cbn42

All rules have some religious basis. Family law in the US is heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian principles, no matter how "secular" it seems to be.


As I said earlier, what matters is the law under which the marriage was solemnized. A mixed couple can choose to get married under either law, or under the Special Marriage Act which governs civil marriages.

The same is true in any system. If the parties involved are in agreement then there is no dispute and no need to go to court.

Sometimes it's better than whatever arbitrary laws have been written by the "secular" legislature.


There is no Catholic marriage act in India. The Christian Marriage Act allows for divorce.

If both parents chose to marry under a marriage law that says that, then yes, that is what happens.


I'm not really sure, but I believe there are secular matrimonial courts for that purpose. I don't really know the details.


It is based on the values of the Christian majority in a way that would seem alien to those from a different culture.

They may not agree on the terms of the divorce, but they may still agree that they want the divorce decided based on their own "culture and tradition". They might just disagree on what exactly that means for their situation.

mandolino

Yes, that was pretty much my point before. Most, perhaps all, so-called "Western countries" appear obviously culturally Christian, or Judaeo-Christian, to those from a different culture, no matter how unreligious individuals in that country may feel.

nkedel

"Judeo-Christian" is a questionable term to begin with, and that's especially true for family law where "Christian" traditions are very different, where their antecedents in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity are far more Roman than Hebrew. (Know any Christians with kebubot? A modern prenup is not the equivalent, and even there, that's a secular contract that as far as I know conservative Christian denominations tend to frown on.)

Present US family law draws far more upon common law and secular principles out of the enlightenment and the (mostly post-WW2) modern reform movements than it does Christianity. That it still draws on the latter at all (or indeed, that it still embeds more general legally prescribed gender roles and stereotypes) is a bug and not a feature.

Can you give an example of a "Christian" (or if you prefer, "Judeo-Christian") principle still embedded in US family law?

Well, that's a bit more progressive than say, many Muslim countries. Does that also mean a nominally-Hindu couple could choose a civil marriage?

Hardly; you need only look at divorce laws as they existed 70 years ago in the US and nearly always required fault -- a time when Protestant Christianity still had a much much direct sway on law and culture (even if the former was just as unconstitutional then as it is now.)

1) The secular legislature, in a constitutional democracy like the US is subject to constitutional limits and rational basis review.
2) Can you actually give an example of "better"?

So the most numerous Christian population (worldwide, and if wikipedia is correct, within India as well) does not have their Church's teachings and tradition respected under the law?

Clearly, some secular law over-rides tradition, even there (and secular culture has often evolved away from the religion: plenty of Catholics get divorced anywhere it's legal.)

It's based on values held by the majority, but I question whether those values are in any way "Christian" any longer; a lot of the values embedded in the post-enlightenment western/democratic/capitalist consensus are largely antithetical to traditional Christianity, and those come out especially in modern family law.

They're free to agree to arbitration by their church, no court required, as long as they don't then require a court to enforce the agreement by force of law when they still disagree.

Can you give an example of how some individual (or a member of any other faith community) is hurt by having family law decisions made under US law vs. religious law?

nkedel

Is it that the countries actually seem "Christian," or those people from foreign cultures are just assuming that something being culturally "western" must mean it's also "Christian?"

PTravel

Do you mean legal rules? Not in the US, they don't.

I don't practice family law, so I can't say with complete certainty, but I'd be very surprised if this is true.

Boraxo

The original question is interesting. There are very few countries that I would refuse to visit, but there are quite a few more that I would never add to my bucket list, and still others that I will avoid until certain issues are sorted out. This last category might include India (treatment of women) and Egypt (unrest) which I would like to visit at some point if conditions improve.

Realistically I only have sufficient leisure travel time to visit 2-3 new countries each year, so it is going to take quite a while to work my way through the top 25, much less to hit the lower tiers.

One thing I find interesting is that my current list somwhat mirrors the Transparency International Corruption Index. Most of the top 25 are places that I want to visit or have visited and want to return. And most of the bottom 25 are of no interest (excepting Cambodia).

