Conservatives are coming for no fault divorce

 

1.      What is no fault divorce

A.    No Fault divorce refers to the ability to walk away from a marriage without alleging or proving that someone’s behavior is to blame

B.     It has led to a decline in reported spousal abuse and women being murdered by their husbands to get out of the marriage

C.     The Conservative critique is that no one is punished for breaking up a marriage, while supporters cite that it has given women agency when leaving an abusive relationship

 

2.      What is AT FAULT divorce

A.    You have to prove that someone (usually the man) has either abandoned you, abused you or unfaithful. One would present their evidence before a judge and the judge would say that’s enough or punish the couple by making them stay married. It favors men

 

B.     Religious context: Lots of Amish and similar communities have similar traditions. A man named Eli Weaver called the “Amish Stud” murdered his wife Barbara. In the movie version though where Eli was played by my so secret ex-husband that not even he knows he’s my ex husband Luke MacFarlane said “It was easier” See, if he divorced, he could be shunned by the community but it was EASIER to murder Barbara than to go their own way. In the movie, she’d gone to the elders constantly about how cruel he was to her but they held out that she had to submit more. No amount of “submission” is going to make him be good to his wife. HE is the problem that no fault divorce was made to address

3.      Steven Crowder

 

A.    Crowder isn’t a great person, he makes fun of minorities and got mad when he’s been accepted posing as a transwoman, he’s homophobic and transphobic, not funny and an abusive employer. He is someone who believes that no fault divorce should be

 

B.     Candace Owens once said that Steven Crowder was going through a hard time and to pray for him. He was going through divorce and later a video showed the extent of his abuse. He berates her for not doing wifely duties, demands she do a chore that a 8 month old pregnant woman might not be best to do. He also cautioned her “Watch it” and said “I don’t love you” He doesn’t want to let her use the 1 car they have (abusive red flag) and follows her when she tries to get out of the situation. She even says she’s afraid of his temper.

 

C.     This is all to set up exactly what kind of person Crowder is and how despite this—that in an AT FAULT state, combined with the person he is on stream, and how abusive he is with staff and even his own Father. THIS would not look good for Steven at all

 

D.    After I heard a lot about his divorce and the fallout (albeit two years later) I ran into something disturbing. A video where he explains how divorce was not his choice and how he chose wrong. Not that he was a terrible person to his wife and shouldn’t have had a repellant personality but that he CHOSE wrong. People choose wrong Steven but your problem is you’re an abusive brick that doesn’t take responsibility for your baggage. I mean, aren’t conservatives all about taking responsibility?

 

4.      Joining the chorus

A.    After I started looking up no fault divorce, I started to see a lot of people arguing to ban no fault divorce, a lot of conservatives especially saying it wasn’t fair TO MEN. I am sick of people talking about things being unfair to men because men have disproportionately benefit from most systems, even men of color

 

B.     The commonality is that many of these men are so repellant that no one would want to be around them, let alone a woman. I’m not surprised if a lot of incels were among the chorus. But let’s give a few quotes from some of the men advocating for repeal.

 

1.      Dustin Deevers according to Mother Jones when he won his special primary election: “I want to see pornography abolished. I want to see no-fault divorce, come back to at-fault in divorce—and even public shaming for those who are at fault in divorce. I want to see abortion abolished. These are the kinds of morality and government issues that we need to get back to.”

2.      Vivek Ramaswany on his podcast with conservatives commentator Terry Schilling said this “Part of the reason it feels like we’re lost in the desert in America today is that we’ve not only lost our sense of nation,” Ramaswamy explained, “we’ve also lost our sense that the family is itself a grounding institution, one that matters, one that is worth preserving.” 

Schilling responded: “The reason we see so much dysfunction across our society today is because we’ve had decades long of a regime of no-fault divorce.”

3.      No surprise Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana hates no fault divorce. So much so that when he was with a religious based conservative institution he helped craft covenant marriage—only 1% of marriages there, in Arkansas and Arizona are of this unpopular variety. He said in a 2016 sermon Johnson, in part, blamed no-fault laws—in addition to things like abortion access expanding—for our “completely amoral society” that causes young people to go “into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates.”

 

4.      On his YouTube channel from June 6, 2022 Tim Pool, the Beanie man himself said that No fault divorce has ruined men’s confidence in marriage. Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro and a host of other conservative pundits have been supportive of it.

 

C.     The GOP Party platforms of Texas, Louisiana and Nebraska have affirmed their beliefs in no fault divorce—and in 2016 despite the fact that the GOP nominee is twice divorced.

 

D.    But a bill filed by Oklahoma State Senator Dustin Deevers has set in motion something the GOP has wanted for a while, a ban on no fault divorce. Not only can’t women in certain states control their own bodies, but neither can they if passed, walk away from abusive husbands. I think the law would be unconstitutional for a few reasons

 

5.      Why At Fault Divorce is Unconstitutional

A.    Violation of Privacy. With no fault divorce you don’t have to reveal the craziness that broke it off to the Court. You can just say “It’s not working and we want out” The Court demanding details and having to prove fault would be a massive violation because of the burden it would put on people to prove fault.

B.     Violation of Free Association. The freedom of association also means the converse. The Freedom to REFUSE to associate is another part of freedom. If I don’t want to associate with the forced birth movement I don’t need to, nor do I have to associate with a pro-choice organization if I don’t want to

C.     Violation of Individual Freedom. For much of what I said prior, I feel that it is a greater infringement on individual freedom that should have the highest bar to clear legally meaning strict scrutiny. To satisfy strict scrutiny, the government must show that the law meets a compelling government interest and that the regulation is being implemented using the least restrictive means. The very bar of at fault divorce doesn’t meet least restrictive means definition

 

6.      Conclusion

A.    No fault divorce, like Roe v Wade, and contraception, abortion pills, same sex  marriage and now trans and drag queen panic presents a cornucopia of wedge issues. The last thing the Republicans have passed had to be something that hurt people. Even now with the border issue, they are waiting to blame Biden for the border. I believe the Border bill passed the Senate but Speaker Johnson said as recently as January 26^th that the bill was “dead on arrival”. Even Chip Roy famously said “Give me one thing I can run on” It's hard to run on bills that have hurt people 

B.     The reason this is a huge deal right now is because there is a concerted effort to take us back to a fictional time when the man was king of the castle, wife worked at home and kids were well adjusted just because. Those days never existed. The only difference is that divorce isn’t as stigmatized.

C.     I don’t know all the answers but all I know is that we need to continue to be vigilant and never let the GOP get a chamber of the state legislature let alone a trifecta if at all possible. I do applaud all of the activists in red states that continually, and even people who are just trying to live their lives and get caught  up in challenging laws because they just want to make their own decisions (I’m looking at you gender affirming care bans)

D.    I guess another part of this is to stop letting the right control the narrative, they of course will win for a while, but as people become more familiar with the rhetoric and real life flies in the face of it the narrative loses power. Sometimes life is the biggest wrecking ball to lies

Thank you for joining me on this. If there’s anything else I could’ve brought up, please mention them in the comments. I’d love to help