Mind your own damn business
Here we go again. Instead of coming up with legislation to benefit the American people, Republicans want to control the way we live. They have overturned Roe v. Wade, they want to roll back laws that protect LGBTQ people, and they want to force prayer back into schools. Now, they have taken on divorce. Their goal is to do away with “no-fault” divorce, which allows a couple to divorce without revealing some specific reason why. Apparently, the same people who claimed to be against big government certainly don’t mind trying to shove the government’s nose into people’s personal business. Do you really care why your neighbors are getting a divorce? Better yet, does their divorce have some impact on you personally? Once again, Republicans are showing that they care way more about right-wing religion than they do about the good of this country.
From the perspective of those Republicans, no-fault divorces “deprive people-mostly men-of due process and hurts families, and by extension, society.” Right now, these discussions are happening in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas according to the Guardian, but let the laws pass there and watch them spread across the country like a dread disease. This is so simple: mind your own damned business. If you look at these laws following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it’s easy to figure out what’s going on. These men are trying to drag women back to the days when they had no say. These men must be single. Who would marry such neanderthals? The Guardian examined this phenomenon more closely.
Clearly, these men are working on repealing women’s rights. Why? So that we can be beholden to them? The Guardian spoke with a professor at Washington University School of Law. “No-fault divorce is critical to the ability, particularly the ability of women, to be able to exercise autonomy in their own relationships, in their own lives,” Professor Denise Lieberman explained. Lieberman specializes in policies concerning gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. She went on to look at the history of this behavior. Interestingly, Lieberman said that the country’s first no-fault divorce law came courtesy of Ronald Reagan, who was himself divorced. Reagan looked at women being trapped in marriages, especially those with a violent partner, and decided they needed a way out. Before those laws existed, women were not allowed to remarry or take anything from the marriage. In other words, women were less than human and could only exist as allowed by their husbands.
After the creation of no-fault divorce laws, the Quarterly Journal of Economics reported that between 1976 and 1985, domestic violence fell by 30%. That’s a good thing, right? Not according to JD Vance and Beverly Willet, writer and attorney. Willet claims that no-fault divorce is “unconstitutional,” while Vance believes it gave people the right “to shift spouses like they change their underwear.” Both Willet and Vance need to mind their own business. If they want to be forcibly with someone, that’s on them, but their beliefs cannot be allowed to override the feelings and beliefs of others. After all, it’s still a free country
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years