Category Archives: family law

SCOWI’s For Sale – So Who’s Buying?


by Standerinfamilycourt

The wicked accept bribes in secret [well…obscurity, anyway]
    to pervert the course of justice.     –  Proverbs 17:23

A bribe is a charm in the sight of its owner;
            Wherever he turns, he prospers.   – Proverbs 17:8

And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.    –  Exodus 23:8

“standerinfamilycourt”  moved a couple of years ago, compelled by financial circumstances imposed by a “family law” court, to the neighboring state, where the cost of living is considerably less than the state of our now-sold marital residence.    This state has a news organization that believes in sponsoring and televising political debates between judicial candidates, in this case, for a 10-year re-electable seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.   The politically-correct line about this office is that it is “non-partisan”.   However, one did not need to watch much of this debate to quickly identify the “liberal” and the “conservative” candidates, as it were.    The sad fact of our crumbling democracy and society is that many judicial decisions are made ideologically, regardless of the traditional lore, rhetoric and precedents to the contrary.

It also appears that in the last few years, the decisions are moving in the direction of becoming more ideological rather than less ideological.    According to the public interest organization, Justice At Stake, from 2000-2009, fundraising by state Supreme Court candidates soared to $206.9 million, more than doubling the $83.3 million raised in the 1990s.   Note that this measurement period ended just before SCOTUS handed down the landmark big money decision,  Citizens United v FEC, which is discussed below.   While this blog post is a fairly detailed discussion of the skunkworks in one  particular state, it is likely that any of the 20+ states with elected judges and justices will have the same special interest obstructions to true constitutional justice for the average citizen, to the extent that the remedy sought would conflict with the special interests of the donor class inside and outside that state.

Being a firm believer (from hard experience) that these days, there cannot possibly be “too much” light shed on the judiciary and on the dubious process of electing its “public servants”, this voting citizen dutifully watched the entire hour of debate very attentively, and was quite grateful, if woefully disheartened, at the rare opportunity to do so.   The dominant issue in this debate was, who all was buying the most influence, and from whom.     Some may “take issue” with the notion of a political donation being compared with a bribe, and in fact, many donations do not function as bribes.   The problem is with the concentration of those that are clearly so, in this climate of the past few years, where most of the integrity of the judiciary has been steadily evaporating to the point where most key decisions, especially those touching the Sexual Revolution are indeed ideological.     We in the marriage permanence community need to also keep ever-mindful that some of the most key decisions are hidden, and not even required to be published or justified with a stated reason:   quite notably, whether or not to even hear an appeals case brought before the highest court in the state.    

There have been calls for SCOTUS  Justices to have their life appointments curtailed, and even for them to be elected rather than appointed, especially in the wake of corrosive and overbearing decisions like Roe v. Wade,   Lawrence v Texas, Citizens United v FECEmployment Board v. Smith,  and Obergefell v Hodges.   which legalized all of the following by high court ideological fiat:

– abortion
– sodomy
– money as “speech”
– countermanding the 1st Amendment fundamental protection of free religious exercise on the state and Federal levels, leading to the need for individual states to adopt RFRA’s, which directly resulted in state-by-state inequality of that Bill of Rights protection
– gay “marriage”

As frustrating as these ideological travesties of justice were (some of the very worst of them conservatively-decided, by the way), a better solution needs to be found that does not hamstring or sabotage the separation-of-powers our founders so wisely designed-in.    My theory is that elected judicial candidates provide no advantage over appointed candidates, and may have effectively placed the latter for purchase by the highest bidder, especially in the wake of Citizens United, which declared inanimate greenbacks to be 1st Amendment-protected “free speech”.    That’s right, since 2010 the “green stamps” in the corporate and PAC wallets have been deemed more worthy of 1st Amendment protections by the highest court in the land than human Respondents in a unilateral divorce lawsuit (since SCOTUS has a long history of refusing to hear constitutional challenges of unilateral divorce laws in the decades since their state-by-state enactment).

As noted earlier by the organization Justice At Stake, most states which have an elected, term-limited judiciary created this special-interest situation long before 2010, and to be transparent, the big donors to these elective offices didn’t have many limits that the Citizens case materially changed (at least in Wisconsin), as we shall see in the process of breaking down the donor-categories and amounts given to these two competing “non-partisan” candidates in the state of Wisconsin.   As responsible citizens, however, we still need to be aware of the increasing potential for big money from in-state and out-of-state special interests to literally purchase a state judicial election, since the door has now swung wide open for them to do so:

The United States Supreme Court held (5–4) on January 21, 2010 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofit corporations, for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.  –  Wikipedia

As recently reported by Matthew Rothschild -Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director,

“Before  [2015 legislative change], the most a candidate for the state supreme court could receive from all committees combined was $140,156. So the candidate could accept $140,156 from the Republican Party of Wisconsin, but then the candidate could not accept a single dime from any other committee.

“Now the sky is the limit. Political parties can now give unlimited amounts of money to candidates of their choice.

“To make matters worse, before the 2015 rewrite, the most that a rich individual could give to a political party was $10,000. Now a rich individual can give unlimited amounts of money to a political party.

“With both of these ceilings torn down, a billionaire could give $10 million to a political party, and that party could then turn around and spend that $10 million on the billionaire’s favorite candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

“This makes a mockery of the limits on direct donations to candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court, which used to be $10,000 and now is $20,000 (itself a ridiculously high sum).”

So, whose bidding will the two opposing candidates be doing, once elected?     For those who didn’t take time to watch the debate video linked above, here’s a brief synopsis (financial figures are from the site Wisconsin Democratic Campaign, a follow-the-money disclosure site, as reported through March 11, 2018):

“Non-partisan” Progressive –  Rebecca Dallet*  (please click to enlarge detail)

*Note:  Dallet donated $200,000 to her own campaign, $35,000 more than her opponent’s entire fundraising result, to-date.   These funds have been excluded from the analysis for a fairer comparison of supporters.     Even so, her overall donated funds are more than twice her opponent’s.   Close to $200,000 alone has come from the practicing or retired legal community, easily 50% of her outside fundraising, with the biggest firm donors in the personal injury, energy or corporate practice areas.    Her other major special interest donor categories include commercial business interests in Real Estate, Banking and Non-Profits. All of the donations for Dallet in the “Political / Ideological” category were $500 or under, except for the Brico Fund – $5,000, which appears to be a feminist organization focused on girls, and more recently, environmental and “social justice” issues (excluding, of course, Bill of Rights protections of unilateral divorce Respondents and the right-to-life of pre-born citizens).

PAC contributions to or expended on behalf of Dallet appear to be immaterial, but tellingly there’s one special interest group who is spending significant money in her behalf based on a perceived need for her support:

Note:  the first group listed has expended 40% more in favor of her opponent’s campaign.   The second group has expended $116K and is the subject of heated controversy in the state, justifiably so.

Overall, about $32K or about  9% of Dallet’s fundraising came from out-of-state sources.    Note: On April 3, 2018, Dallet did emerge as the successful candidate in the General Election.

“Non-partisan” Conservative –  Michael Screnock (please click to enlarge detail)


Between 30 and 40% of Screnock’s coffers have been filled with donations from the active or retired legal community, but this is not as easy to gauge because Dallet’s retired donors were listed as such, example: “retired judge“, whereas Screnock’s retirees and public servant donors were not.    His largest direct campaign donor was his father, who is a currently-practicing family law attorney in Wisconsin, contributing just under the $20K current legal limit established in 2015 by the legislature.    A corporate law firm contributed another $15K.

Unlike the case with his liberal opponent, G.O.P. PAC contributions were significant and helped make “non-partisan” Screnock’s primary campaign financially competitive with Dallet’s mega-war chest.    About $5K or about 3.5% of Screnock’s fundraising came from out-of-state sources, compared with Dallet’s 9%.

The current controversy involving SCOWI (and specifically, candidate Dallet) is over the toothless Justice recusal policy, given the large campaign donations by a PAC interested in the state redistricting / gerrymandering activities.     As it stands, there is nothing except honor or integrity to compel a Justice to recuse themselves from a matter directly involving a campaign donor entity, even right after they have made a very large contribution.    What if a serious challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s unilateral divorce law came before SCOWI, and some of the Justices had taken campaign donations from the American Bar Association?  Or from the ACLU, or the Lambda Foundation?    Wisconsin reportedly has the weakest recusal policy in the country, so this begs the question of why?    If Justices recused themselves, as integrity truly demands, from cases involving the interests of large donors, would those campaign finance contributions continue to flow?   One good way to find out is to reform the recusal rules.

 

Have we structurally landed in a place where only certain citizens are entitled to constitutional fundamental protections, regardless of the liberal or conservative makeup of the court, specifically, those who don’t oppose the fee-rich business-as-usual operation of the Sexual Revolution?

So, how much impact has the Citizens United decision actually had on judicial campaign funding in Wisconsin?    Is there a reasonable way to measure?     For example, can we get an idea by comparing the reported campaign finances of Justices first elected before 2010, and re-elected in 2010 or after?

For each of the three sitting Justices first elected prior to 2010, then re-elected after 2010, an analysis similar to those presented above on the candidates was done, but contrasting the earlier election funding and donors with the most recent funding and donors.    This is also contrasted with the funding and donations for the 2009 last campaign of the only Justice who hasn’t stood for re-election since 2010 because her term isn’t up until next year.    A summary of observations and trends is given based on the individual analysis, for each Justice examined.    In all cases, the Justice’s personal funds donated to the campaign was removed and disregarded in the overall figures so that only external fundraising in considered in the analysis.   Those self-contributed figures also tell an important story, but need to be examined separately.

Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack*, 2003/2013
(Conservative)
Summary:  2013 fundraising was nearly six-fold versus 2003, or $688,000 versus $119,000.  In 2013, just under $38,000 (under 2%) was raised from out-of-state sources, and did include business interests, compared with a little over $16,000 (13%) in 2003.  Law firms and lobbyists (yes, I did indeed just say, lobbyists) accounted for 25% of fundraising in 2003, which was similar proportionally to 2013.  The next largest 2003 donor category was Manufacturing at 17% but reduced in 2013 to only 8% of the total figures.  After that, Banking, General Business, Construction, and Health Professionals each accounted for 10%-12% of fundraising in 2003 – and each of these reduced their share by roughly half of the 2003 totals (proportionally) in 2013 while actually donating 3 or 4 times as much in 2013 as in 2003.   Donors categorized as Political / Ideological interests, primarily “school choice”, donated 13% of the total in 2003 versus only 3% of the total in 2013.  Aside from the six-fold rise in campaign costs and fundraising, the other big trend in the post-Citizens United election was the dramatic increase, from 6% to 13%, in donations from the Retired/Homemakers / Non-Income Earners, only $6,000 in 2003 but $91,000 in 2013.  In other judicial campaigns in the state, this group tends to be dominated by retired attorneys and their wives.  The final observation is the emergence of eight new industries donating to the 2013 campaign that were not present in the 2003 campaign, none of which accounted for more than 3% each, including Agriculture, Defense, Education, Insurance, Institutional Health, Natural Resources, Real Estate, and Transportation.
Finally, it should be noted that Justice Roggensack was the first Chief Justice selected by her peers on the court following a law change (2015) that allowed it, instead of the role falling to the most senior justice, prior to that year. Roggensack’s last re-election fell two years prior to her selection as Chief Justice.   In perspective, her 2013 war chest almost twice that of first-time successful 2018 candidate Rebecca Dallet, and was more than four times greater than the unsuccessful 2018 candidate.  Both women donated about $200,000 to their own most recent campaigns.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley* 1985 / 2015
(Liberal)
Summary:   Again, we see a $600,000+ campaign for 2015, versus only a $29,000 campaign in 2005.   Bradley donated none of her own funds to her 2015 campaign and only $500 to the earlier campaign.   Out-of-state funds, mostly from retired attorneys and spouses amounted to $12,000 in 2015 and none in 2005.    As was the case with the liberal 2018 candidate, Rebecca Dallet, law firms and retired attorneys made up approximately 50% of total outside donations in both the early and the more recent campaign.    As we also saw with the 2013 Roggensack campaign, several industries significantly ramped up their contributions, as did the labor unions and other liberal political causes in 2015.    Contributions by law firms seem to be escalating as an indirect effect of Citizens United in an effort to proportionally maintain their accustomed pre-2010 level of influence, with all the new special interests entering the campaign funding arena.

Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler*  2007/2017
(Conservative)

Annette Zeigler’s initial SCOWI campaign costs apparently topped $1 million way back in 2007, and she contributed $840,000 to her own war chest, while raising over $500,000 from external donors.   Since she only raised $360,000 for the 2017 reprise, without having to contribute any further personal funds, it appears she was able to carry quite a surplus over from the prior campaign.    Still, her 2007 initial campaign was far more expensive than any of her peers to that point, and more expensive than any since.    Unlike most of her judicial peers, practicing attorney firms did not dominate her fundraising (just 8% and 9%, respectively), but there’s a strong likelihood that the retired, out-of-state legal community made up for it, and may have brought the legal community’s stake to something more like 25% or more in both campaigns.

The other Justice (Rebecca) Bradley was first elected in 2016 on a $900,000 campaign of which (rather oddly) nearly $200,000 was raised from retired and non-income-earning citizens, and Justice Kelly was appointed to fill an unexpired term, so their campaigns were not studied.    Dallet replaces a conservative retiring Justice Michael Gableman, elected in 2008, whose campaign was not studied, since Abrahamson’s 2009 campaign serves as the pre-Citizens United comparator.    Overall, his 2008 campaign ran slightly more than $300,000 of which only about 15% was funded by lawyers and lobbyists.   He contributed less than $1,600 to his own campaign, mostly in petty cash items of odd amounts.

Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson**, 1979/2009
(Liberal)
On the heels of  Annette Ziegler’s  $1 million + run in 2007, former Chief Justice Abrahamson raised nearly $1.3 million for her third (and by far, most expensive) re-election campaign in 2009, the year before the Citizens United decision was handed down by SCOTUS.    Of this, Justice Abrahamson contributed nearly $100,000 of her own funds that year.   Out of State contributions amounted to about $35,000, from mostly businesses and political interests. The term for this successful run expires next year, 2019.    This data indicates that rather than Citizens United being the cause of the ramp-up in special interest funding of judicial campaigns, this democracy-toxic SCOTUS decision may have, in part at least, been actually driven by these conditions.

(please click to enlarge details)

From this, we clearly see that the trend toward domination by law firms (and legal industry retirees) of the overall campaign funding had its explosion prior to Citizens United, especially for “progressive” candidates.    Could it have been that the landmark SCOTUS decision was a reactionary move on the part of the conservative Justices to this trend in Wisconsin and other major states?    There was an abundance of twists, turns, reassignments and re-arguments in this case, including (or possibly accommodating) a very controversial reversal of process by the conservative majority to broaden the scope of their ruling from the narrow question originally brought before them, and profuse, circular, contorted reasoning to justify doing so in the final Kennedy majority opinion, which could hardly be in reference to anything but the impact on judicial elections and the separation of powers overall.

