Category Archives: Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM

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

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

October 21, 2014 standerinfamilycourt

by Standerinfamilycourt.com

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

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

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

– 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 (Amplified)

Part 3: PREPARATION FOR APPEAL CONTINUES….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Blogger is grateful beyond words.)

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

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

– Isaiah 30: 18

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

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

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

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

www. standerinfamilycourt.com

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

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

October 18, 2014 standerinfamilycourt

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

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

October 17, 2014 Blog By Alliance Defending Freedom

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

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

1. Woe is Us!

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

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

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

2. Just Throw in the Towel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. This is not just about marriage.

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

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

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

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

Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom, Scotsdale, AZ

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

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

Breaking the Silence: Redefining Marriage Hurts Women Like Me – and Our Children

October 7, 2014 standerinfamilycourt 4 Comments

by Janna Darnelle on September 22nd, 2014, Witherspoon Institute / The Public Discourse

The push to present a positive image of same-sex families has hidden the devastation on which many are built. We must stand for marriage—and for the precious lives that marriage creates.

Every time a new state redefines marriage, the news is full of happy stories of gay and lesbian couples and their new families. But behind those big smiles and sunny photographs are other, more painful stories. These are left to secret, dark places. They are suppressed, and those who would tell them are silenced in the name of “marriage equality.”

But I refuse to be silent.

I represent one of those real life stories that are kept in the shadows. I have personally felt the pain and devastation wrought by the propaganda that destroys natural families.

The Divorce

In the fall of 2007, my husband of almost ten years told me that he was gay and that he wanted a divorce. In an instant, the world that I had known and loved—the life we had built together—was shattered.

I tried to convince him to stay, to stick it out and fight to save our marriage. But my voice, my desires, my needs—and those of our two young children—no longer mattered to him. We had become disposable, because he had embraced one tiny word that had become his entire identity. Being gay trumped commitment, vows, responsibility, faith, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, and community. All of this was thrown away for the sake of his new identity.

Try as I might to save our marriage, there was no stopping my husband. Our divorce was not settled in mediation or with lawyers. No, it went all the way to trial. My husband wanted primary custody of our children. His entire case can be summed up in one sentence: “I am gay, and I deserve my rights.” It worked: the judge gave him practically everything he wanted. At one point, he even told my husband, “If you had asked for more, I would have given it to you.”

I truly believe that judge was legislating from the bench, disregarding the facts of our particular case and simply using us—using our children— to help influence future cases. In our society, LGBT citizens are seen as marginalized victims who must be protected at all costs, even if it means stripping rights from others. By ignoring the injustice committed against me and my children, the judge seemed to think that he was correcting a larger injustice.

My husband had left us for his gay lover. They make more money than I do. There are two of them and only one of me. Even so, the judge believed that they were the victims. No matter what I said or did, I didn’t have a chance of saving our children from being bounced around like so many pieces of luggage.

A New Same-Sex Family—Built On the Ruins of Mine

My ex-husband and his partner went on to marry. Their first ceremony took place before our state redefined marriage. After it created same-sex marriage, they chose to have a repeat performance. In both cases, my children were forced—against my will and theirs—to participate. At the second ceremony, which included more than twenty couples, local news stations and papers were there to document the first gay weddings officiated in our state. USA Today did a photo journal shoot on my ex and his partner, my children, and even the grandparents. I was not notified that this was taking place, nor was I given a voice to object to our children being used as props to promote same-sex marriage in the media.

At the time of the first ceremony, the marriage was not recognized by our state, our nation, or our church. And my ex-husband’s new marriage, like the majority of male-male relationships, is an “open,” non-exclusive relationship. This sends a clear message to our children: what you feel trumps all laws, promises, and higher authorities. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want—and it doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way.

After our children’s pictures were publicized, a flood of comments and posts appeared. Commenters exclaimed at how beautiful this gay family was and congratulated my ex-husband and his new partner on the family that they “created.” But there is a significant person missing from those pictures: the mother and abandoned wife. That “gay family” could not exist without me.

