition by anyone living under it. Would you be “ok” with that?

Chaos.

Can you imagine this sort of logic applied to every area of law? If it can happen to the most fundamental and important of relationships- family ties, human beings- why not apply to it to everything else, because everything else is less important?
This matter could not be more serious.

Where do we draw the line? Where do you draw the line?
You may think my analogy sounds impossible, but that is what people of 50 years ago thought of the idea of a society where people dissolve marriage and family with the click of a button, literally.
If you do not stop this nonsense here, this analogy that sounds impossible today could be the way of life tomorrow. You are in the position to draw the line.

Let’s reestablish a healthy environment to “do family”; support healthy family relationships by requiring contested divorce cases to be brought for real reasons and every case to be heard thoroughly by a judge. If doing what is in the best interest of the children is really valued at all in this legislature, I implore you to leave hypocrisy behind and protect family by repealing unilateral divorce.

Most sincerely,
Kristi Davis
Texas Citizen
3-Time (Generational) Divorce  Sufferer under No-Fault Divorce in Texas

(    SIFC:   Kristi Davis testified on March 8, 2017 before this Texas Legislative Committee where at least three committee members actually derive income, either directly or indirectly, from unilateral divorce laws.   She has recently launched a blog page called  Healing and Repealing for Strong Family Trees – www.healingandrepealing.com  )

 

 

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Lost culture, Spiritual Warfare

“Abuse” Lies Under Every Rock: Exposing An Abusive Abuse Ministry

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by Standerinfamilycourt

There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
A false witness who utters lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers.
Proverbs 6:16-19

Can a ministry that seeks to speak out on behalf of physically or emotionally-battered spouses be abusive in their own practices?Due to the extreme political sensitivity of this topic, and out of a sincere desire to do no further harm to a priceless, real covenant family, this blog has been over two years in the writing.   Current events, however, are causing this unresolved, mishandled, and highly-politicized abuse issue to fester in a way that is about to be very bad for a couple of states that are in an earnest-but-neglected battle to repeal their unilateral divorce laws. “Standerinfamilycourt” will explain a bit more about that later in this post, and in depth in another post which is in the works, scheduled for release in about another week.

We all rejoiced when the good news came a little over two years ago that Pastor Saeed Abedini had at long last been released from the Iranian prison that had held him for nearly four years.     His wife, Naghmeh, put up a tireless effort to enlist those who could campaign for his release.   Shortly before the harvest of her efforts, she took to her Facebook page to disclose to her more than 85,000 followers that Saeed had developed a pornography addiction prior to being detained in Iran, and that he had physically and verbally abused her since early in their marriage.   She implied that her husband had been abusive and controlling in his most recent communications with her just prior to his release.    Upon his release, the Abedinis and Franklin Graham announced that they would be spending a few days with the Grahams in North Carolina to try and reconcile the issues in their marriage.   Yet, barely within two days of Saeed’s landing on U.S. soil, Naghmeh filed a petition in an Idaho court for a legal separation, explaining that the action was necessary to protect her children.    Since it’s hard to imagine that she could have made these arrangements while across the country in North Carolina, it seems apparent that she had pre-arranged this filing some time well-prior to Saeed’s release.    What was going on here? 

On January 24,  about a week after Saeed’s January 16 release,  a couple of months after she had publicly disclosed Saeed’s alleged abuse, this pseudo-ministry made contact with Naghmeh on her Facebook page.   She indicates that she had been reading their blogs.

Naghmeh_ACFJ

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
1 Corinthians 15:33

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC Note:   It is obvious that if physical abuse endangers a spouse or children in the home, separation for a season is absolutely necessary, and reporting it to the criminal justice authorities is equally imperative.    The latter seldom happens, however, since it’s cheaper and more private to run to the so-called “family court” system, and since almost nobody in our culture today buys into the unchangeable biblical truth that “remarriage” constitutes soul-destroying adultery in God’s eyes, with no excuses and no exceptions.  Emotional abuse, however, can be “in the eye of the beholder”,  and is difficult to objectively assess, measure or prove.     This is all the more reason why Paul’s inspired instructions to the church in
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 and in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 is timeless in its remedy for domestic violence cases (which didn’t suddenly arise in the 21st century, most likely), especially against the backdrop of biblical truth– that man’s civil paper does not unjoin what only God can unjoin, and does not dissolve the unconditional covenant with God, in the case of the original marriage of our youth.   Nor has a piece of civil paper ever “protected” anyone from any form of abuse.

