Posted on 06/12/2014 10:24:43 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
OKLAHOMA CITY —Oklahomans filing for divorce will now have to go through an extra step if they have kids.
Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill last week that requires married couples who have children younger than 18 to pay for and attend classes before they can split.
Those classes will cost anywhere between $15 and $60 and will teach parents about the impact divorce will have on the kids.
Many Oklahoma residents have mixed feelings about the new law.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but I just don’t agree with people have to go to classes,” Linda Fuller said.
“If I know we’re not in love anymore, I don’t feel like I should go to any class, just move on with our lives,” Davon Shepherd said.
The law goes into effect on Nov. 1.
Parents rarely think about kids when they divorce, but the kids rarely think about anything else.
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Well said.
So many parents do not consider the heartbreak of the poor children, who have no say in the matter.
We have an 8 year old member of our extended family whose parents are going through the usual "nasty divorce". Two weeks ago, the child tried to OD on his mother's sleeping pills.
As a child of parents who divorced each other TWICE, I say AMEN to this requirement!
If I had a time machine, I'd go back 62 years and "read them both the Riot Act"!
...mother saying, ‘Why don’t you want me to be happy?’....
&&&
Yeah, there is a lot of that going around, sadly.
Oh dear. So you want to write and enforce a law that runs counter to 6000 plus years of human behavior? Good luck with that. What are the penalties? Prison? Fines? How would that improve the lives of kids born outside of marriage?
-PJ
That works.
I have always agreed with Dr. Laura’s opinion of divorce for people with children: No divorce unless one or more of the 3 A’s are involved — abuse, addiction, or adultery.
Far too many divorce just based on shallow conceptions of personal fulfillment.
How about classes for the children of parents that are always at each other’s throat?
Like teaching them to hide all the guns, knives and poison mushrooms!
Buda-Bing... ;^}
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson
____________________________________________
This being the case, I want a strong government that can sustain a strong economy and strong families. We had such a government for about 200 years.
Now? Now we have weak and ineffective leadership doing grave harm to our economic growth and is tearing apart our families. It this really the “small and frustrated” government you want?
Well aren’t you the lucky one.
Is this the government i want? Really? This current government sits upon the shoulders of countless usurptations of power. All good intentioned. It is the old argument. Good King, Bad King. The government needs to get out of the way (Ronaldus Magnus).
And this law will do nothing to change that. Don't get me wrong, I don't really care and I live in Oklahoma. Give unto Caesar that which is God's and watch the fireworks.
In the Orthodox Church it's a lot tougher to get a divorce (although we allow it) and extremely difficult to get remarried (the service is completely different and the two are essentially excommunicated for at least one year, IF the priest and/or bishop allows it at all).
How is the nanny state interfering in anyone’s lives when the folks in question are directly going to the state to dissolve their state sanctioned marriage?
Good Intentions are bad. Got it.
So. Anyone who attempts to roll back taxes, decrease spending, limit the role of government in our lives and reduce the thousands of useless laws is just furthering the “countless usurptations of power” like all all other “good intentioned” individuals.
God, the logic of libertarians is barf-tastic.
Whaaa? Now that is illogical. Also, i am not a libertarian. I am a classical liberal, in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Ronaldus Magnus. RR did exactly what you listed. You somehow think i could oppose rolling back government taxes, scope and power? Please explain!
Then they turn to the man and say, 'You helped bring these children into the world and you must continue to support them'.
Then both parents are told 'You MUST NOT use these children as weapons against each other. Of course they say it nicer than I said it - and puff it out to fill the time, but that's the general idea.
I know it's hard to believe there are people out there who don't understand things this basic, but in fact they do exist. Divorce is handled by the State and subsidized by taxpayers - and the courts don't need to be clogged up with narcissistic idiots who are willing to destroy their children for revenge. The classes help that with that problem.
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but a marriage? Do I have to take state sanctioned communion and get state sanctioned baptized at my state sanctioned church?
“Some men say the earth is flat.
Some men say the earth is round.
But if it is flat. Could Parliament make it round?
And if it round. Could the kings command flatten it?”
The Oklahoma legislature can declare that my wife and I are King and Queen of Mercia if it pleases them. It may carry some legal fiction and have consequences under the law, but it does not make us in *any real* sense the King and Queen of Mercia.
The state may pass a law declaring it has infallibility. That does not make it infallible. The state claims the authority of the church: to administer the sacrament of marriage. It clearly does not. Any "marriage" created by it is merely a legal fiction carrying legal consequences. It is no more a marriage than I am King of Mercia.
It may, therefore, dispose of these "marriages" however it sees fit.
I support this, so long as it only applies to new marriages. I mean, I love the concept, and think we need to make people who signed commitments to take into account the harm to their children.
But for legal purposes, make it a condition of getting a marriage license from the state. If you don’t like it, you simply don’t get an official marriage license, you make alternate arrangements, and you can come and go as you see fit.
Ok give them a judge signed directive that says that. It will cost both parties a nickel.
I got the impression that the class was not to change their minds, but to provide information that might help make things a little easier for the kids.
Certainly, most people getting a divorce have no experience in managing separated parenting. If the class makes that work better for the kids, it is useful.
And this law will do nothing to change that.
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Agreed. Stupid law.
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