There is certainly plenty of evidence in Justice Stephens’ dissenting opinion that the impact on judicial elections was indeed debated among the Justices:

And it underscores that the consequences of today’s holding will not be limited to the legislative or executive context. The majority of the States select their judges through popular elections. At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch, see, e.g., O’Connor, Justice for Sale, Wall St. Journal, Nov. 15, 2007, p. A25; Brief for Justice at Stake et al. as Amici Curiae 2, the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races. Perhaps “ Caperton motions” will catch some of the worst abuses. This will be small comfort to those States that, after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems. …”

Quoting former SCOTUS Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s 2010 unofficial commentary (she left the court in 2006),

“[After Citizens United], we can anticipate labor unions’ trial lawyers might have the means to win one kind of an election, and that a tobacco company or other corporation might win in another election. If both sides open up their spending, mutually assured destruction is probably the most likely outcome. It would end both judicial impartiality and public perception of impartiality.”

Stepping back for a look at the “big picture”, it almost goes without saying that if massive special interest donations deliberately and intentionally (according to the SCOTUS majority) drive judicial elections, particularly dominated (as it apparently stands) from the practicing and retired legal community, calling these judgeships “nonpartisan” is a sham that borders on insulting the intelligence of the citizenry.    Indeed, “standerinfamilycourt” is a very new resident of Wisconsin, yet was able to reliably tell whether each candidate was conservative or liberal just by looking at the donor list.   Furthermore, the  “donor class” forking over the big money didn’t exactly get where they are today by personal oblivion and recklessness with their money.   If they didn’t firmly believe, despite the rhetoric and propaganda, that all judges and justices these days “legislate from the bench”,  and (even worse) uphold constitutionally-offensive legislation regardless of the merits of the case before them, they would keep their wallets and purses firmly zipped.   Even more telling is the staggering amount of money successful individual judicial candidates contributed to their own campaigns, particularly re-election campaigns, sometimes amounting to almost three times the amount that their entire first campaign took in from all contributors.  Who would do this if they didn’t realistically expect a serious financial return on those funds over the course of their 10 year term?

Indeed, the separation-of-powers damage left in Wisconsin in the wake of Citizens United is further exacerbated because SCOWI has installed some of the most toothless recusal rules in the entire country — and the majority on that bench has the final say, despite two enacted statutes intending otherwise.    A group of retired judges brought a petition in 2017 for reform of the recusal rules.  Emboldened by the constitutional hijacking in the Citizens United case, conservatives who control the Wisconsin court said the proposal would “interfere with the free speech rights” of those who run ads and engage in other campaign-like activity.

“I believe as a matter of law it cannot stand constitutional or structural scrutiny,” Justice Annette Ziegler said of the proposed rule. ,

“The petitioners here have asked us to do something that does not comport with the constitution as I view it.”     As she views it: that is, through the fouled lens of her nearly $1 million 2007 investment in her own career, upon which it “isn’t constitutional” to deny her the maximum pecuniary returns that the market will bear.  But Ziegler here goes a step further than even Anthony Kennedy, since the issue she so glibly applied Citizens United to is recusal: in so doing, is she not intrinsically saying that not only must the political bribes be protected as “speech”,  but the eventual effectiveness of the quid-pro-quo (from her contributors) must also be guaranteed through her own actual speech?   Is it rocket science to predict what would happen to the level of those donations if their degree of illicit influence was diluted?  It is against this kind of backdrop that the arrogance of the court is unmistakable in the further comment by the conservative majority that the petition for reform was “disrespectful” of the foxes guarding the henhouse.

 

Solutions, Anyone?

As we’ve seen,  there is no longer any such thing as a “non-partisan” judicial election (if there ever was), just as there is no such thing as a “no-fault” divorce.    Both are political myths that the public swallows without much insight — until they and their family personally get burned.    Those states who have such systems, or have partisan elections, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Washington, have effectively waived the separation-of-powers check and balance, until they take action to adjust to Citizens United, and to any additional damage their legislatures may have done in response under the “guidance” that “money is speech”.      Twenty four states were reported as of 2016 to have an appointment system for selecting judges and justices and / or retention elections.   California, New York and Utah are among these.

Justices should be appointed, according to Justice At Stake, at least at the top level, making it likely this would require some states to amend their constitutions.   The fact that lower appellate court judges (who are required to hear all appeals), currently know that big money is going to dictate who’s on the state’s highest court, and it inevitably reduces their independence and objectivity as they would normally seek to avoid having their decisions overturned can now predict ahead of time where they will not be overturned, just by who campaign donors were.   Ditto for trial judges further down the chain.

The policy think-tank, the Brennan Center contended in a 2010 white paper that the most effective national remedy for self-dealing, in a “money is speech” world, is public funding of judicial elections.  Wisconsin seems to be a classic case study in why this recommendation actually resolved very little.   That very year, Wisconsin enacted legislation doing just that.    A 2011 paper by The Brennan Center extols the reduction in such contributions afforded by the availability of public funds that resulted from the reform, which provided $400,000 to candidates voluntarily availing themselves of those funds, touting the 2010 contest between incumbent Justice Prosser and challenger Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg.   We’ve seen with several examples where actual partisan contributions in the seven-figure range in Wisconsin dwarfed that amount long before enactment of public financing.    After enactment, the availability of these modest public funds indeed reduced partisan donations from the typical seven figures to  the high six figures in most races that followed.    It seems a bit more of a stretch to argue that this modest result changed too much, in the scheme of things.  Citizens United, after all, guaranteed that the two systems must now coexist, and independent direct media spend by special interest groups favoring a candidate outside of campaign contributions can easily dwarf both categories.

Wisconsin media liberals have a different “fix” to tout, namely a sixteen year term with a one-term limit.    “standerinfamilycourt” fails to see where this proposal addresses any of the underlying evils that result from the current scheme.    Although sixteen years might reasonably occupy one half to one third of a jurist’s remaining career, will it improve his or her independence in a world where, even without re-election pressures, half of the funds that won the seat came from fellows in the legal profession?    Unlikely.

Judicial corruption amounting to the breakdown of constitutional separation-of-powers impacts the integrity of the biblical family more severely by far, and with far more lasting national consequence, than arguably any other area of life or commerce.    Unilateral family-shredding for profit is a sadly bi-partisan affair, since legal practitioners on both sides of the political aisle profit handsomely therefrom.    Law firms dominate the election funding process only  to a slightly greater degree for leftist jurists than for “conservative” jurists, and one does not need to favor a traditional family structure to still be deemed a “conservative”.    Finally, unlike virtually every other kind of constitutional violation under the sun, no-fault marriage “dissolution” cases are effectively cordoned off from recourse to the Federal courts unless there are homosexuals involved.

Given that the checks and balances in our constitutional republic functioned fairly well for the 200 years before the moral breakdown of society rendered it substantially less able to raise unselfish citizens who are motivated by the long term public interest, national repentance before God, and according to His standards, is likely to be a necessary part of reforms that will ultimately succeed.    When a nation persistently thumbs its nose at His commandments, He simply removes His hand of protection, and after many opportunities to repent, He finally gives them over to their own self-destructive ways.

The elders are gone from the city gate;
    the young men have stopped their music.
Joy is gone from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head.
    Woe to us, for we have sinned!
– Lamentations 5:14-16


www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

 

Heads Up, Alabama – Here Comes a Liberal, Anti-Family Trojan Horse!

Wedding Cake Pulverized
by Standerinfamilycourt

On January 17, 2018, Texas MassResistance (an offshoot of a Massachusetts-based pro-family organization that does aggressive battle with the comprehensive LGBT political agenda)  posted an article to their Facebook page from AL.com,

Alabama Senate Passes Bill to Eliminate Marriage Licenses

with the following Facebook comments:

“It’s sad to see a state opt out of licensing marriage, but the truth is real marriage as a legal construct essentially ceased to exist with the legalization of gay marriage. It’s like removing the legal distinction between real money and play money. Real money means nothing once play money becomes legal tender– and everyone is made poorer– even counterfeiters– same story on gay marriage.

“Gays kid themselves if they think they their marriages are of the same substance as marriage prior to gay marriage. Put a drop of fine wine from a wine bottle into a bottle of sewer water and you still have a bottle of wine and a bottle of sewer water, but put a drop of sewer water into a bottle of fine wine and you have two bottles of sewer water. Things of higher value are diminished or destroyed altogether when mixed with things of lower value. Alabama’s move to eliminate marriage licenses recognizes that reality– MR-T”

With a few days’ delay, we noticed a re-post of this on the Facebook wall by a friend of our blog page who lives in Texas, and we commented to MassResistance on their page as follows:

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:
There are two conscionable alternatives to dealing with civil law that no longer coincides with God’s law in any respect:

(1) pastors opt out of participating in the civil system as an agent for the state (example: the 2014 First Things Marriage Pledge)
(2) what Alabama is seeking to do

“Although some 800+ pastors from a wide variety of denominations had signed the Marriage Pledge by two months after Obergefell, nearly 3 years later, few have had the moral courage to make good on it. We have a pretty good idea why not — wrong motives, and the sudden delayed realization of what that might do to the ability of heterosexuals to do what God forbids and get a state “dissolution” decree.
So, that leaves Option 2.

“We humbly remind that God’s definition of marriage (Matt.19:4-6) has TWO non-negotiable elements, not just one – as the tone of this post strongly implies. Those elements are: (1) complementarity, and (2) indissolubility.   Hence, the adulteration of that wine bottle started to take place 48 years ago, not in 2015, two generations later.
Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s”. He told us that Holy Matrimony does not happen except by God’s hand.  It’s therefore quite suspect that the Reformation humanists, Martin Luther in particular, saw fit to hand over to the state that which belonged to God in the first place. Count on God not to allow this issue to dissipate until His full definition of marriage is honored, and pastors from coast to coast repent of whining about sodomy-as-“marriage” while carefully preserving consecutive polygamy-as-holy-matrimony.

“It will be interesting to see, if this progresses to become law, how they continue to issue ‘dissolutions’. It’s probably pretty simple to substitute their affidavits for marriage certificates when it comes to finding another unilateral home invasion warrant, but how will they handle the gory details?  Option 1 would have denied them the piece of paper usable as such a “warrant” in a substantial number of cases.”

MassResistance gave a very gracious response to our comment, which we will leave the readers to reference on their own.

Of course, Alabama is the infamous state of dethroned State Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from the bench in 2016 on ethics charges because he issued an administrative order to lower court judges stating, “until further decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court that Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act remain in full force and effect….”   citing the fundamental right of these judges to conscience protections and free religious exercise in declining to issue civil marriage licenses to homosexuals.   (Presumably, these same judges had no serious compunctions or religious conscience issues with issuing civil marriage licenses to would-be legalized adulterers in the years since 1975 enactment of Alabama’s unilateral divorce laws.   Moore is himself “married” to a civilly-“divorced” woman.)    Apparently, for all the smoke-blowing that ensued to remove Moore, his successor on the bench has not reversed the 2016 administrative order after almost two years, the lingering effect being as stated in the AL.com article:

“Under current law, Alabama probate judges are not required to issue marriage licenses and some, at least initially, declined to issue licenses to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court ruling.

“Albritton’s bill would take away any discretion by probate judges. The only requirement to make a marriage official would be to submit the documents to the probate judge.”

Take away the discretion of judges….does this sound familiar?   It should indeed!    This is exactly how brutal totalitarianism came to be injected into “family court” processes and procedures to implement unilateral divorce, without raising a whimper of public protest even though the 1st and 14th amendment protections were being stripped from millions of Americans in the process.    Legislating immorality has always been a stealth process — and in the past five decades, it has come to work flawlessly…intractably.

The gay “marriages” taking place in Alabama in this long interim have  only been enabled where LGBT-sympathetic judges are willing to issue the civil marriage licenses to same-sex couples.    Several counties are reportedly not issuing them at all.

SB13’s sponsor, Greg Albritton appears to be a liberal Republican, according to a 2016 voting scorecard published by the American Conservative Union, where he scored 58%,  the lowest of all of his GOP peers, and equaling the score of the highest scoring Democrat in the Alabama Senate.    His bill passed a fast-tracked and astounding floor vote of 19-1 in mid-January, and the ACLU published their analysis stating that they do not consider it a threat to liberal interests, so they are not taking a position on it.    This is a strong, red flag that the measure is not expected to be supportive of biblical, traditional families, since it is not drawing ACLU opposition.  The full text of SB13 (about 9 pages) can be read here.

At first blush, it should seem like a dream-come-true that the state might be giving back to God the authority over the holy ordinance that He never delegated to fallible, carnal men in civil government….

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

However, there is an ominous poison-pill:   it will no longer be necessary to have vows or a public ceremony should these bills become law.

Jesus pointed back to the first wedding in the Garden for the essentials of God-joined holy matrimony….

And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his FATHER and MOTHER and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.  The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.  The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

– Matthew 19:4-5;  Genesis 2:21-24

Elements present in the Garden wedding between Adam and Eve:   eligible partners without prior, estranged spouses still living, consent, vows, witnesses (Jesus and the serpent),  and God’s supernatural, instantaneous act of (Greek : sunexuezen) joining.

Elements absent in the Garden wedding civil paper and a human officiant.

We all know that the unholy 16th century transaction between church and state authority was a foul fruit of the humanistic Reformers, principally, of Martin Luther who sought access to that which God expressly forbid through Jesus Christ, namely, divorce via a man-made declaration of “dissolution”, rather than the physical death of a spouse.    What appears on the surface to be a “taking back” of authority from civil government is actually a mirage in the case of these bills.    The texts of these bills SB13 and (pending) HB162 both explicitly provide that there will be no change to the statute with regard to divorce or child “welfare” provisions.     Unless there is civil paper of some sort, no unilateral divorces nor totalitarian interference with parental rights would be possible.   Hence, a more controlled piece of paper on the front-end, is being swapped for a piece of civil paper with far fewer controls, but effecting all the same state intrusion into the sanctity of the home. The uber-liberal take on this makes for some interesting reading, as well.

In the absence of a requirement for a witnessed ceremony, documentation of consent, and vows,  the effect is that common law marriages are being given the same legal status as holy matrimony unions.    In other words, a second category of legalized, adulterous unions is being created that essentially legalizes fornication as well as adultery.     Absorbed into the longstanding moral vacuum of the contemporary church, the effect on marital stability will be devastating to family structure over time, in the same way that rampant “remarriage” has been.      To be sure, pastors will still require the traditional ceremony for the weddings they do, and will continue their evil practice of performing the same over the already married-for-life.    But equally sure is the fact that in addition to the legalized adulterers whom they now welcome into their congregations (no questions asked), they will be welcoming a new group of folks likewise not married in God’s eyes – those who have made no vows before Him.   As an added bonus, pastors will be relieved of the offense to conscience from signing civil marriage licenses that reflect an immoral civil standard.

