Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) and his hand-picked, Republican-heavy legislature?want to make divorce more difficult to get. Are you kidding me?
Divorce is always hard to get. Believe me, I know. I shook for two months after mine.
Brownback thinks it is a grand idea for people to stay together. And he is looking for proof that people who stay together will relieve Kansas? social burden in the range of??hundreds of millions of dollars.?
Oh, that burden – and the Bible told him so: Brownback is a member of an ultra-conservative religious group that forbids divorce.
But I think the problem is that Brownback just got his ass in a crack when his grand financial experiment failed. And now he is looking under every bed for loose change.
The House Federal and State Affairs Committee are holding two ?informational hearings? on marriage. For the first one, they brought in Glenn Stanton of the conservative Focus on the Family to tell them what’s what. Oh, goody.
Stanton says that married people are??healthier and happier??than unwed people. Okay, let’s look at that statement. Getting married doesn’t guarantee health and happiness. Maybe those who stay married chose better than those who divorce.
Brownback proposed reforms in the divorce department such as mandated couples counseling and a waiting period of an undesignated length. And God knows what else he will do.
At this time, either the husband or the wife can file for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. And there is no waiting period.
I wonder what grounds are acceptable to the governor. Maybe domestic abuse will be an acceptable exception. Maybe not.
The only mandated counseling now is when children are part of the divorce. That counseling teaches parents how to be good in their new roles as divorced parents. And I support it.
But wow! What’s next? Will Brownback find all the single adults in Kansas, match them up randomly, and hold a mass marriage?
Then everyone will be healthy and happy, right?