The unilateral divorce laws were driven by a desire not to have to prove marital fault for this very reason, i.e. that there’s an expense to do so along with ugly public airing of personal misconduct, and attempting to do so might still fail for lack admissible evidence, etc.    The mantra about “forcing women to stay in an abusive marriage” (even if it’s for only a slightly longer period) is an overblown, emotionally-driven exaggeration, but it becomes irresistible to the economically-hurting, and to the emotionally-wounded.

This reckless “no-fault” ideology, however, ignores the equal protection and due process obligations that the civil authorities also owe the accused under our Constitution, including all state constitutions.   Current law, as well as these “ministries”,  presume the accused to be guilty based solely on the allegation, and in effect, deny the accused  even a trial, before parental and property rights are cut off.     They are hugely responsible for toxic impacts on the very children they claim to protect, by using the state as a vehicle to allow the petitioning party to alienate the accused party from their God-given parental rights.   All too often, the “abuse” that is alleged is never objectively examined, and on this slippery slope it sometimes amounts to little more than individual perception, out of a self-focused spirit and with the egging-on of financially interested “professionals”.

We’ll spend a little time extracting from the web page of this “ministry”,  and a similar one,  Spiritual Sounding Board, which is currently at the center of a Leftist move to remove a conservative Southern Baptist seminary president who related in an interview that he had refused to counsel divorce in a mild (and quite brief) domestic abuse case that occurred when that pastor-molder served decades ago as a pastor himself.    We will come back to that particular incident, which is being developed more fully in a blog post, to follow.

From one of the “abuse ministry” websites, referring to a post on the other website (click through to SSB’s link):

Abusive abuse “ministries” trade on emotions and biblically-false doctrine, hoping that anyone who calls out their wicked aims and antichrist direction will be censured for “adding to the suffering of the abused”.     Their ideology castigates churches who are faithful to the word of God, accusing them of “devaluing”  and “objectifying” women.   They “cry wolf” at all churches who follow the precepts of Jesus and Paul, with the effect that where there truly is a questionable church, such as the one that unsuccessfully sued Spritual Sounding Board’s Julie Anne Smith for defamation in 2012,  or Greg Locke’s Tennessee church,  the broad paintbrush stroke they employ intimidates many other pastors into appeasing this Jezebel spirit instead of following the way of Christ.    Worst of all, they add to the spiritual delusion of the abuse victims, steering them away from the biblical instruction that is truly available for them, and which truly works, both in the temporal life and with souls in eternity.     When God delivers supernatural protection and miraculous transformation of the abuser, birthing him or her into the kingdom of God, they discredit even that, because it conflicts with their pro-divorce, feminist narrative.    These “ministries” would have considered the Apostle Paul a “misogynist” (to the full extent they couldn’t get away with misquoting him, and with “sanitizing” his instructions to wives).

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband  (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

The Apostle Peter,  similarly “misogynistic”….

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, 2 as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. ….

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;  not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.  For,

“The one who desires life, to love and see good days,
Must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.
“He must turn away from evil and do good;
He must seek peace and pursue it.
“For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
And His ears attend to their prayer,
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?  But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.


The above-posted  February, 2016 article by Spiritual Sounding Board,

Saeed Abedini and Franklin Graham Promote “Couples Counseling” to Reconcile the Abedinis. Because of Saeed’s Abuse, is This Counterproductive?

raises a few valid points:

– the offender (if he / she is actually such) must want to change before change is possible

– the victim(s) and offender do need physical separation for the necessary season

– individual counseling is typically necessary before couples-counseling is likely to succeed

…but the article reaches a destructive and unbiblical conclusion that jeopardizes the souls of everyone involved: husband, wife and children.    It also adds to the lethal effects on society as a whole, because it rushes the parties into the immoral, permanent abandonment of their marriage (unless the Lord intervenes some years later) under man’s false paper.    In some cases,  namely, the great many cases where the “marriage” was biblically unlawful at inception, this is an eternal mercy.    But in every case where God-joined holy matrimony was involved between some combination of a widowed or never-married man and woman,  this wicked, murmurring spirit is an abomination for which God will hold these practitioners responsible.