STATUS , at this writing
Alabama Overview

The enacted result, should it come to pass:

Win for the judges who no longer have a conscience conflict with their jobs (but still should, if they call themselves Christ-followers).
–  Win for the pastors whose threat of being sued by LGBT activists is significantly reduced, with the added bonus of avoiding any “heat” from their congregations for implementing something so controversial and “judgmental” as the Marriage Pledge.
Win for the abusive Catholic dioceses that nationally grant 90% of marriage annulment petitions, the vast bulk of which claim “defective” original consent.
Win for the heinous state bar association who have always looted the system since the enactment of unilateral divorce, and have purchased increasing political power with the confiscated proceeds, but who will now up their ante from the resulting increase in social and moral chaos.
–  Win for the homosexuals who seek to adopt, traffic in, and corrupt children, while gaining government and employer benefits.
–  Win for the LGBT activists (such as Tamra Metz and Masha Gessen) who openly admit the movement’s ultimate objective to destroy the institution of holy matrimony and traditional families.
–  Win for the shallow veneer of preserving religious liberty (until we stop and consider the denied religious liberty of the non-offending, non-filing spouse whose 1st amendment rights have traditionally been ignored by the system.)

Win-win for everybody, right?    Not exactly…major loss for covenant spouses, their children and grandchildren, and for God-defined holy matrimony, as well as for the already downward-spiraling sexual morality within the church.   A church full of papered-over adulterers, including behind the pulpit, is hardly ready to resume any authority over marriage the state gives back at this time.

WeRegret

Once again, the biblical covenant family is being thrown under the bus with the blind approval of all of all the above “winning” parties, and will now actually be in worse shape than their counterparts in neighboring states (until the easy-peasy-sleazy virus spreads to those states as well).    From the 1970’s until now, marriage seems to be becoming the ever more ridiculous, rambling  “house that Jack built”.

While MassResistance’s comments show they are less than enthused with this legal innovation,  where is the voice of the churches, or of Alabama’s family policy council?     To their credit, the Alabama Policy Institute has been at least tracking and timely-reporting on the bills during January (albeit, with exceptional brevity for such an impactful change – scroll all the way to the bottom of link)….but they do not appear to be taking a position, nor publicly recognizing the serious back-door dismantling threat to the institution of marriage itself.   Would that API would have at least reported who the one dissenting Senator was, and why Sen. Phillip Williams [R], who holds an 88% lifetime score with the American Conservative Union,  dissented.     Unfortunately, neither does the press do this.   It is clear that this legislation is all about facilitating sodomous “marriages” and protecting judges, and not about what’s best for the integrity of families or (ultimately) society.

Quoting Masha Gessen (2012):

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. … (F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there – because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

“The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out 30 years ago….”

As is fairly typical for state FPC’s and changes to marriage laws (other than those ushering in gay “marriage”), no blogs or articles have been devoted to this topic since the September, 2017 introduction of the Senate bill.   General press coverage, on the other hand, has been favorable both on the Right and Left, with no significant criticisms and only vaguely- expressed concerns (“waving the white flag on marriage”, etc.), despite the radical social impact which legally and morally equating common law and God-joined marriages will undoubtedly bring, absent any coinciding reform of unilateral divorce laws.

The better solution?   Continue to regulate marriages per existing law, while pastors with the requisite moral authority, discipleship and courage opt-out of acting as an agent for states whose marriage contract does not reflect the vows being exchanged in the sanctuary.    Take the heat for the sake of the kingdom of God, pastors and judges!

The best solution?    Remove “irreconcilable differences” (and its equivalents) as a “ground” for divorce if there is no mutual petition for marriage dissolution, and divide assets and child welfare based on proven marital fault, thereby drying up both the demand for “marriage” between homosexuals, and the perverse, lucrative financial incentives that drive the legal machine.     (We have asked MassResistance -Texas whether they plan to support the re-election of Rep. Matt Krause, and support 2019 continued repeal efforts in Texas, but they declined to respond to this question.)

Prayer warriors, we have our work cut out for us.   Please start by praying that HB162 fails in the Alabama House of Representatives.   In the ten days leading up to Valentine’s Day,  look for a series of daily posts to Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional reflecting concrete ways the church can rapidly improve her witness to the world concerning rebuilding  a “culture of marriage”.   We believe these steps would prepare the church morally for the responsibility of taking marriage back from the state and reversing the 500 year old  Lutheran curse.

The infamous Trojan Horse allowed the Greeks to get in and out of the city with their treasure.    After they were out, the whole city burned to the ground.

Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people.
– Proverbs 14:34

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does Abolishing “No-Fault” Have Parallels to Abolishing the Slave Trade?

Amazing-Grace-movie-posterby Standerinfamilycourt

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

Do not err, my brethren. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And if those that corrupt mere human families are condemned to death, how much more shall those suffer everlasting punishment who endeavor to corrupt the Church of Christ, for which the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, endured the cross, and submitted to death! Whosoever, ‘being waxen fat,’ and ‘become gross,’ sets at nought His doctrine, shall go into Hell. In like manner, every one that has received from God the power of distinguishing, and yet follows an unskillful shepherd, and receives a false opinion for the truth, shall be punished.”
–  St. Ignatius of Antioch, “Epistle To The Ephesians,” c. 105 A.D.

This blogger can still recall reading  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin to our children many years ago, while absolutely sobbing at the scene where two slave families were about to be cruelly pulled apart in a commercial transaction and sent to different plantations, with absolutely no respect for the God-joined holy one-flesh bond of matrimony between the two covenant husband and wife entities, and their God-ordained bond with their covenant children.

” ‘Mas’r aint to blame, Chloe, and he’ll take care of you and the poor’ … Here he turned to the rough trundle bed full of little woolly heads, and broke fairly down.  He leaned over the back of the chair, and covered his face with his large hands.   Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chair, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor: just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son;  such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe.   For, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man.   And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!

” ‘And now, ‘ said Eliza, as she stood the door, ‘I saw my husband only this afternoon, and I little knew then what was to come.  They have pushed him to the very last standing place, and he told me, to-day, that he was going to run away.  Do try, if you can, to get word to him.  Tell him how I went, and why I went; and tell him I’m going to try and find Canada.  You must give my love to him, and tell him, if I never see him again,’ — she turned away, and stood with her back to them for a moment, and then added, in a husky voice, ‘tell him to be as good as he can, and try and meet me in the kingdom of heaven.’  “

Centuries of this cruelty not only offended God, but had severe consequences on the nations involved, such that the regime eventually confronted God’s hand of long-awaited justice in abolishing that offense against humanity.   More importantly, because of a small band of godly saints who were faithful and long-suffering to carry out their Holy Spirit assignments, retaining their resolve and their trust in Him in the face of overwhelming opposition, God’s more severe judgment on at least one nation (and probably two nations) was averted.

“Christian” accommodation of so-called “no-fault” unilateral divorce has taken Christ’s church in the western world into the deep pit of serial polygamy in just two generations.   And what, exactly, do we mean by “serial polygamy” in this comparison?     Quite simply, it is using man’s immoral civil laws to reject the spouse God joined us to, in order to “marry” another while the rejected spouse lives  – something that Jesus called ongoing adultery at least five separate times in canonized scripture.     There are many excuses offered up for this, and there are even more numerous luminary “men of God” who will tell you it’s okay under “God’s grace” based on some man-contrived excuse.      However,  God repeatedly said, in Old Testament and in New Testament times. it is not okay, nor is it without horrible consequences for families, church and nation.

Those harsh, inevitable generational consequences don’t “sift” through the humanistic web of excuses in order to selectively apply themselves according to the Westminster Confession-sanctioned “exceptions”.   Those consequences ultimately come from the hand of God, as thistles and thorns in the Garden; from the One who entertains none of the human excuses.    He is the One whose hand individually creates each one-flesh union as an inseverable entity, Who then covenants unconditionally with that individual entity, then declares that they will never be two again in this life.    This universal indissolubility of holy matrimony is why Jesus called all non-widowed remarriage adultery — the original parties are still married in God’s eyes, and anyone else subsequently posing as “married to” either of the two original covenant spouses are bearing false witness to the world while they are  defiling their vessels.   Pastors who perform “weddings” where there is an estranged, living spouse on either side are therefore violating the Third Commandment by misusing the name of the Lord to attribute to Him a vain act.

Though only one spouse wants out of the  holy matrimony covenant of their youth, a scene similar to the slave sale in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is played out in “family courts” across the land on a daily basis, forcibly pulling covenant spouses from each other, and  children from one of their parents (and it’s usually the most responsible and moral of the two, due to the perverse financial incentives involved), while attempting also to tear and sever the God-joined one-flesh entity created by His hand.   Both spouses and their children are literally reduced to being treated as the chattel property of the prevailing legal regime, with an inexcusable motive to illicitly accrue profit to various parties who are external to the victimized families.

Near the start of SIFC’s post-decree journey through a constitutional appeals case,  amidst outreach efforts to others in the marriage permanence movement,  the establishment of social media pages to advocate for the full repeal of unilateral divorce and to urge profound moral reform in the church, there was also the very influential opportunity to read another book, Amazing Grace by author Eric Metaxas.   This is the story of British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who became an unusually strong, spirit-led Christ-follower in the days shortly after being elected to the House of Commons.     Thanks to the author’s vivid capture of the details of Wilberforce’s spiritual awakening, we see the arduous journey which followed to build a movement, in the name of the Lord, that ran counter to both the entrenched church and equally-entrenched legal system interests,  and like today,  this threatened some extremely powerful, wealthy economic interests in both institutions.

Metaxas makes it possible to see the strong parallels of the story of this journey to abolish the slave trade with the struggle we are currently in, to abolish all the church and legal system trappings, along with the special economic interests that are adverse to the kingdom of God, and adverse to the God-established “kingdom” and constitutional rights of covenant families.    This book not only deeply inspired this blogger, but in a very real sense, it provided strong insight into the nature of the battle that lay ahead.   This book is a really good read for everyone in the marriage permanence movement, and our blog post about it will hopefully be an interesting, thought-provoking introduction.

( FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC note:   At the present time, author Eric Metaxas adheres to his Eastern Orthodox upbringing which teaches that holy matrimony is dissoluble under some circumstances including adultery.    He aligned strongly with Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and with the political forces of social conservatives who consider unilateral divorce to be an undesirable thing, but not necessarily the central moral issue of the day, nor an intrinsic religious freedom violation.    He most likely would be surprised to read of his contribution to the marriage permanence movement through the book he has written.   He is in a covenant marriage himself, by true biblical standards. )

There were many prevailing obstacles to justice in America and England in the late 18th century that are remarkably similar to roadblocks the “stander” community, and others who advocate the abolition of the vile practice of serial polygamy, must successfully confront today, and must skillfully navigate through.    As with Wilberforce and the broad coalition he helped to form,  skill wasn’t everything, because he “battled not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities and dark forces in the spiritual realm“,   just as the apostle Paul warned in Ephesians 6.    God’s hand, and awaiting God’s timing were also necessary, so this abomination was very much “prayed down” and “fasted down”,  while the visible events were unfolding by God’s hand in the circumstantial realm over a long period of time.    The encouragement that SIFC would like to leave with readers is the historical evidence that evil, seemingly impossible “mountains” are indeed picked up and thrown into the sea by the hand of God, in response to the faithful prayers, and advocacy efforts of His saints; efforts taking many forms but working together in key ways orchestrated by Him.

So, what all was going on back then to misappropriate the word of God so as to prop up the immoral slave trade?  How did it resemble the backdrop to today’s moral slide of the church and society so that it broadly institutionalized the sin of marrying another while having a living, estranged true spouse, following man’s divorce (that which Jesus clearly and consistently called ongoing adultery)?     Let’s take a look:

  1. Entrenched religious beliefs prevailed that had no true scriptural basis.   England had been a mix of Druid and Catholic rituals for centuries before the Reformation, with Catholicism gaining the upper hand by medieval times.    By the time Wilberforce came of age, it had been about 250 years since Henry VIII had established the Church of England, which retained many characteristics of the Roman Catholic church, despite key doctrinal differences, coming to be known as “High Church” because elaborate liturgy was retained from Roman Catholic liturgy, where the congregation was able to continue worshiping  rather passively rather than pursue true discipleship.    One of the key doctrinal differences between the Church of England and the Rome Church, of course, was the profound disagreement over marriage, both its indissolubility as a sacrament (or not) and the propriety of civil jurisdiction rather than church jurisdiction over it.     Born, as the new Protestant doctrine was, out of a mix of the lusts of Henry and the humanism of Erasmus,  in this particular instance, rightly-divided scripture was still on the side of the Catholics.    However, it was the Anglicans who happened to be and remain in power by 1648 and beyond.   

That said, adherence to Catholicism was still strong in Britain, including belief that priests can absolve sin without the actual cessation of that sin.   Salvation is believed to be imparted by repeated communion rather than a taking up of one’s cross to follow Christ.   Because of the belief that only nuptials between two baptized partners are to be considered “sacramental”, and hence indissoluble,  it is likely that slave marriages were considered dissoluble as best benefitted the trade.

Meanwhile the Westminster Confession of Faith was drafted and ratified in the British Parliament in 1648 just a little more than 100 years after Henry formed the Church of England.   Many aspects of the WCOF were an extrabiblical overreaction to various heresies of Roman Catholicism, while other aspects were appropriate responses to genuine errors in RCC doctrine or to abusive practices that arose in the 300 years just prior, resulting in biblically-supported truth mixed with biblically-unsupported heresy in the total doctrines of the WCOF.

For example, Chapter 3 affirms the Reformed doctrine of predestination: that God foreordained who would be among the elect (and therefore saved), while he passed by those who would be damned for their sins. The confession states that from eternity God did “freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass”.
By God’s decree, “some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.”
As with the Catholics, this doctrine did not promote much soul-care for the Negro slaves, and is biblically unsupported, since there is a distinction between God’s fore-knowledge and fore-ordination.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  – 2 Peter 3:9

Chapter 17 presents the doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints”, which holds that it is impossible for those effectually called to “fall away” from the state of grace or, in other words, lose their salvation.  This doctrine, in effect, allowed for the powerful to oppress the helpless, without concern that God would ever hold them accountable, since Jesus  was claimed to have died for their future sins.    As has become the case today, it is popular “wisdom” to claim that people have no hope of living a holy life, so the purpose of grace is to attribute Christ’s righteousness to a passive worshiper who may continue on in their transgressions.     In proper context, the term “perseverance of the saints” (referred to several times in the book of Revelation),  actually means quite the opposite of what is declared in the WCOF.    Scripture repeatedly shows that this perseverance means bearing up under persecution without becoming apostate in response.    Just as the WCOF has the effect of deadening the conscience to proclaiming Christ’s standards for lifelong marital faithfulness as being “too high” to realistically attain in the 21st century,  the Confession had the effect of deadening the conscience of those involved in the slave trade to the sanctity of all human families.

Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.  Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, SO THAT THEY WILL NOT BELIEVE AND BE SAVED.   Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root;  THEY BELIEVE FOR A LITTLE WHILE, AND IN TIME OF TEMPTATION THEY FALL AWAY.   The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.   But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with  perseverance.”    –  Luke 8:11-15

Finally, the pivotal Chapter 24 covers Reformed teaching on marriage and divorce. Marriage is to be heterosexual and monogamous (if consecutively so). The purpose of marriage is to provide for the mutual help of husband and wife, the birth of legitimate children, the growth of the church, and preventing “uncleanness”,  according to the confession.   The confession discourages interfaith marriage with non-Christians, Roman Catholics, or “other idolaters”.   In addition, godly persons should not be “unequally yoked” in marriage to “notoriously wicked” persons.  Incestuous marriage, defined according to biblical guidelines, is also prohibited.  (Heretical parts V and VI hold that the only grounds for divorce are “adultery or willful abandonment by a spouse.” )     Jesus and the prophet Malachi, however, held that men are delegated NO authority to dissolve an unconditional covenant to which God remains a party, nor to sever the one-flesh entity God’s hand created.   Only physical death does that, according to the apostle, Paul.   Hence, any discussion about “grounds” in the WCOF becomes utterly moot before the unchanging marriage  law of God, and Henry, self-proclaimed as the first Head of the Church of England, is exposed as the wicked serial polygamist he actually was all along when measured against the biblical standard.

While great atrocities were involved in capturing slaves and transporting them across the ocean, after which they were often cruelly warehoused and their diseases masked until sold, it is clear that slave traders who forced apart one-flesh spouses, and “family court” judges who do so have much in common.  This is true both morally, and in the consequences to society, as well as to the eventual fate of the whole nation due to the resulting corruption of the progeny of those impacted.

The 2007 film version of Amazing Grace  opens with a narrative graphic which reads, “by the late 18th century over eleven million African men, women and children had been taken from Africa to be used as slaves in the West Indies and American colonies …   The slave trade was considered acceptable by all but a few.     Of these, even fewer were brave enough to speak against it.”

By comparison, between 1970 and 2015 (roughly one-tenth of the elapsed time since the commencement of that trade up to Wilberforce’s day), more than three times as many U.S. families had been forcibly “dissolved” in the “family courts” of the 50 states.   Likewise, all but a few of the Christian citizens of these states considered this practice morally acceptable (and fully effectual in God’s eyes despite much scripture to the contrary).    A small but increasing number of these few began to  develop the courage of conviction to suffer the immense social and economic costs of speaking against it.   

2.  The church was profoundly corrupt and slowly dying.    A church that is founded on heresy, expressly in order to facilitate (and propagate forward) sexual sin, as the Church of England indeed was, is doomed and dying from the outset, unless true revival comes along to rescue it.     So is today’s “mega-church” established for much the same purpose, to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those living in open defiance of God’s laws which they disagree with, while having a cover of what in those days was called piety, and in our day would be called “evangelicalism”.   In far too many of these mega-churches, “church discipline” is called out on the wrong party, such as the repenting prodigal who would leave an adulterous, legalized union to return to his or her covenant family,  and far too many churches are led by men and women who are themselves living in legalized adultery with someone else’s God-joined, one-flesh partner rather than with their own.    The scriptures forbidding even this are re-interpreted to “permit” the abomination of consecutive polygamy in the clergy, rendering any protest against LGBTQ(xyz) excesses, instantly hypocritical.    Hence, the literal “husband of one [living] wife”, understood perfectly and consistently practiced by “less-sophisticated” saints for centuries,  of late becomes “one-woman man” (until tomorrow, at least)  in our contemporary bibles.   God’s amazing sense of humor used adultery matchmaker Ashley Madison to debunk that notion a couple of years ago.   How many of those “one woman man” pastors were removed as a result?

But  as it turns out, revival did come and rescue the corrupt Church of England during Wilberforce’s life, and as it happened, God through various circumstances brought several key people into his life while he was still a boy.    Though he was born and raised in the northern province of York, family hardship brought him to live by the age of ten with a wealthy, aristocratic aunt and uncle in Wimbledon, near London, who were close to George Whitefield and other figures of the first Great Awakening.    Author Metaxas describes the conditions in the English church of Wilberforce’s young manhood thusly:

“One’s ‘spirituality’ was confined to one’s rented pew.    One attended one’s church and one stood and one kneeled and one sat at the proper times and did what was required of one, but to scratch beneath this highly lacquered surface was to venture well beyond the pale and invite stares and whispers and certain banishment.   Wilberforce was from the beginning as serious as he was charming and fun-loving, and his sensitive and intellectual nature was now, at Wimbledon, for the first time fed something far more satisfying than the niceties – the thin gruel and weak tea of High Church Anglicanism.”

So then, what historical forces reduced Christ’s English bride to such a debased state, some 200 years after the Reformation?    Unfortunately, the sad answer seems to be — the Reformation itself.    We’ve already visited the  heretical elements of this church’s creed adopted in that same Parliament 100 years earlier than Wilberforce’s day, which formed a rotten foundation upon which those “rented pews” actually sat.

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.  For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say,  “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man,  “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?   Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?   But you have dishonored the poor man.  Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court?   Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?
–  James 2:1-7

While today’s spiritual deadness is clearly driven by the pursuit of sexual immorality that has gained the near-universal complicity of contemporary church leadership,  the spiritual deadness of that day was driven by the bloody, mutual, church leader-led violence between Protestants and Catholics which had given Jesus a truly bad name, and had turned people off to religion altogether, creating this ritualistic veneer that was not allowed to go too deep.     The violence, in turn, was driven by the clergy’s thirst for retaining (or gaining) power over the population, causing religious opponents on both sides to be martyred, and causing a series of wars between the “saints”.      (In “standerinfamilycourt’s”  happier days with evangelical friends and intact covenant family, the oft-played board game “Risk” was jokingly dubbed “Evangel” due to the conflict between Christ’s way of building the kingdom of God versus the counterfeit that had taken hold as an evil fruit of the Reformation where Protestants returned Catholic violence and persecution in-kind. )     Of course, all sinful departure from Christ’s methods, be it sexual or be it violent power-grabs “in the name of Jesus”, leads to a hardening of hearts, we are warned, and this leads to falling away (apostasy), notwithstanding Chapter 17 of the WCOF.    Certainly, Christian-on-Christian violence must have had a devastating and dehumanizing effect on British society in Wilberforce’s day.     Are there not “rented pews” today in the evangelical church?    Is a fee not paid today by the legalized adulterers in the post-unilateral divorce world to occupy seats as an illicit pair or “blended family” that faithful 1 Corinthians 5 church governance would have otherwise denied them unless they severed those faux ties?   Paul, after all, said “do not even eat with such….I have decided to turn [him / them] over to satan, that [his / their] soul(s) may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

Britain formally sat under a false state religion, as she still does today.   By failing to maintain her sexual purity, hence her sovereign biblical family structure,  America and other western nations today also sit under a state religion that is not formally acknowledged but is nevertheless very real in asserting its antichrist power over all of society.    That state religion is secular humanism.    And secular humanism just loves to play “dress up” these days in Baptist, Pentecostal and mainline “Christian” garb–and even Catholic frocks, of late, in the form of Chapter 8 of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia.

3.  A tiny (deemed) “cult” slowly became instrumental in moving the culture.    The evangelical aunt and uncle who took Wilberforce in as a boy was (providentially) childless, which made the young man the sole heir to their homes and fortune when they “graduated to heaven”.    This put great financial assets into his hands, as well as influential and powerful friends of godly character into his life.  He was best friends from university days with William Pitt, his agnostic contemporary who eventually became Prime Minister.      Wilberforce came to faith, and received Spirit-led discipleship as a young MP  under the direct influence of Whitefield, the Wesleys, and ex-slave trader, the Rev. John Newton.    All true disciples of Jesus come to understand that every scrap of time, treasure and talent that God pours into a life ultimately belongs to Him, loaned, as it were, for the purpose of building up the kingdom of God.    As did the three biblical slaves with the varying number of “talents” given by their master, we will one day give an account for our stewardship of these resources.   Instead of suppressing truth to those under our care for ill-gotten gain, and appeasing the ungodly resource-holders to build our own vast empire (without the slightest regard for these souls), we are expected to invest what we already have been given into helping deliver as many souls as possible safely into the doors of the great banquet hall where the wedding supper of the Lamb is to be held.    Wilberforce understood this, as did the other Spirit-led instigators of the First Great Awakening and the abolition movement.

It wasn’t long before Wilberforce felt led to sell his inherited properties and use the proceeds to establish a highly visible home church community, known as the Clapham fellowship,  on his friends’ adjoining properties, where true discipleship under the ministry of a community chaplain was fostered in the suburbs of London.    It also wasn’t long before the entrenched interests were derisively labeling the community of believers Wilberforce led, a “cult”.    Why was Wiberforce’s  physical community of believers so influential ?    “Standerinfamilycourt” believes it is because he established a very visible spiritual organism within that compound-based community, much like the 1st – 4th century church, where everyone could see the Christ-centered life walked out again.    Some 300 years before the internet could make the same sort of thing visible online, and draw like-minded but geographically dispersed people together for conferences,  this visibility from such a community was very important to influencing culture, by example.

(FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC note:The tiny Spirit-led wing of the body of Christ in that day was dubbed “Methodism”, which was an ecclesiastical slur.    We all know what eventually happened to “Methodism” in our day, following the Second Great Awakening,  and what in our day has even happened to Pentecostalism, as it followed “Methodism” in becoming the “Church of Thyratira” in the late 20th century, who today labels the interfaith community of covenant marriage standers–which is largely virtual due to the commonplace shunning of outspoken members by conventional church bodies, having its own pastors and lay leaders therefore, a “cult”.)

4.  The oppressed victims of the system were utterly dehumanized.   In the book, pages 96-100 detailed the inhumane conditions in which hundreds of captured slaves were chained together and packed into the lower airless holds of a slave ship with inadequate sanitary provisions, little food and no potable water.    These conditions culminated in the deplorable tale of the insurance fraud that was carried out on the high sea in 1781 aboard a Jamaica-bound slave ship named the Zong.   It was routine for any human dying aboard a ship to be buried in the ocean, whether a slave or not.  However, in this instance so many slaves were becoming ill that more than 100 live slaves were thrown overboard in order that insurance proceeds would replace the lost revenue from the slaves that had expired due to inhumane conditions.    The public exposure from the foiling of that fraud in English court the next year turned out to be a small amount of good out of a massively tragic crime against humanity.     A Cambridge protégé of Wilberforce’s, a young man named Thomas Clarkson, served as the “cub reporter” in documenting facts and evidence against the slave trade:

“He climbed aboard slave ships and measured the spaces allotted for the slaves; he purchased the ghastliest instruments of restraint and torture, from manacles and shackles to thumbscrews and branding irons.  There was a device to pry open the mouths of slaves who refused to eat. ”
(Page 116).

AG_Metaxas_Photo2.jpeg

It is unfortunate that the opportunities to expose in great detail the atrocities that routinely go on in “family courts” across the land are few and extremely costly.    Nevertheless, there are a few of us with either  the financial means or  time and pro se determination to resist the system,  allowing our case to go to trial for that very purpose.     Most county courthouses will not allow non-lawyers to take cell phones past a security checkpoint, yet in trial we will use the time (sometimes days) sitting in court to take notes on other cases we may observe, and some of us will go to the expense of obtaining the electronic transcript from our own case.     In the book, “Stolen Vows” by Judy Parejko (2001),  the author chronicles the abuses she observed as a court-appointed mediator.    Other authors such as Stephen Baskerville have written powerful books and articles exposing details of the corruption under which families are legally shredded.   In two blog pieces we shared in 2014 from The Public Discourse, a mother relates how she was stripped of her children for the noxious purpose of awarding custody to her homosexual husband and his same-sex partner.     Similarly, another article in the publication tracked the commonly-occurring instances of children being stripped from a blameless father who didn’t want the divorce and custody given to the mother whose live-in boyfriend committed violence and molestation of the children, in a cruel mockery of their “best interest”.    The dehumanization is well-captured in this crass excerpt from an appellate opinion handed down in an early constitutional challenge of the “no-fault” law:

“The state’s inherent sovereign power includes the so called ‘police power’ right to interfere with vested property rights whenever reasonably necessary to the protection of the health, safety, morals, and general well being of the people.  The constitutional question, on principle, therefore, would seem to be, not whether a vested right is impaired by a marital law change, but whether such a change reasonably could be believed to be sufficiently necessary to the public welfare as to justify the impairment.”
Walton v Walton, California (1970-1972)  28 Cal. App.3d 108

5. Massive economic interests were also deeply entrenched.    Although King George III was a devout Christian and had genuine concerns about the slave trade, the Crown had substantial revenue interests in the sugar plantations of the British West Indies, as did the Church of England herself.      Powerful members of Parliament had personal revenue interests either in the plantations or in profits from the slave trade or related maritime industries.   Port towns like Liverpool and Bristol were heavily dependent on the trade, much like some of the state capitol cities that would suffer economically today from a likely much-smaller government complex that would result from ceasing the societally-corrosive practice of forcing families apart without provable just cause.     In addition to this, it should sound quite familiar that the atrocities, as soon as documentation of horrifying details began to be publicly exposed, would be propped up (as an argument against doing the right thing and abolishing them) by playing one jurisdiction off against a neighboring jurisdiction.   It was argued that abolishing the slave trade in Britain would be a boon to the slave trade in France.    Ignored was the fact that a powerful moral example would be advanced (with accompanying publicity) by repeal in one or two states to start, and that societal,  as well as fiscal benefits– in the contemporary instance, would be reaped by the repenting jurisdiction(s).    The difficult but successful solution for Wilberforce’s allies was to relentlessly work the issue in both Britain and France.

