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Story was released through Christian Community Network @ www.ChristianWireService.com
Woman Who Set Career Path to Motherhood Fights No-Fault Divorce
To: National Desk
Contact: Steve Safranek, Executive Director and Founder of TrueMarriage.net and Professor at Ave Maria School of Law, 734-827-8096; Marie Macfarlane, divorce defendant, 440-871-5404
CLEVELAND, Ohio, Sept. 26 /Christian Wire Service/ — Educated women who choose to be stay-at-home moms need to consider the threat no-fault divorce poses to their plans.
Ohio resident Marie Macfarlane, a University of Notre Dame Mechanical Engineer, gave up her career to be a stay-at-home mom and is now challenging the divorce court’s jurisdiction over her family. Though no one accused her of being a bad mother, a court ordered that her husband get full custody of her four young children even though it placed her three year old into day care. Her lawyer, Stephen Safranek a constitutional law professor at Ave Maria School of Law, is arguing that the civil courts do not have full jurisdiction over her religious marriage as the Catholic Church’s canon law limits divorce options. Macfarlane is awaiting a decision from the church court in Rome, the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota.
“We always planned for me to be a stay-at-home mom. My children are now latch key kids and in day-care, not because I chose to have a career, not because my husband lost his job, but because the civil court ordered me to get work and pay him child support,” says Macfarlane. “Before we were married, my husband and I didn’t agree to the minimal government marriage; we agreed to be under the authority of a third party, the ecclesiastic authority of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law.”
Safranek argues: “The courts need to take into account the religious faith and practices that the couple agreed upon when they married…the court should recognize that the nature of this marriage was such that the mother’s role in the raising of her children was paramount. The failure of the courts to recognize the agreement the parties made in a Catholic Church in front of God and a priest in this case not only violates the understanding Marie had when she entered upon this marriage, it necessarily entangles the court in issues relating to Catholic law, teaching, faith and belief.” Mr. Safranek further argues that Ohio law, “favors arbitration agreements and seeks to uphold them” and cites legal precedents in favor of arbitration, including cases where religious tribunals were the arbitrators.
Background: The New York Times ran the story, “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood” featuring young women at top universities who say they will suspend their careers when they have children.
Safranek’s project TrueMarriage.net invites couples to sign written agreements in which they explicitly choose to use church tribunals and other dispute mechanisms to resolve marriage disputes. He is also interested in representing persons who entered a holy marriage and
who now seek to have the civil courts recognize that marriage.
Macfarlane
divorce
marriage
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