Letter to Focus on the Family challenging their stand on No-Fault Divorce (good read)

Restore America - http://www.noDNC.com ^ | November 28, 2004

[woodb01]

As posted half-way down the front page of www.NoDNC.com

To those who are concerned at
Focus On The Family and
Focus On The Family Action 

Dear Concerned,
 
In spite of all the good that Focus On The Family has done in the area of family rescue, I believe you have missed seeing the major enemy: No-Fault Divorce.
 
It is true that divorce came as a result of feminism and hearts drawn away by self-centered, and selfish actions, but the major enemy, Easy Divorce, came as a result of uncontested changes in divorce laws in all 50 states.
 
All of us have done much to try to change the current anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-home, anti-male forces, but these efforts resemble someone trying to totally submerge an inflated inner tube.  It cannot be done.  It can never be done.  Get it "down" in one area and it pops up in another one.
 
Until we completely stop no-fault divorce laws we are fighting a losing battle, much like someone fighting the wind with a tennis racket...plenty of holes for escape or free passage.
 
I truly hope that Focus On The Family Action will make this the first area of concern with relentless efforts exerted until this No.1 enemy of the family is totally destroyed.
I have called upon many "rights" and "family" organizations for their involvment, but all have responded with a definite "NO".
 
This is not a divorce issue, but a legal issue, defending the rights of American citizens guaranteed by our Constitution.  These rights are: 1) due process - the right to hear the alleged claims of wrongdoing, with proof, defense, decision, and appeal; 2) equal protection under the law - the same legal "benefits" for both plaintiff and defendant, and 3) trial by jury of peers.
 
When divorce strikes, attorneys say there is nothing they can do to prevent it, but when you look at the constitutional rights, and the divorce procedures, there are endless actions that can be taken to prevent the illegal actions that go on in a civil divorce suit.  Judges and attorneys can be confronted with legal actions about conducting business outside of constitutional law.
 
There is something seriously flawed (illegal) when the plaintiff in a divorce suit is granted a divorce EVERY TIME.  Justice is NOT being served.  This is NOT "justice for ALL".
 
A follow-up to this FORCED divorce procedure is "deadbeat Dads" being imprisoned without Due Process, Equal Protection, and Trial by Jury of Peers, over a CIVIL matter.  That is illegality at its worst and MUST be ended.  It harks back to pauper's prison...pay or go to jail.

We can all speak that we want to defend marriages and families, but if this issue is not addressed also, we are just fooling ourselves into believing that we really care about the rights of American citizens, and in particular, the ungodly treatment of our spiritual brothers.  (75% of divorces are initiated by wives/Mothers)
 
All kinds of programs can be launched in support of marriages and families, but until we stop No-Fault Divorce our efforts to truly protect them are in vain.
 
I am reminded of a situation in the Bible where a giant named Goliath was doing his thing against the children of God without restraint, who were too afraid to be the eliminators.  Then along comes little David, who had kept a good track record of what God had done in his life, and was certain that this giant should and could be slain - that the enemy should be dead.
 
Somewhere there is a "David" who has not yet heard about the situation with this giant No-Fault Divorce, but who will be more than willing to "step up to the plate" in the name of Almighty God, and put an end to his godless actions.
 
Is David a member of your "family"?
 
Please let me know how you agree or disagree with issues addressed in this letter.
 
Most concerned...and relentlessly active,
 
Billy Miller - Louisiana 
brmiller (at) bellsouth (dot) net

[Sam the Sham]

I am impressed with your knowledge of the era of Patti Paige and Arthur Godfrey.

I wonder whether the consequences were unintentional or sought. A theme of the time ("Peyton Place", for example) was the stiffling conformism of small town life, of a world where reputations were set in concrete, and the hypocrisy it bred. The tyranny of Miss Grundy. Moving to the new suburbs, away from the relatives, to a place where nobody knew you, was shaking off the old patterns, reinventing yourself. There was freedom in that and a new privacy where nobody lived above or below or near enough to hear your conversations. You could choose precisely how much contact you wanted with your neighbors. You were physically moving yourself to a place where "what the neighbors will say" no longer is of any importance because they are mostly strangers to you. In an extended family, a divorce would be a civil war. In a nuclear family there is a limited societal ripple effect.

The move to the nuclear family, to get the inlaws and cousins and grandparents out of your hair and out of your business was chosen. It was just one step further to the age of individual autonomy in the 60's and 70's.

An interesting point you made about gays and empty nesters gentrifying urban America. Crime has made cities child hostile and good urban public schools are few and far between. A point that Jane Jacobs made is that bohemians look for cheap places to live, but because they have excellent taste and are fun to be around, the area they choose swiftly appreciates in value.

[Sam the Sham]

Not "ideal" marriage. "Deal" marriage. Like Bill and Hillary.

[deaconjim]

Divorce would not be considered a bedrock doctrinal development, either. Child molestation was protected by authorities in the Catholic Church, whether they took part in it or not.