Similarly,  the unilateral divorce industry amounts to more than $100 billion a year, directly benefitting members of the Bar, and a vast army of court mediators, social workers, mental health professionals, book-sellers, and even ministries.    This financial boon for a few, at the expense of society as a whole, comes at a cost of $200+ billion a year in transferred social costs to all taxpayers,  state and Federal.  These well-heeled political interests virtually own the press and have the means to  easily flood the media with emotional pleas for “abuse victims” whom, they moan, will be “trapped in abusive marriages”  if they should ever be forced to prove with tangible evidence that their marriage is abusive.     These misleading articles largely go unrebutted, due to entrenched interests even within the “faith, family and freedom” ministries and family policy councils in various states across the land.  The vast majority of these ministries decline to become involved in the repeal of unilateral divorce or the defense of its religious free exercise victims, either in prioritization of funding or in their public media output, even when there is a repeal bill active in their state legislature.    For example,  the family policy group, Texas Values (affiliated with James Dobson’s organization, Family Policy Alliance)  sent their president to testify before a 2017 legislative committee that they supported repeal, but not one written word was publicly released to refute the barrage of negative press against HB93 in that state.    All of the financial resources instead went toward battling issues like transgender bathroom bills, remarkably seen as more of a threat than the laws that directly order the literal shredding of families.     Although this reluctance to publicly advocate for the repeal of unilateral divorce laws may have varying factors based on the political climate and carefully-built political relationships in each state, the common issue seems to be a fear that large donors could be offended by marriage permanence efforts meaningfully impacting heterosexual family policy, as well as the false belief that there is likely not enough funding available through millions of small, passionate donors to offset such feared losses–despite the million or so new families decimated each year by forced divorce who would love to donate regularly to an organization showing true commitment to engaging their cause in a meaningful way.

Just imagine if the abolitionist movement had consisted of donation-based provincial councils tasked primarily with all the issues of managing the evil fallouts of the slave trade on society, who deemed abolition too unreachable a goal, so that they busied themselves with promoting legislation to increase the size of the slave berths aboard the ships, install more porta-potties, only allow slave traders to take people who didn’t have minor children in the hut,  et cetera– and doing so while reporting in to a Church of England board (who at the end of the day was financially-invested in preserving the trade).    If one can imagine this, our description seems quite analogous to the apparent relationship between some of these state FPC’s and Dobson’s Focus on the Family organization.

(FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC note:  As of the date of this writing, “standerinfamilycourt” has met two of the executive directors of state family policy councils face-to-face, and has hopes of meeting several more in the coming months and years to learn as much as possible about their constraints, to be of service where mutually beneficial, and to encourage them to diversify their donor base to include those in our movement, so that they can act more boldly in the marriage permanence realm.)

6.  God put together quite a colorful and diversely-tasked team.
When the Most High hears the cry of the afflicted and establishes His timeline for deliverance, everyone involved can count on divine appointments taking place.    He started assembling the abolition team when its most visible “champion” was just a small boy.   He began by tapping famous figures of the first Great Awakening in Britain, leading some slave traders to repentance and restitution, and surrounding those with born-again relatives in Wilberforce’s extended family.   To these, He added Christian attorneys, writers, artisans, poets, former slaves and doctors.  Wives of aristocrats opened their homes to bring these co-laborers together and make strategic introductions across an overseas network and even across social classes.  Each of these called individuals providentially contributed their gifts to the overall effort,  some prominently and some in the background.    Much like some in the marriage permanence movement who today create striking memes that drive home a point in social media, even the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood was tapped into service to create the iconic badge-like image “Am I Not A Man and a Brother?”  that found its way onto all sorts of popular items that were sold at the time.

In a very similar way,  the Lord has been bringing together 21st century artists, writers, bible scholars, linguists, in-place and displaced pastors, seminary professors, legal students, researchers, meeting organizers, videographers, conservative thought leaders and lecturers, courthouse monitors, conference hosts, legislators, constitutional attorneys and family policy directors to carry out a diverse range of divine assignments,  coordinated by the hand of God to one day topple the “Jericho Wall” of unilateral divorce.    Many of these groups of the like-minded would not interact with or even be aware of other groups if He also didn’t divinely provide individuals to form a bridge between them, yet He’s using some individuals to facilitate that very necessary function as well.    Instead of stately mansions where figures are invited and introductions are made, He is using technology and alternative media platforms to bring diverse co-laborers together.

7.  Reeking, shameless hypocrisy was the order of the day in the established church.     We have already described above, the profound moral decay in the Church of England, and the reasons behind it.    Here we will focus on some of what it took to break through that in the famous scene from the movie that was based on the book.    The majority of the power holders in the British Parliament were at least nominal members of the Church of England, while the handful of actual Christ followers who were influenced by the leadership of John Newton, the Wesley brothers, and George Whitefield formed house churches  such as the community at Clapham, which also had some wealthy and influential members in addition to Wilberforce.    They lived by godly example,  using large amounts of their wealth for the public good,  and maintaining sexual purity in their relationships, which really stood out in society, while they maintained warm friendships with the “lukewarm”, those who derisively called them “Methodists” and accused them of being a “cult”.     At an opportune time, Wilberforce and his Clapham peers arranged the famous boat tour of the harbor, complete with stringed quartet, wine and appetizers and full ballroom regalia.    This grand party was soon assaulted with the pungency of that which they would have much preferred to remain insulated from, as the party barge Reliant suddenly pulled up beside a slave ship called the Madagascar that evening.    No longer could the British ruling class and their consorts feign ignorance of the dehumanization and shipboard death that was taking place, literally under their noses.     This event, occurring in the middle of the 20-year abolition battle, required the development of quite a few well-networked allies of the cause in high and low rank in order to pull such a scene off.

Two events occurred in 2017 that could prove significant, and might be somewhat analogous to that unsavory boat party.     Repeal bills to redefine “no-fault” divorce back to its originally-intended (or at least, publicly-advertised) contours were introduced in two southwest states.    Partial repeal attempts had occurred in Michigan in 2006 and Iowa in 2013 but without much publicity that wasn’t rabidly oppositional.     What made the 2017 effort a bit different is that instead of a family policy ministry sponsoring the bills, one was introduced by an actual constitutional attorney-turned-legislator, and he brought a parade of constitutional attorneys to the committee podium who testified to the constitutional violations that riddle current law, which suitably-framed the testimony of the family victims of unilateral divorce who also testified.    This time, the hours of this testimony have been captured and posted to you-tube, through the efforts of local marriage permanence activists.     This is a bit remarkable because the family-shredding industry has been accustomed to a thick shroud of darkness whenever their empire is threatened.     Also remarkable is that every one of the churches in both states were so occupied with “rebuilding a culture of marriage” in their congregations, that none of them saw any worthwhile involvement in seeing that either bill to end the forced divorces of their members might come to an embarrassing Republican-dominated floor vote, letting them both die for this session.

Then in August, the Southern Baptist-allied Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood introduced The Nashville Statement, a manifesto taking dead aim at all the incarnations of homosexual practice, while odiferously looking the other way at prevalence of clergy-condoned (and clergy-practiced) serial polygamy that has destroyed the family structure in the evangelical church, hiding the destruction behind an adulterous thin veneer through which mass shootings, child-trafficking and transsexualism is all-too-prone to puncture.    There have been earlier manifesto campaigns in recent years, but this one was quite ill-timed, driven primarily by visceral reaction to the bathroom bills, but while unresolved memories were still fresh before the American public of the infamous serial polygamist, Kim Davis’ tone-deaf declaration in 2015 that she would “lose her soul” if she dared insult the holiness of God by issuing marriage licenses to homosexuals.   That had been an event which had suddenly reduced  the Leftist press to quoting scripture on major network newscasts.   Though the Who’s Who of the evangelical and Catholic worlds vigorously endorsed and signed the 2017 manifesto (which brazenly declared condoning homosexual practice as profoundly inconsistent with following Christ),  the CBMW has received scathing and voluminous public criticism as well as negative press coverage from both the scornful Left and the God-fearing Right.     (From this blogger, “standerinfamilycourt”, the celebrated and learned seminarians on the board of CBMW received a book called One Flesh” by Joe Fogel, and a frank, admonishing letter.)

Meanwhile, in the Roman Catholic Church, which has been so historically important to all moral reform of family laws, the release of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia was causing deep despair and bewilderment among Christ-following Catholics over the Pope’s bid to liberalize clergy practices toward remarriage adulterers in those congregations, by liberalizing even further the vile practice of “annulment” and to allow those civilly “married” to the covenant spouses of others to take communion — a direct affront to Paul’s admonition about receiving the body and blood of Christ in an unworthy manner,  and of his further admonition that no unrepentant adulterer will inherit the kingdom of God.    The hypocrisy involved with Amoris was the preposterous chorus of Vatican “assurance” that changing church “practice” was not tantamount to changing church “doctrine”.      Since the only ministry with a national voice to publicly support the two unilateral divorce repeal bills was the Catholic-founded Ruth Institute,  we can only hope that this unfortunate and significant turn of events cements the desire for close alliance with our like-minded “cult” of evangelicals in the marriage permanence movement.

8.  Prayer and fasting was just as important as activism, if not more so.  The great John Wesley wrote Wilberforce twice, the first time near the start of his abolition journey, and also a few days before Wesley passed away.    Wesley wanted to be certain that Wilberforce understood that he battled not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities; dark forces in the heavenly realm.     He put Wilberforce on prophetic notice that there will be demonic opposition at every turn, but urged him to persevere.    Much of the reason that abolition took as long as it did once the organized campaign was underway can be attributed to intervening events and demonic distractions, but still the battle was the Lord’s.

The current battle seems to boil down to an unrelenting conflict between the choice to surgically-excise the disease itself or manage the symptoms to reduce human suffering and impacts on society.    There is a widespread assumption that the disease itself is inoperable, and an almost irresistable temptation to hold to a form of godliness but deny His power.    These are strongholds which  the Lord will use the fasters and the faithful prayers in our movement to pull down supernaturally.

9.  Bringing (and keeping) a diverse coalition together was a key role that Wilberforce played as a leader in the movement.    As described earlier, God Himself started the process of bringing the abolitionist movement figures together two or three decades ahead of Wilberforce signing on, but He appointed key individuals (including Wilberforce) to build it to “critical mass” and keep it together over the arduous period of time needed to sustain a successful effort.     He seemed to provide a clear focal point to the various constituencies (which included Quakers, Anglicans, “Methodists”, just to use the diverse religious interests as an example) to what God wanted, and this took a lot of integrity, often very unpopular integrity.     At the end of the day, Wilberforce had the humility to overcome his own discouragement at setbacks to pull it off without backing down.    He had a thick skin, which is a quality almost as rare as focus and integrity, but indispensable because of the need to also manage the criticism or reluctance of insiders.

At the present time, if there is a Wilberforce-like individual to galvanize the factions and constituencies in the movement, it’s likely that this person is still developing and emerging.   Those who presently have the insight to visualize how the like-minded groups can and should be working together are obscure and seem not well-placed at this time.    There are bridges to build between the traditional Catholic leaders, who have a national voice but presently insufficient political power, and the small body of enlightened evangelicals in the movement who part company with the “reformed” evangelicals on the moral validity of non-widowed remarriage.   There are traditional differences to manage over side issues like the authority of the Pope and the validity or morality of “annulment” versus the evangelical principle of sola scriptura where scripture plainly forbids both doctrines.   Many of the national voices for divorce reform would prefer to focus on households with minor children, while setting aside the issue of ongoing 1st and 14th amendment violations against grandparent marriages which full repeal would rectify, and they have differences with those in the movement who consider divorce-remarriages immoral (as Jesus plainly did) due to valid, temporal concern for the children born of legalized adultery.

State legislators are emerging with a courageous vision for repeal, but perhaps are not yet well-enough connected with those who can lend them effective support, especially in the area of getting churches onboard with outright repeal efforts.    Far too few churches of any type are involved on the state level, and a great many erroneously believe that God “instituted” or “provided for” divorce.    The majority of “standers” and those who have repented of adulterous “marriages” are estranged from their churches, either by their own choice not to sit under deceived leadership, or because they’ve been formally or informally shunned for being perceived as a
“sower of disunity”.   In response, many such individuals in the movement do not consider contemporary church structure (what they derisively call the “pulpit / pew hireling model”) to be biblically or morally valid.

Many in the movement also do not think political activity of any type is of God.    State family policy groups tend to be underfunded and perhaps in need of diversifying their support.    The politically-connected national voices are sympathetic to repeal, but constantly get distracted by the symptoms of the disease, particularly each new emerging horror from rabid, militant homosexualism.    Other allied groups are the Parents’ Rights groups who want legal relief from these onerous laws, but aren’t necessarily in the repeal camp, and the divorced-and-remarried activists sympathetic to repeal efforts who are somehow finding the grace to work with the celibate “standers” who do not consider those subsequent civil-only unions biblically valid.   We each need to faithfully keep doing our perceived, assigned roles and keep praying to God for the break-through that pulls all of it together effectively.     Even a celibate, faithful stander who is not engaged in any other activity at all, except to serve others, makes a very loud statement to this culture, if they are consistent and are doing it out of a godly motivation.   

10.  It took decades of unrelenting effort and dedication to prevail.   As witnessed by a quote from the book,

“The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, on angstrom wide.    Wilberforce was quite right that a flame had been kindled and would not go out until it had done its work, but he had no idea that it would be twenty torturous years in the burning before its work was done.   And if the ‘work’ in question was not the abolition of the slave trade but the abolition of slavery itself, the flame would continue burning for another forty-five years.”
(Page 122)

…abolition of such a profoundly immoral institution was carried out on many battlefronts and required decades to bring about.    

By comparison, the dastardly and covert political events that stripped U.S. families of their most basic fundamental rights to liberty, property, free religious exercise, free association, right to jury trial when civilly accused, both procedural and substantive due process, and equal protection under the law, occurred less than 50 years ago.    The hope is that technology and God’s hand will accelerate the formidable process of overthrowing the regime, and that incremental reform efforts will fall by the wayside as time-wasters.    In the past ten years, there have been full or partial repeal efforts in at least four states, including Michigan, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma.   The early efforts were abandoned, but hopefully the latter efforts will persist and gain support as various groups gain insight in how best to work together.    Only God could pull off the task of full repeal in all 50 states, but that’s no excuse not to work toward it in faith, with our eyes firmly fixed on the Almighty.   If a few states repeal, momentum can certainly be gained, but opposition can be expected to grow more fiercely as well.    As with ending the slave trade, the renewed moral authority of a chastened and repented collective church is going to be crucial, and there are many tactical steps the organized church could take to hasten the political process.    (This last topic will be covered in a future post.)

Recalling the wicked false analogy drawn by the LGBT movement to justify their immoral, totalitarian political aims by (invalidly)  comparing their vision to the U.S. civil rights movement, “standerinfamilycourt” has made these parallels with much fear and trembling before the Lord, trusting that this particular analogy is utterly valid, and is actually like-for-like.    May God’s will be done for our covenant families and for our morally-ravaged nation.