On the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ,

So they are no longer [never again] two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no [hu]man separate…Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.

The Greek word for the Hebrew or Aramaic word Jesus used in Matt.   19:6  is “choresthetai”  which referred to the furrows between rows in a plowed field.   An effective translation of this word is, “to put distance between.”   That is a very apt description of how these groups operate.   In Proverbs 6, God calls that an abomination.

These “ministries” actively foment and promote biblically-forbidden hard-heartedness, using clever labels, slanderous emotions and caustic publicity.   Here, they arrogantly presumed that Franklin Graham would not have steered the Abedinis to the appropriate resources, had he been free of their own salacious publicity and interference.   Spiritual Sounding Board (incredibly) asks why Franklin Graham didn’t defer to the Abedinis’ home pastor in Idaho for the counseling, but a look at the facebook traffic and the writings of these groups just prior to this 2016 post makes that a hypocritical charge.  The ugly reality is that the avenue of working with the home church was effectively foreclosed because, long before Saeed’s plane from Iran had even landed, they had already demonized that Utah home church as “hiding” and “enabling” the abuser, until Naghmeh was rendered unwilling to submit to that pastor’s legitimate spiritual authority.

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones     Proverbs 12:4

 

WHAT DOES A GODLY, SCRIPTURAL ABUSE INTERVENTION EFFORT LOOK LIKE?

When banks train their staff how to recognize counterfeit bills, they are said to have them spend some time closely studying the real thing.    We can profitably do the same here.    These are the traits of a biblically-faithful and effective abuse and endangered-marriage ministry:

(1) It prays that the justification and sanctification experience will be genuine and renewed in both marriage partners (Luke 13:3; Matthew 7:21-23)

(2) It counsels a sole regenerated partner in servant-leadership and seeing their offending spouse the way Jesus sees them (1 Peter 3:1-7; 1 Corinthians 7:12-13, 16)

(3) It refrains from suppressing the uncomfortable truth about the eternal and societal consequences of our individual choice to obey or disobey God’s commandments (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Galatians 6:7-8; Hebrews 13:4)

(4) It banishes the evangelical weasel-words:  “ideal”, “design”, “purpose”, “intention”, “best” (etc.) from reference to marriage indissolubility, and replaces those words with REALITY, and COMMANDMENT.  (Matthew 19:6; Malachi 2:13-15)

(5) It draws a scripture-based distinction between lawful and unlawful marriages, and counsels accordingly, with souls and generations in mind (Matthew 5:27-32; Luke 16:18-31; Matthew 19:9b-KJV; Mark 10:11-12; Malachi 2:14-15)

(6) It recognizes the spiritual warfare, demonic nature of holy matrimony destruction, and trains the believing spouse(s) in the spiritual weapons (in a separate session with the believing spouse, if necessary) –  Ephesians 6:10-18; 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

(7) Where criminal behavior is evident and provable, it counsels toward criminal court, not “family court”  (Romans 13:1-4; Matthew 22:20-21; 1 Corinthians 6:1-8)

(8) It frankly warns that a holy God recognizes neither man’s “divorce” nor attempts to “remarry”, despite the widespread iniquity they observe in the church  (Matthew 19:8; Matthew 5:32b; 19:9b; Luke 16:18b; Romans 7:2-3; 1 Corinthians 7:39)

(9) It builds a deliberate knowledge base about the biblical validity, theology, practice methods, track record and faith of other marital therapists, and makes that available

(10) It attempts to advise against and mediate with authorities to eliminate relationship-hindering elements such as objectively-unnecessary no-contact and restraining orders

