No Fault Divorce and Trusting Individuals

Mountain Goat Report has another thing to say about Bryan Fischer’s recent appearance on Zeb at the Ranch. Fischer urged repeal of no-fault divorce. She complains about this:

Evidently, like the ill-conceived and delusional Task Force, the IVA doesn’t believe individuals have the capability to make decisions about what is best for themselves and their families, but would rather dictate these decisions for them.

If MGR had bothered to find out what the IVA wanted to see happen with no fault divorce (or followed the updates), perhaps she wouldn’t have written something so inaccurate. IVA favors mutual consent divorce:

“No-fault” divorce is really “unilateral” divorce since it allows one spouse to unilaterally break up a marriage without cause. This is significant when research reports that in 80% of the cases one spouse wants to keep the marriage and family together.

In fact, divorce law is the only place in code where we guarantee a legal victory to the individual who wants to break a contract.

“Mutual consent” divorce would require that a marriage entered into by mutual agreement could only be dissolved by mutual agreement, and would likely reduce the divorce rate by 30% according to John Crouch of Americans for Divorce Reform. This is particularly significant in Idaho, where the divorce rate, perhaps surprisingly to many, is almost 50% higher than the national average.

As one person can’t decide to get married, why should one person be able to end the marriage without cause.  IVA’s reform is about equity. It doesn’t say Indidivuals cannot be trusted, but no one can be trusted to violate their obligations which they freely chose to take on with impunity.

I also find it quaint that MGR rails against the “Failed dogmas” of the Idaho Family Task Force as if the Idaho Family Task Forced proposed legislation that was passed and proved ineffectual. They actually began under sound assumptions with a solid backing from good social science and came up with a mixed bag of ideas. It was only the courage and spine of politicians that failed in 2008, not the ideas of the Task Force.