Your kingdom [must] come.   Your will [must] be done on earth as it is in heaven.   – Matthew 6:10

(FB profile 7xtjw SIFC: translation of this famous portion of the Lord’s Prayer is from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s  The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken (2013), which is the only contemporary English language translation on the market today that is not based on the relatively incomplete Alexandrian manuscripts,  sexually-licentious 1880’s transcription work of Westcott and Hort [the “Standard” bibles], and tainted subsequent bible translation committees, often staffed with universalists and homosexuals.)

 

 

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

Knickers (and Facts) in A Twist over Repeal of Texlahoma “No-Fault”

TheDunlapsby Standerinfamilycourt

It has been an exciting spring legislative session in the southwest this year, as young lawmakers in Texas and Oklahoma have introduced common-sense bills curbing non-consenting unilateral divorce, and as both bills have recently made it out of their committees fairly intact.    The liberal press has been shrieking and howling its disapproval, especially in Oklahoma, where the measure also ends the perverse economic incentives from unilateral divorce by restoring stiff marital fault penalties to property division.

As is so typical of liberal grandstanding and industry lobbying, we’re hearing not of the millions of fathers whose fundamental right to protect and raise their children is being severed though they’ve done nothing objectively wrong,  nor of the adulterers sailing off with the unconscionable award of the innocent spouse’s retirement funds after a decades-long union which is suddenly deemed “irretrievable” by the court.   Instead we are hearing about the classic “abused poor woman” who will now find it harder to get a divorce because she might now have to actually prove the abuse with (gasp) evidence thereof.    As one of the expert witnesses giving testimony in Texas accurately pointed out to committee members on March 8, lawmakers cannot legislate to the extreme case (13:00),  as the liberals would like, but must do what’s best for society as a whole.

Rep. Travis Dunlap is a young lawmaker from Bartlesville, OK who was elected to the state house from his trade as a piano tuner.    Though he does not have the constitutional law background that his Texas counterpart has, he probably drafted the more effective of the two pieces of legislation in actually rolling back the abusive “no-fault” regime.    According to media accounts,  the original HB1277 drafted by Dunlap made it impossible for a court in Oklahoma to grant a divorce for “incompatibility” (the equivalent of “irreconcilable differences”) if the couple met one of three criteria:

– married for more than 10 years, or
– had a living child under age 18, or
–  a partner involved objects to the divorce.

A committee modification allows petitioners who fall into one of those categories to have a divorce granted by the court for “incompatibility”, but they must first go through an educational program about the impact of divorce.   Previously, petitioners only had to do that if they had a child under age 18, and the educational program was focused on the impact of divorce on children.    While this does not seem a particularly helpful modification from the standpoint of constitutional protections,  this bill has a very important strength that the Texas bill lacks:  it restores marital fault to the property settlement that results, as follows,

  “However, where the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that one spouse caused the dissolution of marriage by committing at least one of the grounds for divorce, other than incompatibility, listed in Section 101 of this title, the court shall award only one-quarter (1/4) of the marital property to that spouse and the other spouse shall retain the remaining three-quarters (3/4) of the marital property…….

“Upon granting a decree of dissolution of marriage, annulmentof a marriage, or legal separation, where the court finds by apreponderance of the evidence that one spouse caused thedissolution, annulment or separation by committing at least one of the grounds for divorce, other than incompatibility, listed in Section 101 of this title, the court shall order that party to paythe other party’s expenses, including attorney fees.”

Perverse and unjust economic incentives play such an enormous role in the abusiveness of existing family laws,  and so drives the egregious behavior of the divorce industry “professionals” who have far more interest in shredding families than defending them, that no reform is likely to be sustainable without addressing this, as the Oklahoma bill has nicely done.    As a direct consequence, Rep. Dunlap has predictably drawn the venom of the state Bar and the unrelenting scorn of Oklahoma’s leftists in the press.    The committee vote was 7-5 on February 27, to refer the bill on for a floor vote which must occur by the May 26 end of the Oklahoma 56th legislative session.   The Senate sponsor of the bill is Sen. Josh Brecheen of Coalgate, Oklahoma.   Unlike Texas, Oklahoma does not have a strong family policy council any longer,  and videos of the committee testimony do not seem to be available.      One recent article says this, “Dunlap, who represents District 10, said he now does not expect the bill to see a vote in the House but is interested in continuing his efforts. ”     We hope and pray that Rep. Dunlap  does just that.

Rep. Matt Krause’s Texas bill was the subject of an earlier blog post.   That bill, which simply eliminates no-fault grounds where there is not a mutual-consent petition has been favorably referred by a 4-3 committee vote on April 12, and must somehow achieve a floor vote by the May 29 end of the legislative session.     This bill does not address several onerous provisions that would remain unchanged in the Texas Statute which could effectively still result in a contested dissolution being granted to an offending spouse over the moral objections of the non-offending spouse, including this provision:

Sec. 6.006. LIVING APART. The court may grant a divorce in favor of either spouse if the spouses have lived apart without cohabitation for at least three years.

Often, the innocent original spouse who does not believe in marriage dissolution because of scriptures such as Matthew 19:6 and 8, Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Cor. 7:10-11 and 39,  has non-cohabitation forced on them by the offending spouse, and has little or no control over this circumstance, especially if the offending spouse is in an adulterous relationship or has a history of physical abuse of household members.    This should therefore not be left under the sole control of the offending party if unilateral divorce is to be eradicated, and constitutional protections balanced.    We should also  note that the [unchanged] “cruelty” ground  contains this phrase which still refers to “insupportability” but does not objectively or measurably define “cruel treatment” :

The court may grant a divorce in favor of one spouse if the other spouse is guilty of cruel treatment toward the complaining spouse of a nature that renders further living together insupportable 

(Apparently, rogue  attorneys and “abused poor women” can restore “insupportability” simply by alleging cruel treatment under sec. 6.005, which this bill still does not, for all purposes, make them actually prove under its ongoing vague definition — how novel!)

In the unlikely event that Texas HB93  achieves a floor vote by the end of the session, there’s no question that there will be some back doors left wide open to unilateral divorce, but the period of time required will be lengthened.    If it dies  in the 85th session  without being voted on, we hope it will be re-introduced next session with some of these issues further addressed.

We covered a list of practical actions Texas and Oklahoma citizens can take to support these bills in the last blog on this topic, but let’s run through a few briefly again:

(1) Call the state capitol and ask for a floor vote:
Joe Straus
Speaker of the House (Texas)
(512) 463-1000
(512) 463-0675 Fax

Charles McCall
Speaker of the House (Oklahoma)
(405) 557-7412

(2) Engage your church and pastor – ask for a few minutes to talk to the congregation about the religious freedom and due process issues with the so-called “no-fault” system and how it has led to every other kind of  immorality, from same-sex attraction to the high abortion and suicide rates.    Explain that citizen engagement is needed at the grass roots to counter the overwhelming divorce industry lobby and liberal press.   If they sent busloads of the faithful to the state capitol 2 or 3 years ago to combat gay “marriage”,  challenge them on why this isn’t every bit as weighty a matter to the church’s families.

(3) Call Texas Values and ask what they are doing to support HB93. (Unfortunately, we’re not aware of a functioning family policy council in Oklahoma at this time).

(4) Sign a petition if you get a chance.   The Ruth Institute has one for Texas that can be found here.

(5) No matter which state you call home, please take time to call and write to encourage Reps. Krause and Dunlap.     Pray for them, and let them know it.

NeverGiveUp

Divorce Reform, Repenting Prodigals and Covenant Marriage “Standers”
While there is broad agreement in the marriage permanence community that repealing unilateral divorce is best for the future of our nation, many of us have either already been unjustly divorced and seen our spouse remarry adulterously  (by biblical standards, that is – since we, their true spouse in God’s eyes, are still alive), or others of us have come to biblical conviction that we had wrongfully “married” someone else’s divorced spouse, and needed to exit that union to be right with God.    So, though meaningful reform of the unilateral family-shredding machine remains a long shot with plenty of deep-pocketed, well-connected opposition,  we should look at where such reforms leave our wandering spouses who need to exit those immoral, civil-only  unions and rebuild their covenant families.    The subsequent divorce rate is significantly higher for legalized adultery resulting from the divorce culture, and it escalates with each round of serial polygamy under easy divorce laws.    Just how hard will divorce reform make repentance from remarriage adultery under the two bills being considered ?    Here’s an analysis for each:

Oklahoma, under HB1277:   Mutual-consent petitions continue to permit no-fault grounds, but if the adulterous union produced a minor child or has lasted at least 10 years, an education class must be attended before dissolution can be granted.     It is likely that a repenting prodigal exiting the adulterous remarriage will leave 75% of the marital assets with their ex-spouse unless that spouse has committed a serious, provable offense against the marriage.     Assets can be replaced, but souls certainly cannot.    Even so, assets brought in from the “dissolved” covenant marriage (very importantly including retirement accounts) are not considered part of the marital assets of the subsequent faux marriage and would not be forfeited by decree, however the repenting spouse would also likely have to absorb all the legal costs of getting free of their legalized adultery.     Waiting period:  180 days.

Texas, under HB93:  Mutual-consent petitions permit insupportability grounds but if the subsequent spouse does not consent and the repenting prodigal separates in order to end the practice of adultery (as he / she must do regardless), then after one year the now-abandoned spouse may file a fault-based petition which will be granted upon evidence, or they may agree to a mutual-consent petition sooner, and if HB65 also passes, the waiting period will be 180 days.   Alternatively, if the repenting spouse moves back in with their covenant spouse,  grounds of adultery are then available to the now-abandoned subsequent spouse.  If the non-covenant still declines to file a grounds-based petition, the repenting prodigal may file after 3 years of continuous separation on the basis of non-cohabitation.    Assets would be divided on the same basis as current law but this  would not include any assets brought from the prior covenant marriage.

“Standerinfamilycourt” always encourages mutual petitions rather than dragging anyone into a pagan court (1 Cor. 6:1-8)  in the process of repenting of an adulterous remarriage, as a growing number are doing these days upon learning the biblical truth on the matter.     If prayer doesn’t produce a consenting, mutual petition, repenting prodigals can always take comfort in the biblical fact that no state has dissolved the marriage of their youth in God’s eyes, nor was the subsequent “remarriage” ever considered valid in His courtroom.    They are free to resume their union without the state’s blessing and are not actually in sin if they do so.   The Lord will then sort out the legal matters in His own way.

‘So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate’….He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.     Matt. 19:6, 8

And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”   Matt. 12:17

(SIFC:  Would like to give a shout-out and thanks to Bai MacFarlane of Mary’s Advocates, who has established contact with Rep. Krause’s office and has provided some of the not-yet-posted details needed to complete this post.)

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Moody Radio Share 2017

by Standerinfamiycourt

——————————————–
On Wed, 3/22/17, Moody Radio, Share 2017 <moodyradio@moodycommunications.org> wrote:Subject: There’s Still Time to Give!
To: [standerinfamilycourt]
Date: Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 9:52 AMWe are so close, but we still need your help!{ SIFC noteabout 8% short of goal on the day after their recent 3-day funding campaign ended, about the same as in the four prior years.]
If you haven’t already given during Share 2017, will you help Moody Radio reach our national goal?
So many of you have already given, but we are still short of our total need. If you have considered giving, it is not too late.
Remember, when you give to Share, you are sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in your community and across the globe.
Please prayerfully consider a generous gift today and Share the Word with others!

——————————————–

On Sun, 3/26/17,  <“standerinfamilycourt”> wrote:

Subject: Re: There’s Still Time to Give!
To: “Moody Radio” <moodyradio@moodycommunications.org>
Date: Sunday, March 26, 2017, 1:13 PM

Dear Moody Radio Management,

Perhaps this shortfall Moody keeps experiencing over the past few years is the Lord’s chastening, and not the economy.   Many of us certainly love Up for Debate and most other Moody programs, but can offer no money for Moody Radio until all programs that regularly sanction legalized adultery are ceased and apologized for.  If there’s a need for a “blended family pastor” ( just because he appears to be a “successful” legalized adulterer), it’s not surprising at all.  People living in defiance of God’s clear word, rightly-divided, have homes absolutely rife with dysfunction – how can it be otherwise with the coveting and wrongful retention of another’s God-joined, covenant spouse (Matt. 19:6; Mal.2:14) ?  It is the wicked desire to cling to this soul-destructive ongoing state of sin that fuels the demand for the likes of “Pastor” Ron Deal, as well as wicked books written by a host of adulterers and adulteresses (James 4:4).

Moody has on occasion shamelessly even offered these books as a donation-spurring mechanism, tickling the ears of people who desperately need to instead repent.  Programs such as Focus on the Family, Family Life, and Building Relationships are three among many on Moody which are an affront to the kingdom of God for this reason, encouraging millions to live for self instead of taking up their cross of forgiveness and obedience to the harder commandments of Christ.
.

ὃς                    ἐὰν         ἀπολελυμένην                      γαμήσῃ          μοιχᾶται
whoever          if             her having been divorced     shall marry   commits [ present-indicative verb tense – Matt. 532b; Matt 19:9b-KJV, Luke 16:18 adultery  

What IS surprising is Moody’s unabashed embrace of something that’s pointing the audience to hell instead of away from hell.  R A Torrey would have been appalled, since Jesus stated on 3 different occasions that EVERYONE who marries a divorced person is committing ongoing adultery.

Torrey, in “How to Pray” (1900):  “The prevailing immorality is found everywhere.  Look at the legalized adultery we call divorce.  Men marry one wife after another and are still admitted in good society; and women do likewise.   There are thousands of supposedly respectable men in America living with other men’s wives, and thousands of supposedly respectable women living with other women’s husbands.”

RATorrey2

It is on this same basis Paul stated twice to the body of believers that no unrepentant adulterer has any inheritance in the kingdom of God, and also stated twice that only death, not any act of men, dissolves God-joined holy matrimony or severs the God-created,. supernatural one-flesh entity (sarx mia) which Jesus described in Matt. 19:6.

History has shown that no society can stand for more than 2-3 generations after enacting unilateral divorce if church leadership also accommodates it rather than remaining salty in resistance – witness ancient Israel who had to undertake the purging repentance from unlawful marriages described in Ezra, chapters 9 and 10, to recover their nation.   Witness the late Roman Empire which was vanquished two generations after enacting the equivalent of today’s unilateral divorce — but Christ’s church survived and thrived because early church fathers were nearly unanimous in the faithful teaching that only death ends holy matrimony, and in disciplining its adulterers in the fashion Paul instructed in 1 Cor. 5.   Failure to repent always leads to an insufficient number of well-adjusted citizens to overcome the rising numbers of wounded, deranged, demented and dysphoric citizens produced when both church and state institutionalize what Jesus consistently called adultery.