(11) It attempts to mediate with the pastor if there is an unbiblical element of the home church’s doctrine on marriage, divorce or remarriage, and it encourages submission to the leadership of the home church unless there is a biblically-solid reason not to (for example, unqualified pastor who is divorced and remarried)
– 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6

(12) It teaches the biblical authority / responsibility structure of the home  (1 Corinthians 11:3)

(13) It cooperates with biblically-administered church discipline, and it helps to bring either or both spouses back into soft-hearted submission to valid church authority (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5; James 5:19-20)

(14) It organizes essential material resources that enable the spouses to follow God’s instructions to separate chastely, and remain married (James 1:27; 1 Timothy 5:3-8; 1 Corinthians 7:11)

(15) It hones a skill set in defusing unhelpful, divisive emotions on both sides, and models longsuffering (Jeremiah 17:9; Galatians 5:22; Matthew 16:24)

(16) It leaves the control of the timeline in God’s hands, honoring Christ’s commandments not to take our own revenge and not to resort to pagan courtrooms (2 Peter 3:8-9; Romans 12:19;
1 Corinthians 6:1-8)

(17) It operates under the fruit of the Spirit, and educates everyone involved about the works of the flesh, including the fact that all forms of humanistic thought directly conflict with following Christ, and examines common wrong assumptions and motives for humanistic thought.  (Galatians 5:22-23;  Matthew 16:24-25)

Of course, these steps are the very antidote to secular humanism and temporal values that today masquerade as “discipleship”.    Several of these elements expressly conflict with the feminist ideology of these groups.   “Standerinfamilycourt” makes no apologies for any of them, however “enabling” and “misogynistic” they may be deemed to be.    Most importantly, several of these ministering essentials cannot be accomplished in the virtual world, nor by buying the hawked publications on offer.   Hence, these “ministries” have virtually no biblically-valid role in the kingdom of God.

Now that we have a picture of what a biblically-valid ministry to physically and emotionally-battered spouses looks like,  we’re ready to meet the people and examine the philosophies behind Spiritual Sounding Board, and A Cry for Justice, while holding their characteristic dogmas and practices up to the light of scripture.

Julie Anne Smith, owner of Spiritual Sounding Board is a Washington resident who began blogging a few years ago on what she views as “abusive churches”, following an incident in 2010 or 2011 that affected her and other friends and family members at Beaverton Grace Bible Church, where the pastor at the time was Charles O’Neal, who remains the current head pastor.    Unlike her former pastor, Julie Anne doesn’t really tell us too much more about her own background, except that she was a home-schooling parent for 23-1/2 years.   Presumably, she’s been a homemaker for the bulk of her pre-blogging career.    She does not disclose on her site her education, professional experience, or even her account of coming to faith.    The summons of the dismissed suit quotes several online statements by her and various co-defendants, but none of the allegations are specific enough to cite any biblical authority to substantiate those opinions.     She apparently gets extensively interviewed around the Pacific Northwest area as a result of the dismissed lawsuit, but to her credit, she is apparently not hawking books.   A defining quote from her “About” page gives an idea of what she defines as church-orchestrated abuse:

“Another part of my story is connected with the Homeschool Movement – the subculture within the fundamental Christian homeschool group which includes practices such as: full-quiver, courtship, Patriarchy, stay-at-home daughters, modesty/purity teachings (the church/pastor who sued me also was connected with the Homeschool Movement).

“As a long-time homeschooling mother (23+ yrs), I have seen how some of these practices, especially the ones that devalue/depersonalize women and girls, have caused great harm, physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. We have a big problem with abuse in our Christian groups!”

