Republicans, flush from their success at stuffing the Supreme Court and from the achievement of actually choosing a speaker for the House, are turning their sights on women. They have already taken away their right to get an abortion - even in the case of a 9 year old who was raped and ended up pregnant. Nope, conservative politicians say she can't get an abortion even if carrying the fetus kills her. Texas now has laws on the books that prevent even giving someone a ride to another state to get an abortion. So if you are poor and pregnant in Texas, you are going to have that baby by order of a Texas politician - and if your best friend helps you get a ride, that friend could end up in jail. (Needless to say, if a Texas politician's mistress gets pregnant, she will find herself with all the money she needs to travel to a blue state to fix that inconvenient problem.) Now they are working to make divorce much, much harder to get. Decades ago, if you wanted a divorce, you had to prove your partner was cheating or something. This prevented women from getting divorces from abusive spouses, since often they could not prove that they had beaten them. The husband would say "no, she fell down the stairs, and you have no proof of anything else!" and the issue would die - and the husband would continue to abuse her. In 1969, no-fault divorce became the law of the land in California, where either person could get a divorce by demanding it. It was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, who would eventually become the first divorced US president. By 2010, all states had legalized it. This has been a good thing for women. From AJ Willingham of CNN: Since 1969, studies have shown no-fault divorce correlates with a reduction in female suicides and a reduction in intimate partner violence. A 2004 paper by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolvers found an 8 to 16% decrease in female suicides after states enacted no-fault divorce laws. They also noted a roughly 30% decrease in intimate partner violence among both women and men, and a 10% drop in women murdered by their partners. “Unilateral divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused,” the study states. So a good thing overall. Now - of course - conservatives want to cancel it. Beverly Willet, of the Coalition For Divorce Reform, recently said that "unilateral no-fault divorce clearly violates the 14th Amendment. Too often in family court, defendants are deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law.” Setting aside the chilling concept that people are denied their "property" by allowing them to divorce their partner, removing that option would certainly result in more spousal abuse. New House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing a similar idea called "covenant marriage" a form of marriage that it is very difficult to get out of. It is already a law in three red states, and red-state legislatures are working hard to get it passed other places. Johnson claims this will decrease divorce (which of course it will) and therefore save society. For . . . spousal abusers? Men, at least.
You can just see them putting up check points, where they ask about your purpose in travelling out of state, and require you to produce your documents to prove you have legit business there.
The german people of the '30s thought it was a preposterous eventuality. So did the animals of Animal Farm.
Yep. And now Trump is going on about how immigrants are poisoning the blood of America, and how liberals are vermin - and that we need to "end their existence." Meanwhile DeSantis is talking about "slitting throats" as soon as he gets into office. "Oh, those are just figures of speech! I mean, they wouldn't actually go after immigrants/liberals/Jews like that! That's crazy talk."
They are not fond atheists either, they are not allowed to hold government/local office posts in some states still.
Where did you see that? Last I heard, the Supremacy Clause, found in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, allows both the Constitution and federal statutory law to supersede state laws. The Tenth amendment dialed back the federal law aspect somewhat, but the Constitution still reigns supreme over state laws where there is a constitutional issue. Banning atheists from office would be a flagrant violation of First Amendment rights. If Dominion Christians take over in a theocratic coup, that could happen. And I would be surfing through all the science threads asking their UK members about current condo prices in their area. I'd definitely be loaded on a tumbril if we stayed.
I am fairly certain it will decrease marriage, if it becomes the legally required form of marriage. For now, it's an option in Arizona and a couple of other states. And I suspect, in cases where there is evidence of coercion of one spouse, such marriages will be dissolvable. The real problem for those states will be for spouses who grow apart later on and then have to come up with the legal fees that will be involved in demonstrating fault to the courts satisfaction. Marry in Tucson, repent at leisure.
A few examples here, any of them still stand? Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court reaffirmed that the United States Constitution prohibits States and the Federal Government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office; the specific case with Torcaso was regarding his being an atheist and his work as a notary public. The constitutions of seven U.S. states ban atheists from holding public office. However, these laws are unenforceable due to conflicting with the First Amendment and Article VI of the United States Constitution:[102][103] Arkansas Article 19, Section 1 "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court."[104] Maryland Article 37 "That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution."[105] Mississippi Article 14, Section 265 "No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state."[106] North Carolina Article 6, Section 8 "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."[107] South Carolina Article 17, Section 4 "No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."[108] Tennessee Article 9, Section 2 "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."[109] Texas Article 1, Section 4 "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."[110] An eighth state constitution affords special protection to theists. Pennsylvania Article 1, Section 4 "No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth."[111]
Agreed. It is getting that evidence that will be the challenge. "She fell down the stairs!" But it will be good for men who want more control over their marriage.