Blended

Two states with rare, godly legislators (Texas and Oklahoma) are currently working to repeal this immoral and unconstitutional civil law that has cost much of the church its very integrity over the past 5 decades — why do we hear nothing of this on Moody?   Where is the call to prayer and fasting for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven?   Could it be the snare of the fear of man is greater than the fear of God?

Respectfully, There’s Still Time to REPENT !

[“standerinfamilycourt”]

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

Will They Do It? Another State Attempts to Repeal Unilateral Divorce

KrauseFamilyby Standerinfamilycourt

It appears that the first major effort since 2006 by a state legislator to roll back so-called “no fault” (unilateral divorce) has been underway since the last session of Texas legislature, sponsored by Rep. Matt Krause, recently re-elected to a third term.

Rep Krause is the son of a Baptist pastor who attended Liberty University School of Law and is a constitutional attorney who opened up a branch of the Christian legal defense firm Liberty Counsel in Fort Worth, TX.  The  Krauses have four young children and are in their mid-thirties.

From a December 28 post by a local news service:

A one-page bill, filed by Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, will make it harder for couples to separate, by ending [the “ground” of]  “insupportability”

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC: (“insupportability” is functionally equivalent to the civil charge of  “irreconcilable differences” in most other states.  Liberal bias in the press coverage often deceitfully implies mutuality in the assessment, by paraphrasing in terms like  “the couple can no longer stand” to live with each other.)

Per the Texas Statute, as currently enacted:

Sec. 6.001.  INSUPPORTABILITY.  On the petition of either party to a marriage, the court may grant a divorce without regard to fault if the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation.   Enacted, 1997

At some point between the original 1970 enactment of unilateral divorce in Texas and 1997, there was a re-write of the statute which Judy Parejko described in her 2001 book, “Stolen Vows”,  where the provision for mutuality in the petition was surrepetitiously  taken out of the enacted language.    From Day 1, the members of the Texas Bar refused to implement the law on that enacted basis, until they finally succeeded in changing it, just prior to the time that attorney Ed Truncellito brought his failed constitutional challenge of the false language in a 2000 case.    FB profile 7xtjw

The local article continues:

Krause says ending no-fault divorces would keep the family together as well as add protection to the spouse who might not want to split up.

“There needs to be some type of due process. There needs to be some kind of mechanism to where that other spouse has a defense,” said Rep. Krause, who filed the same bill last session.   He hopes lawmakers will pick up the issue earlier in the 2017 Legislative session.

He also filed a bill to extend the waiting period for a divorce from 60 days to 180 days.

MKrauseFB_post

What would a successful effort by Rep. Krause mean to the community of covenant marriage standers, also to repenting prodigals, in the highly unlikely event that this attempt to repeal “no-fault” (unilateral, non-consenting) divorce succeeds in Texas?  As is all too typical in the liberal press, this local article was written in such a way as to misinform the public on both sides of the issue.
Success is actually highly unlikely, especially without ardent support from the churches of Texas, who are more likely to ignore the bill, or give it only tepid support.   We attempted to contact Rep. Krause through his Facebook page, to ask him if he at least had the support of his state family policy council, but he did not respond:

We would like to follow the progress of your bill, Rep. Krause. What is the bill #, if we may ask ?

Another question: are you familiar with what author Judy Parejko wrote in her 2001 book, “Stolen Vows” about the original statute language in Texas,and the contrary way it was implemented?

Are there any Family Policy groups supporting you at all?

Thanks, and Godspeed! 
“standerinfamilycourt”

We must nevertheless keep praying for the coast-to-coast repeal of unilateral divorce.    The bill before the Texas legislature, introduced by Rep. Krause is HB93, whose progress can be followed here.    It is telling that its sponsor would like this bill to come up for a vote “earlier in the 2017 session.”    That’s because he had to re-introduce it, since it failed to be brought to a vote in the prior session.

 

TX HB93_2017

Texas does indeed have a family policy council:

Texas
Texas Values
Jonathan Saenz, President
900 Congress, Ste. 220
Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 512-478-2220
info@txvalues.org
txvalues.org

The 85th Texas Legislature is dominated by Republicans in both the House and the Senate, so grass-roots citizen efforts to support this bill would appear to be fairly effective, notwithstanding the stiff, well-financed opposition that is likely to come from the Texas Bar Association and the ABA.    We would strongly encourage our page followers living in Texas to take several practical steps to give this bill a chance for enactment:

–  go to your pastor and make sure he is aware of this bill.   It seems to be getting some publicity, but mostly biased and unfair publicity.   Ask him to contact Texas Values and state legislators in support of it.   Make sure your pastor understands the connection between unilateral divorce and gay marriage / threats to religious liberty, and that “Respondents” to a unilateral divorce petition were the very first Christians to lose their religious liberty on the altars of the Sexual Revolution.

contact Texas Values yourself, and ask them to support the bill with publicity spend and legislator contacts.  To their extreme credit, their page does call out unilateral divorce as an issue.    To their discredit, a perusal of their page shows that they’ve not done a blog piece on the bill from the time it was filed in November, 2016 to-date.   (You may also need to point out the religious liberty issue to them, and remind them of what was documented in the early constitutional challenge cases by actual Texas judges in the 1970’s.

– do the obvious and keep pressure on your state legislators to support the bill.   The other side will most certainly be doing so.

re-share this post, and ecourage everyone you know to do the same.

maintain supportive contact with Rep. Krause through the link to his page that we provided above.   Pray for him, and let him know it.

For now, we just make a few practical point-outs:

(1) If this succeeds, it’s a necessary matter for full repentence as a nation (and more importantly as a CHURCH) to help stay God’s hand of judgment on this nation at its true root.

(2) The last state to make this sort of attempt was Michigan in 2006. Despite the lonely backing of the Family Research Council, the effort was defeated by heavy, well-funded opposition from the Michigan Bar who argued that people would simply cross state lines to get their “blameless” divorce, saddling the state later on with administering it. (Ironically, most of the fee revenue to attorneys comes for years after the divorce if there are children involved — so this argument, while true in its first point was spurious and dishonest in its totality – just like this article.)

(3) Make no mistake, unless there is an option preserved for MUTUALLY ending a civil-only marriage by agreed peitition with agreed terms (only), this will make it infinitely more costly to repent of an adulterous or sodomus union entered into with someone else’s spouse. Imagine going into family court with a formal charge of adultery saying “I’m the adulterer, and she is as well, because only death dissolves her original covenant marriage, not the State of Texas, Your Honor.” (No 20th-21st century judge has ever cared that the bible makes it clear that remarriage is an ongoing state of adultery, as Jesus repeated in the same words at least 3 recorded times, and that dying in this state is a matter of heaven-or-hell, as Paul stated at least twice.)   There was a time when our judges did know this, and when they ruled accordingly.

(4) Repenting prodigals under Texas jurisdiction will need to be prepared to live apart from their noncovenant, counterfeit mate immediately, and for 3 years thereafter if the forced unilateral clause is removed without replacing it with a true mutual “no fault” petition — which (contrary to the bias of the local article), NO state has ever had.
(**Except for Texas, as noted above, but only on the statute books, not in practice or interpretation).
Hopefully, repenting prodigals will realize that man’s law is inferior to God’s law and that the latter is all that is required to live morally and righteously with their true, God-joined spouse. — Expect legal hiccups for the covenant family and fiery censure from the apostate church in the meantime! Here’s where the voice of true Christ-followers in the marriage permanence community is going to need to be more grounded and resolute than ever.

(5) No state is likely to gain any traction on this issue until the neighboring states do. And that’s unlikely until the church stops performing adulterous weddings or signing civil marriage licenses, thereby boycotting the culture of serial polygamy and all of its entrenched instruments including state “jurisdiction”.

Currently, fault-based divorces in Texas must fall into one of six categories: adultery, cruelty, abandonment and a felony conviction, living apart for at least three years or confinement to a mental hospital.    Rep. Krause was also quoted on January 8 by Maria Anglin of the San Antonio Express-News as saying he’d like for the three years to be reduced to one year if the petition alleges abandonment – in our opinion, not an improvement since most experts say that the average length of an extramarital infatuation is two years.   Texas is one of the few major states that still offers fault-based divorce, with Illinois repealing all fault-based grounds in 2015 in a profoundly immoral overhaul of its “family laws”.

We will do our best to establish contact with Rep. Krause and with Texas Values, so that we can keep you informed of progress.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

Let’s Take an AUTHENTIC Stand for Marriage, Christian Right

NatMarriageWkby Standerinfamilycourt

February 7 – 14 is National Marriage Week.
During this week, there will be much going on that is vital and valuable to our nation, but there will be no getting away from the fact that in the corrupted culture of contemporary evangelicaldom, it will be “finders keepers”, and millions in faux “marriages” which are not holy matrimony, will be encouraged to stay there at the peril of their very souls.  The excellent organization, Breakpoint.org promotes it in this audio link dated January 5, 2017.

Talking about marriage “permanence” is politically acceptable to this crowd, but it will not resolve the nation’s problems because it will not touch the root issue.   Rather, the message needs to be around the far more relevant and offensive topic of holy matrimony indissolubility, according to Matt.19:6,8 and Luke 16:18. This needs to be in the heaven-or-hell terms that Jesus and Paul unflinchingly cast it.

Some crucial topics not likely to be on this year’s agenda:

– When will pastors stop performing weddings that Jesus repeatedly called adulterous (and tell the congregation why) ?

– When will pastors stop signing civil marriage licenses that reflect the only unenforceable contract in American history, and which since 1970, in no way corresponds to Christ’s Matt. 19:4-6 definition of marriage?

– When will pastors stop smearing and stigmatizing the growing stream of true disciples of Jesus Christ who are coming out of adulterous civil unions in order to recover their inheritance in the kingdom of God?
[1 Cor. 6:9-10; Mal. 5:19-21-KJV)

– When will repealing unilateral divorce in all 50 states become as high a moral priority as outlawing the slave trade, or repealing Roe v. Wade, or ending sodomous “marriages” ?

Given what Jesus and Paul both had to say about remarriage adultery (repeatedly by each), true revival when it arrives, is going to look horrifying to the organizers of National Marriage Week, but it will be pleasing to God.   The horror will not be due to the repenting prodigals, but due to five decades of false, hireling shepherds not doing the job the Owner of the fold gave them to safeguard souls first, and then covenant families.

ignatius-antioch

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

The Obstructed View from 2002: Debating One-Flesh and Covenant From the Pulpit

FoundersBaptby Standerinfamilycourt

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?   For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.   For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;  but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,  but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.   Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.    1 Corinthians 1:19-24

Sometimes in this ministry, the Lord puts an unexpected enlightenment in our hands which allows us to get a very interesting glimpse of what has gone before in the history of the remarriage debate within the evangelical Protestant church.    A late-night instant message linked SIFC to a very interesting recorded sermon where in late 2002, a Baptist pastor from Spring, TX was doing an excellent job of debunking 1 Corinthians 7, faithfully setting the record straight, section by section, on just who Paul was addressing with his various pieces of instruction, and methodically closing the door on the various evangelical heresies that proliferate (like mold) from the humanist propensity to “run with” advice that Paul meant for a different group, while ignoring the context (and even the content) of what he wrote within the same chapter.    We have also blogged recently on this 1 Cor. 7 topic.

Despite the excellent insights this man of God was bringing forward in his message, around 25 minutes in he attempted to use the term “agamos” [ἄγαμος] , as in “let her remain unmarried” per 1 Cor. 7:11,  to assert that man’s divorce was real in God’s eyes and that it indeed “dissolved” what both Jesus and Paul asserted could only be dissolved by death and by God’s hand.   If according to Paul, she (Mrs. Verse 11) is “no longer married”,  he argued,  how can her marriage not actually be dissolved in God’s eyes?   Overlooked is the fact that this passage is silent as to whether a civil divorce is actually undertaken by either spouse,  rather than a mere separation.    “Gamos” can mean either wedding or marriage, i.e. uniting with a spouse, so Paul’s usage could simply mean in a literal sense, “without a new spouse / wedding” while remaining perfectly consistent with Paul’s overall message about indissolubility except by death.   This presumption on Rev. Caldwell’s part that man’s divorce dissolved holy matrimony was troubling, and since this message was part of a 12-part series,  SIFC couldn’t help but wonder how this pastor treated the topic of God’s character in covenant, as well as the crucial topic of the one-flesh state and its severability or inseverability by acts of men short of dying.

Fortunately, this entire sermon series is available online, so a listen to the very first installment of the series proved a bit infuriating, but still very worthwhile for gleaning some insights into the development of evangelical heresies in both of those two pivotal matters, treatment of covenant, and treatment of the one-flesh state joined by God’s hand.    So pivotal and central is a correct understanding of these, that if that foundation isn’t rock-solid, there is no adequate foundation for discerning or refuting the full range of divorce and remarriage heresies.    (The only thing that’s equally pivotal in this regard is a correct understanding of the betrothal nature of our salvation, binding on heaven, but revocable by us through choosing to die in a persistent state of willful disobedience to His commandments.)   Naturally, a Calvinist-leaning Baptist pastor is far more likely to temper his marriage permanence views on  the notion of “once saved, always saved”,  especially when faced with the discomfort of needing to admonish those who are living in a state of being adulterously “married” to someone else’s one-flesh partner, or when faced with the need to refuse to perform such a wedding.    We know of only one (part-time) Baptist pastor whose “pastoral care” is biblically faithful to that extent.

Why did SIFC find the content of that first sermon on Genesis 2:18-24 infuriating as well as enlightening?    First, it strikes us as highly unusual for a pastor, already brave enough to do a 12-part sermon series on marriage,  divorce and remarriage,  to do any sort of a studious “deep dive” into the supernatural nature of the one-flesh state.   It far better serves the evangelical marriage revisionists to claim that the one-flesh state is a gradual human process accruing over the course of the union, rendering counterfeit spouses   interchangeable  with covenant spouses, with the passage of time.   Even the very commendable, and far more accurate series by Church of Christ pastor David Sproule  in 2013 didn’t linger long on the topic of one-flesh.   What was triggering this in 2002, and why have we heard so little about it from any pulpits since?