While the primary purpose of this blog post is not to critique churches, we must start by saying that just because disaffected congregation members may personally disagree with biblical concepts such as encouraging large families, modest dress, chastity, honoring homemaking as a career choice, submission to the biblical family-structure, discouraging contemporary dating practices, none of this automatically renders a church “abusive”, unless members are chained there and not permitted by some strong mechanism to “vote with their feet”–or there is substantive evidence of financial abuse of church resources, or perhaps sexual immorality in the leadership.
The church’s website does not make any disclosure of a church board or plural leadership, which discerning folk should probably take as a potential “red flag”,  especially where there is more than one campus–which appears to be the case here, but this is the typical operating model for that denomination.     There seems to be pretty good disclosure of these facts on BGBC’s web page, which should best be left to the judgment of the public, in the absence of non-public malfeasance that could not be resolved according to biblical principles with Pastor O’Neal.    If there is any scriptural authority for any of Mrs. Smith’s opinions, she does not seem to cite them in her blog posts (even though she does appear to provide an extensive list of links to the work of others on a separate Resources tab).   Indeed, even when she is citing “experts” in her own writings on handling marital abusers, the typical link is not to a social science publication, but to a newspaper summary of an emotion-gripping incident, itself having no links to social science support.

The best that can be said of the 2012 lawsuit incident is that both sides seem to have behaved unbiblically.    The fact that the suit was dismissed, while the outcome seems correct and just, does not exonerate the public slander, reviling and lack of submission on Mrs. Smith (and company’s) part to biblical authority while voluntarily a part of the church.

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,  idolatry, sorcery, ENMITIES, STRIFE, jealousy, outbursts of anger, DISPUTES, DISSENTIONS, FACTIONS, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The fact that Pastor O’Neal felt compelled to bring the matter before pagan judges to protect perceived financial interests does not speak very well of him, either, by biblical standards.   Neither party seemed to have acted in a way that was a good witness to the community.    Smith does not give a “what we believe” section, and  tells us nothing further that creditably justifies her site, but she does provide what looks like a good resource list to help individuals decide for themselves whether they are involved with an abusive or controlling church, and ought to simply move on quietly.    Smith’s motives, however, seem vengeful and controlling (at least, intimidating) in their own right.   It should go without saying that church discipline and biblical admonition are valid and scriptural in the absence of any factors indicating mistreatment of those elements, and are not, in and of themselves, “controlling” behavior, as Spiritual Sounding Board frequently alleges.

Mrs. Smith goes on to tell us about her association with another blogger on the topic of church abuse, by the name of Brad Sargent, who goes by the moniker, “futuristguy” .     His role in this site does not seem extensive, but he’s described as having compiled the library of links to the lawsuit documents, and as a “survivor of church abuse”.   Evaluation of his materials will be outside the scope of this blog, while noting that he did write a blog on the Mars Hill Church controversy that led to the litigious 2014 removal of founding pastor, Mark Driscoll for pastoral misconduct.    Sargent’s own blogsite does not seem to be fixated on interference with families, but he did also weigh in separately on the recent Paige Patterson controversy.

It was to Spiritual Sounding Board that Christian homosexual journalist Jonathan Merritt reportedly brought the year 2000 radio interview audio of Dr. Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and scheduled speaker for the mid-June annual conference in Dallas of the Southern Baptist Convention.   In magpie fashion, Mrs. Smith proceeded obligingly to second-guess Dr. Patterson’s pastoral ministry of 20 years ago as “misogynistic”, “paternalistic”, and insufficiently protective of battered women.    This inflamed the likes of Liberty University professor and ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission) research fellow Karen Swallow-Prior, also media evangelist Beth Moore to raise a petition with over 3,000 signatures for Dr. Patterson’s removal from his post, which is scheduled to be discussed tomorrow, May 22.    Swallow-Prior has been openly critical of Dr. Patterson’s leadership to exclude women from theology professorships at the seminary, a feminist issue that can reasonably be associated with biblical instruction for a woman not to teach or exercise authority over men.    Swallow-Prior’s actions indicate that she is an LGBT sympathizer and is in alignment with a faction that wants to push the SBC in the direction of a leftist social-justice gospel.   There are suggestions that various Southern Baptist arms, including the ERLC, have benefitted from the largesse of George Soros’  Open Society Foundation,  and this Dallas seminary coup, if successful, has strong implications for the unilateral divorce repeal debate in Austin that resumes with the 2019 legislative session.