There is not one gay family that exists in this world that was created naturally.

Every same-sex family can only exist by manipulating nature. Behind the happy façade of many families headed by same-sex couples, we see relationships that are built from brokenness. They represent covenants broken, love abandoned, and responsibilities crushed. They are built on betrayal, lies, and deep wounds.

This is also true of same-sex couples who use assisted reproductive technologies such as surrogacy or sperm donation to have children. Such processes exploit men and women for their reproductive potential, treat children as products to be bought and sold, and purposely deny children a relationship with one or both of their biological parents. Wholeness and balance cannot be found in such families, because something is always missing. I am missing. But I am real, and I represent hundreds upon thousands of spouses who have been betrayed and rejected.

If my husband had chosen to stay, I know that things wouldn’t have been easy. But that is what marriage is about: making a vow and choosing to live it out, day after day. In sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, spouses must choose to put the other person first, loving them even when it’s hard.

A good marriage doesn’t only depend on sexual desire, which can come and go and is often out of our control. It depends on choosing to love, honor, and be faithful to one person, forsaking all others. It is common for spouses to be attracted to other people—usually of the opposite sex, but sometimes of the same sex. Spouses who value their marriage do not act on those impulses. For those who find themselves attracted to people of the same sex, staying faithful to their opposite-sex spouse isn’t a betrayal of their true identity. Rather, it’s a decision not to let themselves be ruled by their passions. It shows depth and strength of character when such people remain true to their vows, consciously striving to remember, honor, and revive the love they had for their spouses when they first married.

My Children Deserve Better

Our two young children were willfully and intentionally thrust into a world of strife and combative beliefs, lifestyles, and values, all in the name of “gay rights.” Their father moved into his new partner’s condo, which is in a complex inhabited by sixteen gay men. One of the men has a 19-year-old male prostitute who comes to service him. Another man, who functions as the father figure of this community, is in his late sixties and has a boyfriend in his twenties. My children are brought to gay parties where they are the only children and where only alcoholic beverages are served. They are taken to transgender baseball games, gay rights fundraisers, and LGBT film festivals.

Both of my children face identity issues, just like other children. Yet there are certain deep and unique problems that they will face as a direct result of my former husband’s actions. My son is now a maturing teen, and he is very interested in girls. But how will he learn how to deal with that interest when he is surrounded by men who seek sexual gratification from other men? How will he learn to treat girls with care and respect when his father has rejected them and devalues them? How will he embrace his developing masculinity without seeing his father live out authentic manhood by treating his wife and family with love, honoring his marriage vows even when it’s hard?

My daughter suffers too. She needs a dad who will encourage her to embrace her femininity and beauty, but these qualities are parodied and distorted in her father’s world. Her dad wears make-up and sex bondage straps for Halloween. She is often exposed to men dressing as women. The walls in his condo are adorned with large framed pictures of women in provocative positions. What is my little girl to believe about her own femininity and beauty? Her father should be protecting her sexuality. Instead, he is warping it.

Without the guidance of both their mother and their father, how can my children navigate their developing identities and sexuality? I ache to see my children struggle, desperately trying to make sense of their world.

My children and I have suffered great losses because of my former husband’s decision to identify as a gay man and throw away his life with us. Time is revealing the depth of those wounds, but I will not allow them to destroy me and my children. I refuse to lose my faith and hope. I believe so much more passionately in the power of the marriage covenant between one man and one woman today than when I was married. There is another way for those with same-sex attractions. Destruction is not the only option—it cannot be. Our children deserve far better from us.

This type of devastation should never happen to another spouse or child. Please, I plead with you: defend marriage as being between one man and one woman. We must stand for marriage—and for the precious lives that marriage creates.

Janna Darnelle is a mother, writer, and an advocate for upholding marriage between one man and one woman. She mentors others whose families have been impacted by homosexuality

1. Woe is Us!

2. Just Throw in the Towel.

Let's Repeal No-Fault Divorce!