Secondly, Rev. Caldwell of Spring, TX seemed to be coming up with a very novel treatment of Jesus’ command in Matthew 19:6, “therefore what God has joined, let no man separate.”   He argues, while stating that John MacArthur also makes this point (but we must have missed it), that Jesus was not referring to individual couples in His commandment, but to the institution of holy matrimony as a whole.   This, of course, implies that God covenants with an institution, but with regard to any given pair that He has joined, it’s a sliding covenant, that is, it is in bearer form.    The sole biblical “support” offered for this idea is tenuous at best.   Caldwell argues that Jesus’ use of the word translated “what” was deliberately chosen not to mean “whom“.   That word in the original text shows as     ( 3739 [e]
ho ), according to both www.biblehub.com and www.scripture4all.org.    As we drill into the concordance reference, we find that it can mean either “what” or “whom”, depending on the context.    We feel the context of Jesus’ words argues far more strongly for “whom“,  otherwise Jesus would have been agreeing with the Pharisees and Moses, which He obviously did not do.    If Caldwell got the notion and its support solely from MacArthur, it’s no surprise, the latter being notorious for the liberties he takes with his scriptural eisogesis when it comes to defending marriages that Jesus and Paul repeatedly called adulterous.   Many denominations prefer, post-1970’s, to treat this verse as though it isn’t there – ignore it.   Caldwell and MacArthur apparently prefer to redefine it.   This appears to be a concept that didn’t develop the traction to go anywhere after that. 

With regard to the first thing that’s noteworthy about Caldwell’s sermon, he mentions the work of Dr. William Heth of Taylor University in Indiana, an interdenominational Christian college.  Caldwell is impressed (as are we) with Heth’s insight in his 1985 book, co-authored with Dr. Gordon Wenham,  Jesus and Divorce:  The Problem with the Evangelical Consensus, specifically, that the one-flesh joining of holy matrimony is a point-in-time event effected by God’s hand, and not a gradually-accruing process.

It turns out that the year 2002 produced quite a lot of scholarship (and pseudo-scholarship) on marriage ethics that apparently triggered Caldwell’s sermon series.   That was the year that Dr. David Instone-Brewer published his studious, but thoroughly heretical book,  Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible

CWs_coverDRinBible
and it was a few years before Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary wrote an excellent scholarly paper rebutting that book.   In 2002, the first of the tyrannical same-sex marriage lawsuits was surfacing in Massachusetts resulting in court-ordered legalization of sodomous nuptials the following year, and several years before the hypocritical implications of fighting off this development and its totalitarian fallout while cleaving fiercely to its entrenched system of legalized institutionalized adultery would begin to plague the evangelical church.   In that same year, 2002, the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology published opposing pieces by  Heth, who had now decided to align with Instone-Brewer in a reversal of conviction,  and his former co-author Dr. Gordon Wenham who held true to the biblical position.    This journal edition was also just beginning to grapple with the political rise of the homosexualist lobby.    It is fairly likely that these 2002 developments were at least the backdrop, if not the actual trigger for Caldwell’s unusual deep-dive into one-flesh joining and God’s role in it.

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.    –  Galatians 1:10

As mentioned before, Heth had recently been influenced to change his earlier position to the liberal position of Instone-Brewer, a journey he describes in this journal article.    This 2002 article reveals that Heth was not only swayed by the pseudo-scholarship of Instone-Brewer but also by two of the scholars mentioned  (and quite convincingly rebutted) by Drs. Jones and Tarwater in their 2005 paper,  Are Biblical Covenants Dissoluble?  : Toward A Theology of Marriage.   That scholar was  G. Hugenberger, author of Marriage as a Covenant,  in which he purported to cite Old Testament instances where God abandoned various covenants as evidence that the marriage covenant was dissoluble if one of the human parties declared it dissolved.
[FB profile 7xtjw SIFC  noteIf Hugenberger’s  rationale truly reflected God’s reality, this would greatly blunt the Christian community’s motivation to set aside their carnal proclivities and take a strong moral, political stand against the constitutionality of unilateral (“no-fault”) divorce, would it not?   Instead, we have religious freedom legal defense ministries shamefully adopting a blanket policy not to get involved in such cases, claiming there’s only an “incidental” violation.]

To be clear, both Heth and Wenham had always taken the politically-correct Protestant position that divorce was “allowed” for so-called biblical grounds, hence that it was recognized by God and effectual in dissolving covenant marriage, but prior to Heth’s change of heart, both men agreed that remarriage while that “former”  covenant spouse lived was forbidden by scripture.    If a premise is incorrect in some respect, it’s really difficult to be on-target in the scholarly discussion that falls out from that.    If divorce is indeed deemed to dissolve the marriage bond in God’s eyes (as per Hugenberger), what basis actually remains at the end of the day for forbidding remarriage?    Indeed if either choice, to remarry or not to remarry, has no effect on either spouse’s eternal destination, why does the debate matter at all, in the first place, against that Calvinist backdrop?   Heth  journeyed to this new place, he tells us, under “concern” for the opinion of other renowned scholars toward his earlier work (fear of man exceeding the  fear of God), and because Instone-Brewer’s arguments seemed compelling to him, as did Hugenberger’s.

What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?  May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written,
That You may be justified in Your words,
And prevail when You re judged.”    –  Romans 3:3-4

From the Jones & Tarwater 2005 rebuttal to Hugenberger and Heth, page 10:

“…both Köstenberger and Heth appeal to the work of Gordon Hugenberger as the basis for their belief that covenants may be dissolved. Hugenberger contends that covenants can be both violated and dissolved, asserting that these ideas are conveyed by the same Hebrew expression (Hiphil of parar + berith).32 In order to corroborate this claim, Hugenberger cites fourteen scriptural examples of covenants that were ostensibly dissolved (Gen. 17:14; Lev. 26:44; Deut. 31:20; 1 Kgs. 15:19; Isa. 33:8; 24:5; Jer. 11:10; 14:21; 31:32; 33:20; Ezek. 16:59; 17:15; 44:7; Zech. 11:10-11).33

Despite Hugenberger’s monumental contribution to the study of biblical covenants, we are not persuaded by his evidence for dissolubility. While Hugenberger correctly notes that the Hebrew word parar may be translated with the English term “broken” or “annulled”34 — connoting violation or dissolution — parar does not necessarily carry both meanings at the same time. Imposing more than one meaning simultaneously upon parar is what James Barr calls the error of “illegitimate totality transfer.”35 In other words, it is wrong to conclude that because a covenant was “broken” it was, therefore, “dissolved.” An examination of the fourteen aforementioned examples, we believe, sufficiently demonstrates this truth.

First, three of the passages (1 Kgs. 15:19; Isa. 33:8; Ezek. 17:15) cited by Hugenberger refer to treaties between men where God is clearly not a covenanting party. Thus, even if these agreements were dissolved, they would have no bearing upon this study, for we are solely concerned with covenants in which God is a part.  With that stated, it is not even certain that any of these three examples constitute an occasion on which a covenant was dissolved. In fact, the example from Ezekiel seems to illustrate the exact opposite as the prophet asks, “Can Israel break her sworn treaties like that and get away with it” (Ezek. 17:15)? The Lord answers with a resounding, “No!” (Ezek. 17:16). By allowing Israel to be punished, then, the Lord demonstrated the applicability and enduring nature of the terms of the covenant. Thus, these three examples fail to demonstrate that covenants in which God participates can be dissolved.

Second, two of Hugenberger’s examples (Jer. 14:21; 33:20) deal with the prophet Jeremiah’s consideration of whether or not the Lord will dissolve his covenant with Israel. Jeremiah records a prayer on behalf of Judah,

LORD, we confess our wickedness and that of our ancestors, too. We all have sinned against you. For the sake of your own name, LORD, do not disgrace yourself and the throne of your glory. Do not break your covenant with us (Jer. 14:20-21).

While it could be argued from this prayer that Jeremiah believed it was possible for God to dissolve his covenant, later God revealed that annulment of the covenant was not possible, not even theoretically, as he declared, “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will rebuild you” (Jer. 31:3-4). Furthermore, in Hugenberger’s second example from Jeremiah, God demonstrates the permanence of his covenant by comparing it to the times of night and day: “If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that they do not come on their usual schedule, only then will my covenant with David, my servant, be broken” (Jer. 33:20). Thus, these two examples fail to demonstrate that biblical covenants in which God participates can be dissolved — indeed, they seem to indicate the exact opposite.

Third, eight examples mentioned by Hugenberger (Gen. 17:14; Lev. 26:44; Deut. 31:20; Isa. 24:5; Jer. 11:10; 31:32; Ezek. 16:59; 44:7) refer to God’s people violating the terms of a covenant. A careful reading of these texts, however, reveals that such violations did not dissolve the covenants in question. For example, are we to believe that the Abrahamic covenant was dissolved (Gen. 17:14)? To the contrary, Scripture evidences that God’s covenant with Abraham was “forever” and “eternal” (Gen. 13:15; 17:8). Moreover, on at least eight different occasions, Scripture affirms that God “remembered” his covenant with Abraham.36 Thus, Gen. 17:14 cannot represent a dissolved covenant.

Contrary to Hugenberger’s interpretation, these eight examples of Israel “breaking” their covenant with the Lord beautifully illustrate God’s attitude toward the nature of covenants in which he participates. For example, Moses prophesied that the people would rebel and break God’s covenant (Deut. 31:20), and Scripture repeatedly records the fulfillment of this prophecy and its subsequent consequences (Isa. 24:5; Jer. 11:10; 31:32; Ezek. 16:59; 44:7). Yet, as we have argued above, the Lord’s punishment of his people for covenant violations is itself a de facto demonstration of the enduring nature of these arrangements. Ralph Alexander writes that the Lord’s punishment of his people affirms “his immutable faithfulness to his covenants.”37 Similarly, Andersen and Freedman comment on God’s wrath toward covenant disobedience noting that, “The punishment is not an expression of a broken relationship. On the contrary, it is enforced within the relationship; punishment maintains the covenant.”38 Therefore, as with the previous examples, these eight citations fail to demonstrate that biblical covenants in which God participates can be dissolved.

The prophet Zechariah presents the final example (Zech. 11:10-11) cited by Hugenberger. When Israel returned from exile, God implored the people not to act like their fathers had before them (Zech. 1:1-6), because real blessings, Zechariah records, will come only when God’s people obey him and walk in righteousness (3:7; 6:15; 7:9-14; 8:14-17). Sadly, however, the people acted as did their ancestors whose behavior had caused them to be exiled (Zech. 7:1-14). The people of Zechariah’s day had rejected the pleas of the righteous and consequently, writes the prophet, the Lord would withhold his covenant protection if there was no repentance (Zech. 11:10) — that is, God would “break” his covenant. Did the Lord, therefore, dissolve the covenant he had made? Certainly not, as the last three chapters of the book present an eschatological picture of God pouring out his grace upon the nation in the end times (12:10-14:11). Once again, far from dissolution, God’s judgment demonstrates his faithfulness to the covenant.

In addition to the fourteen examples cited by Hugenberger, we surveyed every example of berith in the Old Testament (267 examples), as well as of diatheke and suntheke in the New Testament (34 examples), and were unable to discover a single example of a dissolved covenant in which God participated. Like the language used to describe the nature of biblical covenants, the manner in which covenants are established, and the way in which God deals with covenant violations, the absence of any dissolved covenants in which God participates provides evidence that points to the indissoluble nature of biblical covenants.


Since Rev. Caldwell especially highlighted Dr. Heth’s writings about the nature of the one-flesh relationship, and to Rev. Caldwell’s credit he noted God’s hand in creating it instantaneously, we looked forward to seeing firsthand how Dr. Heth treated the topic of one-flesh and how he could possibly reconcile his new liberal views with what Jesus said in Matt. 19:6 about it being inseverable except by death.    It turns out that Dr. Heth’s revised view fails to mention God’s hand at all, nor the supernatural, instantaneous event.    He instead chooses to degrade  sarx mia to hen soma, citing Gen. 29:14; 37:27; Lev. 18:6; 2 Samuel 5:1; Isaiah 58:7), and steers well clear of the enlightening New Testament descriptions delivered by Jesus and by Paul, for example, Eph. 5:28-30.

I had argued that the covenant and consummation of marriage made two totally unrelated people as closely related as they will be to their own flesh and blood children.   However, the unity between unrelated persons established by the marriage covenant is not the same as the vertical blood relationship between a parent and a child nor the horizontal blood relationship that exists between siblings. The Genesis 2:24 phrase, “they become one flesh,” refers “to the bondedness which results from and is expressed by sexual union” and “refers to the establishment of a new family unit”..

(Dr. Heth, that’s not what Jesus said and you know it.)
Today we know that even sodomists claim to form a sexual union and a “new family unit” under the sanction of the civil state, but today Dr. Heth might well be the first to protest that there’s no one-flesh relationship since God’s hand isn’t joining them, given the correct views he once held but “repented” of with regard to heterosexual unions.

Heth’s co-author, Dr. Wenham, on the other hand, in his countering article tragically fails to address the one-flesh relationship at all, and only touches on the nature of covenant in passing, leaving Heth’s newly-embraced fallacies unrebutted scripturally.    Instead, Wenham embarks on a much-needed contextual argument for the invalidity of concluding that one may remarry after divorce.    He does a masterful job of starting with ante-Nicene church fathers, then working back in time to the apostles’ positions, then the person of Jesus, and finally Judaic tradition, showing quite effectively how none of these support the Erasmean view that the innocent party in adultery or abandonment may remarry.    At one point in the article, Dr. Wenham says this:

“The same is true of the second half of the statement in both gospels: “He who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18b); “If she divorces her husband and marriesanother, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:12). The Lukan form of the statement is almost the same as Matthew 5:32b.  The Markan form is unusual in envisaging a woman taking the initiative in divorce proceedings, which rarely happened in first century Palestine.   But what is striking about both forms of the saying is the implication that divorce does not break the marriage bond, so that sexual relations with anyone but one’s first spouse is adultery.

Unfortunately, this is the closest Wenham ever comes to deducing that divorce is entirely man-made and not recognized by God, i.e. that only death dissolves a God-joined union, or that not all civilly-sanctioned heterosexual unions are God-joined for that very reason.    In other words, he never brings his accurate observations to their full inevitable conclusion, and never makes the heaven-or-hell linkage with 1 Cor. 6:9-10 or with Galatians 5:19-21.   Perhaps if he had, he’d have never been published in a Southern Baptist scholarly journal.

Dr. Al Moehler was the editor-in-chief of that 2002 journal edition.    In 2010,  Dr. Moehler went on to write a convicting and influential article,  Divorce – the Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.   How much more convicting and influential might this piece have been if the deceiver hadn’t wooed away Dr. Heth and broken up the collaboration with Dr. Wenham, curtailing their further studies into the divine and inseverable nature of the one-flesh relationship that God has now revealed to so many in the common laity.

 

(Our previous posts on the topics of one-flesh and God’s character in covenants with men are here and here.)

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

constitution-burningReagan

by Standerinfamilycourt.com

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

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

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

Latta v Otter,  October 7, 2014

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

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

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

JudgeSutton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DeBoer v Snyder,   November 6, 2014

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

www.standerinfamilycourt. com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One “Stander’s” Vote

HopeInTheLambby Standerinfamilycourt

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan.

 

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

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

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

 

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

www.standerinfamilycourt.com