In the four-minute audio, Dr. Patterson is asked by the interviewer about a wife’s submission to her husband, asking him what he says to a woman he knows is being physically abused.   Dr. Patterson tells the interviewer (approximately 52 seconds in) that it “depends on the level of abuse to a certain degree”,  and that he’s never in his pastoral ministry ever counseled a woman to seek a divorce.    Both are biblically-valid statements, but there is nothing he could possibly have said that could be more inflammatory to the ideology that (in fairness to Dr. Patterson) was yet to emerge in these “abuse ministries”, already violating two of their core tenets within just 53 seconds of opening his mouth.    Not that Dr. Patterson should be required to bow and scrape before these militant hussies, it is an important point of chronology that this interview pre-dated the inception of these groups by several years, so it is a bit unreasonable to even accuse him of “insensitivity”.   From there, Patterson continued in the interview to make clear that where there was actual endangerment, he counseled chaste separation with the seeking of professional help, and said he had even assisted in bringing it about.   (This is the correct scriptural approach, in fact).    He then transitioned to the more typical case (approximately 1:50) where perhaps the abuse is not physical yet, and while stating unequivocally that he considered all abuse to be serious, Dr. Patterson related a specific story that should have been credited for its redemptive nature, sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the effective instruction in spiritual weaponry he imparted to this lady, rather than the “reckless endangerment” the cast of feminazi’s have vocally characterized it as in their smear campaign.

He told this lady, “you must not forget the power of prayer….I want you to every evening get down by your bed, just as he goes to sleep…when he’s just about asleep, you just pray for him, out loud, quietly…but I said, ‘get ready because he just might get a little more violent’….   Here, Patterson might have explained it a little better so as not to be misconstrued, but  SIFC knows from firsthand experience that he was talking about violence due to the nature of spiritual warfare, not because she was necessarily overheard.   He failed to be more specific about the days that most likely elapsed before what happened next occurred….
“…sure enough, she came to church one morning with both eyes black, and she was angry with me and with God and the world….and she said, ‘I hope you’re happy’, and I said ‘yes, ma’am I am, I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy’, but what she didn’t know when she sat down in church that morning was that her husband had come in and sat at the back, the first time he ever came, and when I gave the invitation that morning, he was the first one down to the front. And his heart was broken.  He said ‘my wife’s been praying for me, and I can’t believe what I did to her.  Do you think God could forgive someone like me?’  Patterson went on to make clear that the regenerated man was transformed into a great husband after that, and there was no further violence.

Folks, that’s how it’s supposed to work in the kingdom of God!
In fact, something similar happened nearly 40 years ago in SIFC’s home.

...Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.
– Matthew 21:31

That formerly abusive man will get into heaven before any of these harpies trying to remove Dr. Patterson will, trust me.   No civil paperwork needed.    In fact, the rebellious filing of a divorce petition, in direct violation of 1 Cor. 6:1-8, is the trigger that tends to create much of the violence, along with the illicit presence of an immoral relationship which an insecure woman who is not submitted to Christ will often herself introduce, in her own abusiveness toward the marriage.   On the other hand, a biblical, chaste separation, where the abuser knows and trusts that their spouse remains committed to the home and to reconciliation, will often lead to genuine repentance.
I find a little bit of flaw with Dr. Patterson’s articulation, but no fault whatsoever with his conduct.   The fact that these condemning women have so much open disdain for God’s word and for His ways tells me all I really need to know about their characters, and about their qualification for the “ministry” they claim.

In contrast to Spiritual Sounding Board,  the “ministry”  A Cry for Justice is a bit older and more established.
(Note: we have removed the earlier reference to tax-exempt nonprofit status  which was in error, after ACFJ advised this was not correct.)