Interesting and good to know. Do you have a link to a prohibited list? Many of us transit DXB and I had no idea that my prescription meds (for which I rarely carry a scrip) might somehow cause trouble for me.

That is quite silly. I have flown through the UK dozens of times and not once been asked to submit to nudoscope or even seen one in use. While it is true that there is no "opt out", your chance of getting selected (which only happens for secondary inspection) is minuscule. As opposed to KBP, where it is mandatory for everyone.

Now to be fair the UK has other problems - the well publicized 9-hour detention and harassment of a reporter's partner being one of them. While there are some countries where one does not expect everyone will be treated fairly under a rule of law, the UK is not one of them.

nkedel

My guess is that cbn42, like mandolino, is treating "western culture" (which these days is far more a product of common law, the enlightenment and industrial capitalism than Christianity) as a synonym for "Christian," because of most of those countries history of (at least nominally) Christian majorities in their population.

(Ignoring the very big differences in family culture between different European regions, branches of Christianity, etc.)

Not to mention any question of whether "Judeo-Christian" actually means anything when it comes to family structure.

Spiff

No, it isn't.

Let me know when the probability of being forced through the nudeoscope (or not traveling) is zero. Until then, the UK is a no-go.

Just because some other nation makes it 100% mandatory does not forgive the disgusting decision by DfT to require those selected to submit or not fly.

cbn42

Sure, the ban on gay marriages is the best example.


I have never known anyone getting a civil marriage in India, so I don't know. But according to Wikipedia it seems like anyone can get one.

The Special Marriage Act, 1954 is an Indian legislation enacted by the Parliament of India to provide a special form of marriage for the people of India and all Indian nationals in foreign countries, irrespective of the religion or faith followed by either party.


That's true. I stand corrected.


There are many problems with US family law that are "better" in other countries. One that comes to mind is the cost of hiring a lawyer for adoption disputes, rather than going through mediation by a religious or community elder as is the norm in many parts of Asia.


When I say "Christian" values, I mean values held by Christians today, not Christians from Biblical times. Most legislators in the US are Christian, and their values are going to come through in the laws they write, whether they realize it or not. In both the interracial marriage debate of the 1950s and the gay marriage debate of today, churches played a prominent role. The opinion of church leaders shaped the opinion of the public, and the lawmakers, in a significant way. No non-Christian religious institutions had this type of influence. So US family law is still influenced by Christianity, but Christianity itself has changed from what it was a century ago, and US family law has changed with it.


Yes, in many religious laws, divorce is far more difficult than under US law. Therefore, couples are more likely to work out their differences and stay together. This generally benefits their children. Under the American system, there are far too many kids living in unstable, single-parent households, which you do not see in other cultures.

orthar

I doubt he knows any Christians or Jews with kebubot, whatever that is

nkedel

*ROFLOL* A typo, that's what that is, and that after googling to get the correct spelling and check that I was using the plural properly. Ah well!

nkedel

Anti-gay discrimination is not limited to Christianity, and indeed, as of the past month or so there is no such law on the federal level. Moreover, of the countries that have recognized gay marriage ahead of the US, are any of them NOT historically Christian-majority?

(India sure as heck hasn't.)

How is that an improvement? Yes, in one case, you have some risk of a non-impartial hearing because one side can afford a better lawyer; in the other. OTOH, how do you even figure out what kind of "religious or community elder" to use if the two sets of potential legal parents differ in religion or community? If religion is in that case a proxy for ethnicity, that's in fact worse.

The other way is cheaper, but seems ridiculously prone to abuse.

Well, the majority pay lip service to Christianity, at least, and it's far from clear that there are any common "Christian" values that they share across the political spectrum. It's going to be far easier to get them to agree on the basic secular notions of free markets, legal equality, and that some form of democracy are all good than anything specifically having to do with Christianity.

Which values? A northeastern social-liberal "Christian," a southeastern social-conservative "Christian" and a western libertarian-conservative "Christian" are all going to bring very different values to the table, and all of them may or may not use their nominal Christianity to justify those values.