Interesting. And as Dave put it, yikes! You don't hear about them, so I expect they're either repealed by now or simply left on the books as unenforceable "ghosts." IIRC they're called dead letter laws. There are some also forbidding sodomy, adultery, public spitting, etc.
Just because I really do wonder: • So, who's surprised? Like the bit about covenant marriage; Marcotte, a month ago↗, pointed all the way back to the Nineties. Or Dominionism: The bit about Dan Quayle is kind of extraordinary, and reaches back three decades, and we've known the story, here, for sixteen years↗: "Doesn't matter" if it works; that's not what it's about. It's not about what works when one is "answering to God". Twenty years ago, the Bush DHHS appointee explained to the Christian nationalists, "AIDS is not the enemy; HPV [and cervical cancer] … is not the enemy; an unplanned pregnancy is not the enemy." Rather, looking bad in God's eyes is the enemy: "My child believing that they can shake their fist in the face of a holy God," Pam Stenzel seethed, "and sin without consequence, and my child spending eternity separated from God, is the enemy!" And just to be clear, she added, "I will not teach my child that they can sin safely!" And even here at Sciforums there has always been a weird pall of dualism that insists on tacitly, at least, legitimizing irrationality for the sake of some pretense of political fairness. Think of it this way: Where Republicans are at, what they've become, today, is the sort of thing that was impolite to suggest. Any number of people could have told you where conservatives were going; indeed, many did. And whether we're thirty years after the start of the Gay Fray, or fifty years after Roe, or twenty years after the one lady made her point at the same conference where thirty years ago Dan Quayle pledged allegiance to another flag—which Speaker Mike Johnson apparently displays at his Congressional office—it occurs to wonder who is actually surprised. There is, in social media, a whole bunch of reminding going on, this year. Trans activists told us, feminists told us, Black activists told us. The difference between now and, say, twenty years ago, when gays, women, and nonwhites were telling us, is that it's these years later. Where our conservative neighbors have arrived, it used to be offensive to suggest this was where they were going. Thirty years ago, being a Nazi might have been an image problem, but he was still worth voting for. These days, the guy who said that to a newspaper is a Republican member of Congress, complete with a career boost as a tough-talking, authoritarian celebrity sheriff. Twenty years ago, a state legislator from Louisiana lent himself to that same American Nazi, and these days he is the Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives. What history tells of "Godwin's law" is that it turns out there were Nazis at the table the whole time. And, sure, in my way, even I can be surprised. To the one, conservatives are coming right out and saying it; in certain ways I still fail to expect this. To the other, to a certain degree they can. And that latter is the thing: If it was never really happening, or whatever the reason was that people weren't supposed to accuse this sort of supremacism and authoritarianism, well, now that we're here, yeah, it would be helpful to understand where people thought this was going. Just look at the thread title: "Republicans target women". Is it an accusation, or an observable behavior? Sure, it's an accusation, but inasmuch as it is also observable behavior, American society has always been iffy about saying so. And, toward that, it is often unclear whether people refuse or discourage because that's how the discussion goes, or because they believe some part of what they are, implicitly at least, protecting. I think back a decade↗. As an accusation it seemed pretty observable to me, then. And even before that, sure, it seems kind of obscure, but follow the bouncing ball: Someone once suggested that the complications I described would only come to pass if people like me were in charge, which was sort of a duh statement in a couple of obvious ways; not only was I describing how the rules work (duh!), it's also true that if I was in charge I wouldn't set the rules up that way (duh!) Now, here's the tricky part (not really): It had to do with abortion politics, and how to enforce Equal Protection under the circumstances. The obvious, duh! answer is that you don't; it is, as a matter of practical application, impossible to enforce equal protection under the circumstances. The practical result is that the Republican anti-abortion policy in question did not focus on the blastocystic or fetal "person", but, rather, targeted women; anything else was simply impractical. Thirteen years ago↗, on conservative perceptions of liberal disdain and contempt: Did it ever occur to people that it's not always simple, evil contempt? Did it ever occur to anyone that there might be a reason? (And, well, where in all this ought I pause to wonder at my old remark about "real Americans", because that sort of talk persists↗ in conservative institutions. The old question persists, as well: Did it ever occur to them that there might be a reason?) The sum effect of it all is not simply that we were warned, or that we ignored omens, signs, demonstrations, declarations, and benchmarks. Rather, now that we're here, are we really so surprised that the One Track led here? † By the way, trivia, but not trivial: No-fault divorce? Yeah, that was Reagan.