When founded in 2012, it was run by Pastor Jeff Crippen, of Christ Reformation Church in Tillamook, Oregon, and by Barbara Roberts of Australia, who claims to have come out of an abusive marriage, and is presently in a biblically-adulterous remarriage with a man she also says has come out of an abusive marriage.    Both have written various books on the topic of domestic abuse / violence and the “acceptability” of divorce, since 2008-9.    Crippen is a former law enforcement professional, and bolsters the “authority” of his books with that background.   He appears to be in a 40-year covenant marriage.   Crippen makes various charges in this 2012 post against conservative Christian denominations and fellowships, some biblical, and some not-so-much, for example:

“Taking Stock

Therefore, if your church:

  1. embraces a theology  that presumes a church member/professing Christian really is a Christian, regardless of how they are living,
  2. emphasizes the headship of the husband and father and the submission of the wife and mother without getting right down to the “nitty-gritty” of what abuse of headship actually looks like, so that the men in the church even “squirm” in the pew if they are guilty,
  3. does not, like we used to, permit women to vote or to pray aloud,
  4. teaches that the marriage covenant is not to be broken, that divorce is wrong (that sounds biblical, but what it usually translates into is the clear implication that abuse is not grounds for divorce)
  5. teaches that abuse victims, normally women, are pleasing God and suffering for Christ by remaining in a marriage to an abuser,
  6. discourages (in some cases forbids) a wife from saying anything negative about her husband (this is often expressed as a discouraging ‘gossip’)

…then I suggest to you that it is not fundamentally the troubled marriage that is threatening the health of your church, but it is the climate that has been created which inevitably deals injustice to victims.”

“Injustice Destroys Unity

“As more and more people in the congregation begin to realize this injustice, unity is destroyed.  As we, pastors and leaders, dig our heels in further, all the while telling ourselves that we are standing faithful for Christ in this, we only add fuel to the fire.

“There was still another hard thing that I had to face:  just what do we think of women?  The fact is that most conservative, Bible-believing pastors like ourselves actually look down upon women.  We see them as inferior beings.  We object to this charge, but our actions betray our real attitudes.

“I had to ask myself, “Jeff, just exactly what is it that is going on in your head when a woman walks into your office and asks for help?”  The answer I ultimately saw was “I see her as an inferior being and I talk down to her.”  Really, and with ruthless honesty – “What does Pastor _________ think about a woman who walks into his office?”  “What does he think about his wife?”  Don’t rush to answers.  The first responses we give are usually wrong.”

(Extracted from “An Open Letter from a A Pastor to Pastors”,  September 6, 2012)

Crippen reportedly stepped away from the  ACFJ “ministry” in 2017, leaving it in the hands of Barbara Roberts and her assistants.   Roberts was the author of the decidedly unbiblical book, “Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion”.

Of course, the very title of this tome suggests a reliance on the too-common eisegesis of 1 Corinthians 7:15, which itself relies on an abusive translation of the Greek term “douloo” to include the marriage bond, and in so doing, fabricates an out-of-context “exception” for both divorce and remarriage based on a spouse’s desertion.    No one-flesh supernatural, inseverable joining for this bunch — that “demeans” women and “enables” abuse!    This book was written in 2008, and Ms. Roberts entered her adulterous union in 2011.     While our Lord says all divorce is man-fabricated, Roberts claims there is a “distinction” between a “treacherous divorce” and “disciplinary divorce”…

“Disciplinary divorce is permitted by the Bible. It applies in cases of abuse, adultery and desertion, where a seriously mistreated spouse divorces a seriously offending spouse.

“Treacherous divorce is condemned by the Bible. It occurs when a spouse obtains divorce for reasons other than abuse, adultery or desertion. I did not invent those terms by the way, I got them from another author. To explain the scriptural basis for the distinction between disciplinary and treacherous divorce took a whole book, so I’d best not try to go into it here!

“Understanding the biblical principle of disciplinary divorce is liberating, especially for the victims of domestic abuse, who have been the Cinderellas in the divorce controversy for centuries. God doesn’t say that abused spouses have to stay, put up and suffer. They are free to separate, divorce and, if they choose, remarry. They don’t have to be sacrificed on the altar of the institution of marriage, at the hands of a cruel spouse and a judgemental [sic] church. They can seek freedom from bondage and rebuild their lives, without guilt or condemnation.” 

(We would add…without much of a healthy fear of God!)    So, this brings us to the nitty-gritty of the issue to remove a seminary head who is committed to biblical marriage permanence and whose actions reject the falsehoods of the “social justice gospel”.    The full (and grossly errant) ACFJ  “Position on Divorce” can be read here.

