Divorce Attorneys
Spousal rights rooted in laws
|
|
Marianne Clark cannot understand why the woman who gave birth to Terri Schiavo, dried her tears and nursed her cuts and bruises counts less to the courts than the husband who asked that Schiavo’s feeding tube be removed. “You have a husband who hasn’t been faithful, and he’s the one the judges all listen to,” the Sarasota woman said from a protest line outside the hospice where Schiavo was in her second week without food or water. “There’s nothing like a mother. A mother knows her child, and nobody else should be able to make that decision.” Some Christian conservatives and others who want to prolong Schiavo’s life do not see why her husband gets to decide her fate. But the role of the spouse as next of kin and decision-maker has deep roots in both civil and biblical law. “It’s odd that conservative Christians would be making this claim,” said Christopher Schroeder, director of the public-law program at Duke University. “You can find biblical passages that say once you have a union like this, the union’s all that matters. The parents drop out of the picture.” Bob and Mary Schindler say their daughter was a practicing Roman Catholic and would have wanted to be sustained after suffering severe brain damage in 1990. But the courts accepted Michael Schiavo’s testimony that his wife’s expressed wish was not to be kept alive artificially. More : seattletimes.nwsource.co |
Related Articles from Attorney for Divorce
Attorney general argues state law not discriminatory
Attorney General Bill Lockyer defended California's ban on same-sex marriage Friday, arguing that the state is entitled to follow "the deeply rooted and historic understanding of marriage'' while granting gay and lesbian domestic partners most of the rights of spouses. In a long-awaited filing in San Francisco Superior Court, Lockyer's office disputed arguments by advocates for same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco that state law, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates on the basis of gender and sexual orientation. "California agrees that the ability to choose one's own committed life partner
The Battle Over Same-Sex Marriage
Attorney General Bill Lockyer took his defense of California's ban on same-sex marriage to a state appeals court Wednesday, arguing that the state has struck an "appropriate constitutional balance'' between traditional marriage and equal rights for gays and lesbians. "The common understanding of marriage is deeply rooted in our society, and it is legitimate for California to maintain this meaning while affording equivalent rights and benefits to same-sex couples,'' Lockyer's office said in written arguments to the Court of Appeal in San Francisco. The state is appealing a March 14 decision by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer overturning
Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. By NANCY COTT. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. 304. $29.95 (cloth); $15.95 (paper). Nancy Cott’s subtitle, A History of Marriage and the Nation, should be taken seriously. Her overview of marriage in the United States from the Revolutionary Era to the present focuses on marriage understood as a public institution and on its regulation by state law and federal law and policy. She deftly incorporates into a fluent whole a stunningly wide array of specialized subjects, ranging from English common-law doctrine and self-made marriages on the nineteenth century’s moving frontier to federal tax law, immigration policy, and the antigay backlash. The transitions tying together these and other potentially disparate topics are so fluent and seemingly effortless that nonspecialists may not fully appreciate Cott’s impressive narrative achievement. The book will be indispensable reading for all who want a professionally reliable and up-to-date overview of the history of marriage and public policy. Several important themes sustain the book’s strong narrative drive. The most general, perhaps, is that law is formative. The book traces a tension between the belief that marriage law merely affirmed a divinely or naturally sanctioned institution and the view that marriage is conventional, a "political creation” defined by…
Jan. 10--After nearly 30 years of living together, doing the dishes together and paying the bills together, Louise Young figures it's time to marry her partner. Soon, for the first time, it may be legally possible for her to wed her beloved, Vivienne Armstrong. "Heterosexual couples can get married two or three or four times, and each time they have all the rights and privileges marriage can provide," Dr. Young said. "We've been together all these years and have none." Like lesbians and gays around the country, the Far North Dallas women are ready to run off and tie the
’Racist’ marriage law upheld by Israel.
Israel's High Court has narrowly upheld a law denying Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza married to Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with their spouses. The judges voted by six to five not to cancel a four-year-old amendment to the Citizenship Law which outlaws "family unification" in Israel between Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. It was passed as a one-year emergency measure in 2002 on the ground that it was needed to protect Israeli security. But the amendment, described yesterday by the Knesset member Ran Cohen, of the left-wing Meretz party, as "rooted in
Federal bankruptcy court upholds federal marriage law
Tacoma, Washington, Aug. 23, 2004 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - Judge Paul Snyder, a federal bankruptcy judge in Tacoma, Washington, has ruled that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA,) which defines "marriage" as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife," is constitutional. The case is the first challenge to the federal DOMA to be decided by a court and comes just weeks after a Washington State court held that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage under the state's constitution. The Kandu case arose after two women, Ann and Lee Kandu, were granted a marriage