Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage.

Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.

Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.

Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
    501·
    3 months ago

    If the only families pumping out kids are Christian crackpots, that’s a win for them. They want to out-breed you.

      • morphballganon@lemmy.world
        161·
        3 months ago

        usually

        Please cite your source for that. The religious nutters who are adults now were once kids of religious families themselves.

        • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
          182·
          3 months ago

          Christianity in the U.S. is quickly shrinking and may no longer be the majority religion within just a few decades, research finds

          https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christianity-us-shrinking-pew-research/

          Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline

          https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/22/us-churches-closing-religion-covid-christianity

          In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

          https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/

          Pick a study we are in a decline for a reason. The craziest ones are the most motivated but they are the few.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            72·
            3 months ago

            The xtian activists definitely are aware of this overall trend (even if many of them will outright lie about it and many of the flock probably still think they are some kind of supermajority even if they have been losing adherents at about 1% every year for year after year) and it’s exactly why they are agitating to fundamentally change this country to a xtian one.

            They want to be able to COMPEL people to join/stay in their little book club. The only difference between xtian radicals and Islamists is where the retconning leaves off is different. Both of them worship the same god of “the” bible - Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah and both of them have the same dim view of unbelievers and women and outsiders, etc…

            • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
              4·
              3 months ago

              Man - I know most folks feel the best thing to do is get rid of religion all together - but at this stage I’d settle for and support a new, loud, and active Christian sect denouncing xtian radicals and the churches that support them as Satanic corruptions.

              Believe Old Testament and its edicts mean a damn practical thing in today’s world? Satan.

              Insisting on not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? Satan.

              Treating your fellow humans as lesser for anything whatsoever? Satan.

              Corrupting Bible verses to justify creating suffering and not rendering aid to anyone who needs it? 100% Satan.

              Forcing means to reduce anyone’s capacity to exercise free will, the one key thing their creator deity granted all humans? Sounds like Satan to me.

              And so on. I realize this is deeply naive. But part of the reason I like The Louvin Brother’s song Satan is Real is whenever I hear the guy’s testimony on Satan, I think about about people in the offending churches:

              I grew selfish, and un-neighbourly
              My friends turned against me
              And finally, my home was broken apart

              The Louvin Brothers themselves would likely vehemently disagree, but - does this sound like anyone you know?

              /end of vaguely spiritualist rant.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
                3·
                3 months ago

                Personally I think it says everything that the Abrahamic version of the Theft of Fire leads to the idea that we should hate and denounce the thief rather than see him as responsible for us being raised above essentially being animals. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is analogous to Prometheus, Mātariśvan, Amirani, Pkharmat, Grandmother Spider, etc.

                I also find it interesting that the Theft of Fire is a nearly universal myth (as close as anything gets) - a divine or semi-divine being (often but not always a trickster-type) taking a symbol (often a fire, in the Torah a fruit) representing knowledge against the will of those in power and giving it to man, thus leading to the ability of man to be free to create civilization.

                • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  3 months ago

                  Yeah, while I get the general idea of “beware of the hubris brought about by technology”, but the message from the bible way oversteers into general ignorance and so on. There is a real anti-Promethean streak within this country anyway, and I attribute a lot of that to xtians.

              • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                I’d be all for trying to up our game in the instruction of critical thinking and spotting logical fallacies. I think if religion were to be removed, it might just be supplanted by something just as stupid (for example: the antivax/“stop the steal”/antimask/qanon/pizzagate memeplex) instead of being supplanted by reason.

            • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
              3·
              3 months ago

              Both of them worship the same god of “the” bible - Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah and both of them have the same dim view of unbelievers and women and outsiders, etc…

              I agree, all religion is backwards. There’s always a group they don’t like. It just changes depending on your “God’s” region of authority.

            • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
              2·
              3 months ago

              Yahweh/Jehovah

              I still love that both of these are renderings of the same four letter word, יהוה, or yodh-he-vav-he. Because written Hebrew has a 22 letter alphabet but doesn’t have vowels (but does include a silent letter for when you stick two distinctly separate vowel sounds together - think the two Os in cooperate).

            • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
              1·
              3 months ago

              Small group grabbed a huge piece. They didn’t do that quietly. People stopped caring, became more self centered, and we lost sight of communities. We allowed this shit and we need to start voting like it.

      • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 months ago

        Yeah we had a big quiverfull church not far from where I used to live. They were in a cycle of being in the news every few years for how they promote their flock to get on government assistance to afford more kids. People making six figure incomes were getting a variety of benefits because they had over a dozen kids, in two cases two dozen kids. This would piss people, garner calls for legal changes to stop this abuse, bring up how they are exactly the type of people who want to scare people with “welfare queen” stories, etc.

        For a couple generations, the pumping out children mandate made it grow. However, around the third generation they started seeing a steep decline in parishionership. Basically the founding members’ kids weren’t nearly as willing to stay in this cult, and by their grand children’s generation, their birthrate wasn’t enough to replace their flock. By the time their great grand kids’ generation came around (current time) they were quickly dwindling in numbers. Now every time their welfare stuff hits the news they now have interviews with people who cut their families off, and left the cult, being interviewed about how insane they are.

        From what I have been able to find, this seems to be the general timeline of these “super family” sects. They burn themselves out, and as time time progresses, the burnout comes more, and more, quickly. So the long term prospects of the baby factory faiths isn’t good.

      • freebee@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        3 months ago

        but no financial state benefits at all for said kids, probably, if it depends on those same conservatives that are anti-divorce.

    • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      They’re saying that about every religion. I guess the Muslims are also having a bunch of kids. Idk, I think a war fought with pussy is a war in which everyone loses.