ACFJ defines “abuse” that justifies divorce as follows:  “A pattern of coercive control (ongoing actions or inactions) that proceeds from a mentality of entitlement to power, whereby, through intimidation, manipulation and isolation, the abuser keeps his* target subordinated and under his control. This pattern can be emotional, verbal, psychological, spiritual, sexual, financial, social and physical. Not all these elements need be present, e.g., physical abuse may not be part of it.”

ACFJ goes on to claim on their site (without biblical authority) that the marriage covenant is “broken” by this “abuse”.   On the contrary, our bible states that, although many things violate the marriage covenant, only physical death actually breaks it.     Somebody’s obviously lying here:  either it’s Barbara Roberts, the self-interested, legalized adulteress, hoping to sell her apostate book, or it’s Jesus and Paul.    What do you think?

There is some misapplied-but-interesting lore behind ACFJ’s iconic Facebook cover:   “Saint Lucy was a rich Christian woman of Sicily who refused marriage and gave her money to the poor. Her rejected suitor (a pagan fellow to whom her mother had betrothed her) denounced Lucy to the authorities during the Diocletian persecution. The Governor of Syracuse ordered Lucy to burn a sacrifice to the emperor’s image. When she refused the Governor sentenced her to be defiled in a brothel. Christian tradition states that when the guards came to take her away, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. Bundles of wood were then heaped about her and set on fire, but would not burn. Finally, she met her death by the sword in 304 AD.   A later legend says that Lucy’s eyes were gouged out as part of the persecution but were miraculously restored at her death.  In the painting Lucy is standing before the Governor who condemned her at the behest of the abuser who sought to marry her. She is pointing upward to Heaven, warning the judge of the wrath that will come upon him for siding with the ungodly. The Holy Spirit hovers over her.”

If the Holy Spirit is hovering over this (purportedly, persecuted) organization, it is a grieved and quenched one.   

“Standerinfamilycourt” would like to conclude this post with some balancing thoughts by Dr. Stephen Baskerville, Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College, and Research Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, The Independent Institute, and the Inter-American Institute, from his 2017 article, “How the Church Must Confront the Sexual Revolution”:

“The church must take a firm and decisive stand on other aggressive and destructive legal abuses of the Sexual Revolution, principally, fabricated accusations of new gender crimes like “rape” and “domestic violence,” and “child abuse.” The feminists claim that these are epidemic. Either they are right, in which case the church is silent in face of a great evil. Or they are false and the feminists are using them for political purposes, in which case the church is likewise silent in the face of a systemic injustice.

“Even more serious are fabricated accusations of domestic violence, a well-known weapon in divorce courts and a tool of the feminist lobby for creating single-parent homes and depriving children of fathers. They constitute another clear and direct attack on justice. Some Christians have indeed weighed in—unhelpfully. 

“In ‘Freeing the Oppressed: A Call to Christians concerning Domestic Abuse‘, Ron Clark parrots standard, patently preposterous feminist claims (“every 15 seconds a spouse kills his wife”). His personalized definition of “domestic violence” bears no relation to plain English, with “manipulation,” “self-pity,” and even “apologies” classed as “violence.” His books are a litany of government falsehoods that are used to exacerbate the family crisis and augment government power. But even if Clark is right, then why are the other churches so silent? Here too, the church should have something to say, one way or the other.  But here too, as with divorce generally, as with rape accusations, they are silent.”

 We note that Dr. Baskerville is a tireless critic of our immoral and unconstitutional unilateral divorce laws, whose proponents are constantly seeking to justify with “straw-man” arguments, such as claims that stripping ALL (offending and non-offending) divorce defendants of their basic Bill of Rights protections is imperative to reducing spousal suicide from “feeling trapped in abusive marriages”.    While correlation studies have indeed been done that show a slight drop in spousal suicide rates with the rise in states that have passed unconstitutional “family laws”, those studies ignore important resulting factors like the hefty social costs, the suicide, homicide, physical and sexual abuse rates of children in the resulting broken homes, and the suicide rates among legally-abandoned spouses, especially those alienated from their children due to no fault of their own.

You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.   – Deuteronomy 16:19

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!