Of Canons & Culture
Stolen Vows: The Illusion of No-Fault Divorce

by Pete Vere
The Wanderer, August 8, 2005

As luck would have it – and I was feeling pretty unlucky that day – Aidan Reid invited me to attend the final reading of Bill C-38. Aidan is the head lobbyist for Canada’s largest pro life organization. Bill C-38 is a piece of legislation that attempts to redefine marriage as something it is not, namely, a relationship inclusive of two homosexuals of the same gender.

Thus Aidan and I sat in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Commons and watched Parliament debate this bill. It was an experience beyond either parody or satire. One of the lowlights included a speech by Tony Comartin in which the prominent socialist asserted his support for homosexual marriage was rooted in his Catholic faith. He then boasted that he teaches marriage preparation in his local Catholic parish and expects to prepare homosexual couples in the near future. Well his hopes were dashed when Bishop Ronald Fabbro, ordinarily one of the more even-tempered members of the Canadian episcopate, caught wind of the speech and stripped the wayward politician from all positions of ministry within the London diocese.

Another lowlight included the rainbow clad hippy who occupied the seat in front of Aidan and me. There are no euphemisms to describe this man’s performance without transgressing the sixth commandment. Had a woman dressed and acted in like manner, I would wonder whether she toiled in the world’s oldest profession. Yet coming from a middle-aged man who appears to have sacrificed basic personal hygiene for the pursuit of sexual vice, the performance was nothing short of ghoulish. Any heterosexual who behaved in like manner would have found himself ejected from the House of Commons and possibly arrested. But homosexuals are a protected class in Canada.

Thus the bill passed and has subsequently received royal assent. This means that Canada’s legal definition of marriage now includes the possibility of homosexual pairings. As Aidan and I watched Canada stumble past Sodom and Gomorrah on the slippery slope to hell, my colleague asked that all-too-appropriate cliche: “How did it ever come to this?”

Good question. Despite the heavy endorsement of Hollywood and modern academia, homosexuals remain a minute percentage of the general population. They could not hijack the institution upon which Western civilization is founded unless the majority first became complacent. In other words, marriage as a social institution was weakened from the inside.

This brings me to a book that I have been reading over the past week. The name of the book is Stolen Vows: The Illusion of No-Fault Divorce and the Rise of the American Divorce Industry. Written by Judy Parejko, the books offers a valuable introduction to the history of no-fault divorce. Judy is definitely qualified to write this book; she spent several years as a divorce mediator before finding herself locked out of her office one day.

Poor Judy had repeatedly violated the highest commandment within the multi-billion dollar divorce industry: Thou shalt not encourage couples to reconcile, learn new communication skills, and repair their broken marriage. Stable homes mean better supervision and greater emotional stability among our children. This in turn means fewer easy victims for predatory pedophiles.

In Stolen Vows, Judy documents the rise of the hedonistic monstrosity known as no-fault divorce. She brings together the fruit of her legal research and spices it with her various experiences from within the divorce industry. Her ultimate conclusion, which helped lead to her conversion to Catholicism, is that no-fault divorce is a disastrous social experiment. It has harmed every segment of American society – especially children. Unfortunately, the judiciary is stacked against a spouse who wishes to remain faithful to his or her wedding vows.

Particularly enlightening are a number of quotations from Fred T. Hanson. This gentleman was a respected jurist from Nebraska who opposed the idea of no-fault divorce when it was first being debated. Although Hanson’s predictions seemed overly alarming at the time, most have since come to fruition.

For example, a certain senator argued that no-fault divorce would reduce the number of divorces in American society. Hanson responded to the senator as follows: “But when the divorce pill is sugar-coated, inevitably more people will take it, and more children will be victims of trauma. Senator Hayes says the sugar coat will reduce the divorce rate. Now, I am old enough to remember when pills were not sugar-coated. The coating was added to pills in order that they would be taken more readily, and I personally know that it works. Senator Hayes’ premise supports the opposite of his conclusion. It will not reduce the divorce rate; it will increase it.”

A simultaneous debate took place over whether to discard the traditional grounds for granting a divorce (adultery, cruelty, and abandonment) in favor of the much more ambiguous grounds employed by no-fault divorce. “The theory that the state has an interest in the stability of the family is unquestionably wise,” Hanson asserts, “but under this law it has no more effect than a particular judge chooses to give it. The concepts that implement the theory of the state’s interest – the requirement of definite grounds, collaboration and defenses such as collusion – all are scrapped. In their place we have new terms that defy definition: ‘irretrievable breakdown’ or ‘irreconcilable differences.’ Decisions are to be made on a conclusion, and not on basic fact.”

There are plenty of other pithy quotations found throughout this book. Judy Parejko’s Stolen Vows is an important book for any individual concerned with the breakdown of marriage in North American society. Despite being self-published, it is extremely well-written; I only found three typos and grammatical mistakes in 180 pages. You may order the book from www.stolenvows.com or by sharing the following ISBN number with your local bookstore: ISBN 1-59196-022-3.

In the end, marriage is the most fundamental building block of society. Therefore we risk the collapse of our society when we reduce marriage to just another social experiment.

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