Romantic scene on a wall in Valencia, Spain. Photo credit: Jeff Miller

When It Comes to No-fault Divorce the Christian Right Is All Wrong

Jeff Miller
ILLUMINATION
Published in
4 min readAug 1, 2024

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Just when it seemed the Christian right was too focused on books, bathrooms, and babies to add yet another gear to its 19th-century wayback machine, now comes word that it’s targeting no-fault divorce laws, too. The benighted Republican Party of Texas is leading the reactionary charge. In just one of many of the party platform’s 2024 culture-war recommendations, which include repealing the minimum wage, prohibiting same-sex marriage, and publicly honoring “heroes” of the Confederacy, the section on no-fault divorce reads:

The Texas Family Code shall be completely rewritten with regards to No-Fault Divorce and Child Custody. Suits related to these topics shall be delineated in such a way as to remove the need for any but the most minimal judicial interaction, and promote the maintenance of the traditional family via required intervention or counseling prior to any decree of divorce. We urge the Legislature to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws, to support covenant marriage, and to pass legislation extending the period of time in which a divorce may occur to six months after the date of filing for divorce.

The proposal, wrapped in the deceptive language of helping families and children and protecting women from single-parent poverty, has a different aim: to make it more difficult for women, who…

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Jeff Miller
ILLUMINATION

A culture writer, I enjoy tugging at the sacred, profane, and prosaic threads that shape behavior and belief.