Did they? They certainly claimed to, but it's far from clear to me that the religious institutions actually shaped opinion, rather than being a sounding-board for political and social debates happening outside them and among their members. That's especially true for the gay marriage debate when the organized religious right is an arm of the non-religious right-wing establishment.

Further, in both cases, churches and religious individuals played an active role on BOTH sides of the debate, despite their (nominal or actual) Christianity. If "discrimination against blacks/gays is good" OR "equal rights for blacks/gays is good" are both Christian, then Christianity doesn't mean much.

Lastly, both cases -- IMO ones where, the basic notions of equal rights under the law offer only a single valid answer, and anyone disagreeing is standing against the weight of history, moral right, and reason -- have been advanced as much on constitutional principles in the courts as they have at the ballot box, although some states have

It's far from clear that Christian religious institutions have terribly much influence

That's a rather torturous argument.

Christianity has (at most) simply been watered down, and family law has changed faster than most forms of Christianity have.

Which would be the "Christian" thing to do as well, and yet attempts -- often church-sponsored -- to make divorce harder within the US have uniformly failed.

It's far from clear that it does benefit their children, or that it doesn't lead to high rates of child neglect within marriage (where there's less opportunity for the sate to intervene), spousal abandonment without divorce, or outright spousal and child abuse -- all things which are more common in "traditional" societies.

(Then again, those correlate fairly highly with poverty, both within the US and worldwide... but virtually every "rich country," outside of the petro-states, has liberalized their family law along first-world lines.)

There are plenty of unstable two-parent households, and plenty of stable one-parent households (or two-household/joint-custody divorced families, something that the law seems to favor these days and does quite well among the upper-middle class who can afford to do so.)

Further, a lot of single parenting these days happens without parents ever having been married at all, nor is that limited to the US or even western society... and unlike some parts of the world where an unmarried woman becoming pregnant is likely to become a social outsider without legal recourse, you have both the prospect of welfare AND of child support here (and a legal framework for the father to stay, or become, involved in the child's life.)

--

IOW, your two examples seem like bunkum to me, and frankly, they're ones which would be right at home with the Christian right in this country. Luckily, those guys don't run things, and "Christian" values -- whether ancient, modern conservative, or modern liberal -- do not determine the laws here.

Boraxo

So does that mean that if your employer required you to travel to the UK, you would quit your job rather than accept a theoretical .001 risk of being screened?

Believe me, I have opted out and been subjected to grope enough times to stand on principle and to show solidarity with the cause. But zero incidents - though a noble goal - is rarely attainable.

Certainly you are entitled to boycott any country for whatever reason (and this thread has a whole spectrum of them). But seeing as you live in a country that introduced and popularized nudoscopes, it's a bit hypocritical.

cbn42

Anti-gay marriage laws in the US are rooted in Christianity. That is where the belief that gay marriage should be banned originates. Polls have shown that Christians are less likely to support gay marriage than non-Christians.

I know that there is now no such law on the federal level, but it was struck down by a court on constitutional grounds and not repealed because people's (or legislator's) views had changed.

I guess that depends on your personal preferences and how much faith you have in the legal system. I would much rather have my divorce case decided by someone who I can relate to and who sits down and talks to both of us and makes a decision in line with our culture and beliefs, rather than someone who listens to highly-paid lawyers talk about something I cannot understand and then makes a decision based on a law passed by the government.


Out of the top 10 donors to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, 7 are marked as Christian groups. I think they must have had a sizable impact.

I don't see a single group that sounds Christian (judging just from the name) on the list of top 10 donors against Prop 8.




Once again, that depends on your culture. Many things that we call child abuse in the US are perfectly acceptable in other countries, and vice versa.
Looking through the lens of the western experience, you might think that the American system provides the most benefit to children, but that is because you are defining benefit in a particular way. For example, when deciding in which home to place kids after a divorce, many judges in the US will place great emphasis on which parent has the financial resources to take care of the kids, while in other cultures this would be less of a factor.


They do not determine the laws, but they do influence the laws. You must not be paying attention if you believe that the religious establishment has no impact on the political process.

chx1975

I have began to consider the USA off limits because of http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/ma...nowden.html?hp this. I am not yet there but, it's a beginning of a thought process.