I'm not saying that molestation is doctrinal, but neither is divorce. I am divorced myself, but only after my Catholic wife move to another state with her boyfriend. If I'm not mistaken, my divorce was then considered to be biblically acceptable.

[longtermmemmory]

These are good points in the article however you will never get rid of no fault divorce, per se. Instead we can accomplish much of what needs to be done via the divisions in divorce.

For example, infidelity can become a consideration in eliminating any claim for support.

It can reinstate many terms which were abandoned.

How about eliminating federal matching funds for the number of non-dead beat child support payers in the various state collection systems.

HOWEVER THE BIGGEST STEP: is to create a respectable model divorce code which can be used by legislatures. Right now the ONLY model code used by legilators is published by an arm of the (very leftist) ABA.

[nickcarraway]

BUMP

[valkyrieanne]

wonder whether the consequences were unintentional or sought. A theme of the time ("Peyton Place", for example) was the stiffling conformism of small town life, of a world where reputations were set in concrete, and the hypocrisy it bred.

I don't think they were intentional on most peoples' part. Personally, I think it all started to fall apart not after WW II, but after WW I, especially in the cities. WW I brought the income tax, and with it the inner cities (where the rich people lived) began to fall apart. In older cities, the brownstones and Queen Annes were carved up for rooming houses to accommodate war workers. Middle- and lower-middle-class women (as opposed to poor women) went to work en masse in WW I. Getting a war work job was a major means for single young people to leave their hometowns.

The literary attack on the small town didn't begin in the '50s; it began in the 1920s (i.e. Sinclair Lewis's Main Street and Babbitt.)

Another good source for small town dissatisfaction is the biography of Rose Wilder Lane, "The Ghost in the Little House." Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the "real" author of the Little House books (she wrote them from her mother's notes.) Lane grew up in Mansfield, MO at the turn of the century and utterly loathed & despised it. At age 15 she fled to Kansas City, got work as a telegraph operator, and a few years later wound up in Greenwich Village, where she lived as a Bohemian throughout the war. After WW I she flirted with communism and then underwent a radical change to libertarian/conservatism. What interested me, though, was her hatred of the stifling atmosphere of Mansfield at a time most conservatives would deem "idyllic."

The rise of the "women's magazine" in the 1920s provided a forum for all kinds of feminine "discontents." The 1920s also brought a huge displacement of agricultural workers, many of them women, as people left farms in droves (a process that would be finished during the Great Depression.)

Female dissatisfaction was made concrete when Prohibition was enacted (after years of political work by women getting prohibition on the *state* level.) The sheer political force of women - even when they lacked the suffrage - resulted in women's voting within a few years of the ratification of Prohibition.

IOW, it's silly to idealize the "nifty fifties" and blame everything on the feminists and hippies of the 1960s.

[deaconjim]

First, I never said all priests are pedophiles.

Second, some priests are pedophiles. There is no myth involved.

Third, nothing is funny about pedophilia.

Last, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

[MEGoody]

"The first; I left because my Ex refused to grow up, get a job, and I was tired of being his Mother!"

Sometimes, the real problem lies in not making good choices as to whom to marry. We can't always read the future (example - you may not have had any idea your second husband would cheat on you), but we should be able to discern patterns of behavior prior to marriage. (Just guessing, but I suspect your first husband showed signs of looking for a mama prior to your wedding day.)

[MEGoody]

"I'm not mistaken, my divorce was then considered to be biblically acceptable."

You are not mistaken.

[Pio]

Sounds like good annulment material to me.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"(Just guessing, but I suspect your first husband showed signs of looking for a mama prior to your wedding day.)"

Exactly. Dad told me, "You can marry him, but you're going to have to finish raising him." Truer words were never spoken. ;)

[GOP_Party_Animal]

"Second, some priests are pedophiles. There is no myth involved."

You are using a tiny, tiny minority of a group of exceptional men to cast dispersions on them all. Can't you see what's wrong with that?

"Last, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

So because of those few sickos, the entire Catholic community is forever barred from making justified criticism of societal ills such as no-fault divorce. Interesting.

[deaconjim]

That's not what I said. I'm just pointing out that your comments regarding Protestants were not entirely fair, either. Do all Protestants get divorced? Have any Catholics ever been divorced? I know of at least one who did, are there any more out there?

[viaveritasvita]

Oh, a marriage of convenience. Doesn't that take two to tango?

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[Apogee]

good thoughts. In some states, you can get a divorce from "bed and board" with cause, but it is not a divorce that allows you to remarry, though most folks would allow that many of the reasons for such divorces certainly allowed a biblical remarriage. Not sure if you have to end up getting a divorce twice or what, in that circumstance.

[Giant Conservative]

75% of divorces are initiated by wives/Mothers

Institute a presumption of equal rights for fathers to have 50% residential custody of all their children in the event of the divorce or dissolution of a marriage and divorce rates will plummet.