Michael sent me this article from the UK Telegraph.
Excerpt:
Courts will be put under a legal duty to ensure that both fathers and mothers are given access to children in divorce settlements.
Parents who refuse to accept the orders will be in contempt of court and risk serious penalties or even jail.
The news will give hope to campaign groups who have argued for years that the role of fathers in bringing up their children should be enshrined in law.
Under the present system family courts tend to leave children with their mothers in the vast majority of cases.
According to the Office for National Statistics, one in three children, equivalent to 3.8 million, lives without their father.
Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Welfare Secretary, are understood to support the plans. The Conservatives also pledged to introduce the reforms while in opposition.
Tim Loughton, the children’s minister, said: “Our vision is to establish that, under normal circumstances, a child will have relationship with both his or her parents, regardless of their relationship with each other.
“We must do everything we can to improve the system so that it gives children the best chance of growing up under the guidance of two loving parents.
“All the evidence tells us that children genuinely benefit from a relationship with both parents, with the potential to make different contributions to their child’s development.
“The culture has shifted away from the traditional view that mothers are primarily responsible for the care of children. Increasingly society recognises the valuable and distinct role of both parents.
“We are looking closely at all the options for promoting shared parenting through possible legislative and non-legislative means.”
This is good news. Not only is this good for parents who are already divorced, but the presumption of shared parenting will also deter people from divorcing. Many people are encouraged to divorce because they think they will not have to deal with their spouse ever again.
If you do a search on this, you will find most of the mainstream media talking about how the students booed Santorum. Apparently, neither the college students nor the media are capable of understanding that if you can marry anyone you want, then that means that there can be no prohibition of polygamy. And, of course, this is exactly what is happening in countries that have embraced same-sex marriage, like Canada.
Excerpt:
Canada’s decision to legalize gay marriage has paved the way for polygamy to be legal as well, a defense lawyer said Wednesday as the two leaders of rival polygamous communities made their first court appearance.
The case is the first to test Canada’s polygamy laws.
Winston Blackmore, 52, and James Oler, 44, are each accused of being married to more than one woman at a time. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal said.
But Blackmore’s lawyer, Blair Suffredine, said during a telephone interview that marriage standards in Canada have changed.
“If (homosexuals) can marry, what is the reason that public policy says one person can’t marry more than one person?” said Suffredine, a former provincial lawmaker. Canada’s Parliament extended full marriage rights to same-sex couples in 2005.
Actually, law professors at Queen’s University are already demanding that polygamy be legalized.
A Queen’s University law professor says that polygamy should be legal in Canada.
Queen’s issued a news release on the day that a polygamy reference opened in British Columbia, where the government is seeking a legal opinion on whether Canada’s 128-year-old ban on multiple marriage violates the freedom of religion guarantees in the Charter of Rights.
Bev Baines, head of the Department of Gender Studies and a constitutional law expert, argues that Canada is a multicultural country and it is therefore unconstitutional to criminalize people for their marital relationships.
“The law achieves nothing,” Baines said in the release. “We’ve had the law on the books since 1892 and we had no prosecutions in the last 60 years aside from a failed attempt last January. We don’t stop polygamy by having a law.”
What I find disturbing is that the media and the college students are unable to follow the logic that legal scholars in Canada are now following. Are they not aware of what is happening in nations that have legalized gay marriage? Or can they only understand who is booing who? The journalists certainly think that booing a Presidential candidate is more appropriate than the use of reason to evaluate moral arguments. Sometimes I wonder if journalists learn anything at all in college except how to accuse conservatives of SIXHIRB – sexism, intolerance, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, bigotry.
WINTERY KNIGHT 