No-Fault Divorce "Marriage" Proposal

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Ohio Supreme Court Challenge
Forcing No-fault Divorce Option on Everyone's Marriage is Unconstitutional


August 19 - Couples are not warned when they get their marriage license that the county assumes they embrace the state's minimal definition of marriage. This definition includes the inability to prevent the state's no-fault divorce routine regardless of the couple's intentions, and regardless of their moral or religious beliefs. Couples considering marriage need to realize the terms to which they consent in a no-fault divorce state marriage:
"Marriage" Proposal
 No-Fault Divorce State Marriage Agreement

I love you, and want to marry you, temporarily.

We will share our procreative powers to conceive and bear children until I feel like quitting.

I may leave you with half our assets and take our children from you so they can see me without you around.

I can leave you and the children financially destitute so I can have a new sex partner.

I can kick you out of the family home and make you pay tens of thousands of dollars, while I live here with someone else.

If you expect to be married for life, you'll be found guilty of insisting that I stay married to you when I don't want to.

The courts and I will determine that you are in denial and psychologically troubled.

If you think adultery or abandonment is immoral, you can be reprimanded by judges.

If you teach our children that I am doing something wrong, you can be penalized for "alienating the children against me."

DO YOU AGREE TO MARRY ME?
Even though the Ohio State Bar Association, in their current publication, The Law and You, teaches "the promises made by couples in their marriage vows constitute a binding contract" (132, 153), no fault divorce disregards the vows. Millions of individuals never recite the no-fault-divorce marriage promises. Alternatively, they vow to be married for life. They expect to bear children who will be raised in an intact home with two biological parents. They recognize that love is a choice and that almost anyone can choose to be, at least, a half decent spouse. Those who choose to marry in major mainline Christian churches understand that the only legitimate reason for losing the right to live with one's family is to be found guilty of adultery, or be dangerously abusive. And even if these tragedies occur, reconciliation is always the goal.

In no-fault divorce, the promises made by those who agreed to a more conscientious set of marriage vows are ignored, and the risks taken by those who depend on the fulfillment of those promises are ignored. The courts split property in half and make subjective custody determinations regardless of adultery or abandonment. Imagine how preposterous it would be for us to treat any other contracts so frivolously. When a homebuyer and bank agree on terms of a mortgage contract, both parties know the contract will be upheld. What if half way through the mortgage term, the banker decided to terminate the homeowner-banker relationship and the banker obtained a court order to first, kick the owner out of the home, second, give the owner only half the equity in the house, and third, require the owner to continue to make the mortgage payments?

Law professor Stephen Safranek is arguing in the Ohio Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to ignore individuals' promises to be married for life in accordance with the separation rules of the church of their choice. It is unconstitutional to punish a spouse for protecting his or her marriage agreement.

Safranek's appeal was filed on August 16. Meanwhile, in order to protect religious couples, he has suggestions for those who want a covenant marriage agreement that protects the life-long commitment.

by Bai Macfarlane

Copyright Mary's Advocates
Republishing welcome if cite original webpage


For a more scholarly analysis of no-fault divorce situation, see The No Blame Game by Baskerville. >