Decision Comes In Divorce Appeal
POSTED: 11:55 a.m. EST November 7, 2003
CONCORD, N.H. -- If a married woman has sex with another woman,
is that adultery? The New Hampshire Supreme Court says no.
The court was asked to review a divorce case in which a husband
accused his wife of adultery after she had a sexual relationship
with another woman. Any finding that one spouse is at fault in the
break-up of a marriage can change how the court divides the
couple's property.
Robin Mayer, of Brownsville, Vt., was named in the divorce
proceedings of a Hanover couple. She appealed the case to the
Supreme Court, arguing that gay sex doesn't qualify as adultery
under the state's divorce law.
In a 3-2 ruling Friday, the court agreed.
The majority determined that the definition of adultery
requires sexual intercourse. The judges who disagreed said
adultery should be defined more broadly to include other
extramarital sexual activity.
88 responses total.
I guess it derives from the dependency of what the meaning of the word is is... Isn't that Dean fellah from up around there?
deciding that homo-sex is not sex will be an intersting positoin for the supreme court. or defining sex as not-adultry .. wahtever....
Isn't it an interesting case.
(Dean is from one state west.)
(And his relevance to this is....?)
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Crap like this is inevitable when you have a fault-based divorce system. Fortunately, Michigan has no-fault divorce.
What "crap"? Betrayal of vows (which are a form of contract, after all) ought to carry a price. Then again, so should perjured accusations in an at-fault divorce.
so if the husband cheats on his wife with another woman, it is adultery. But if the wife cheats on her husband with the same woman, it is not? thats ridiculous, not to mention hypocritical
As I'm sure everyone knows, the Old Testament (Deuteronomy) considers homosexuality to be an "abomination". That could be a mistranslation. The Hebrew word used is "To'eh-vah". Yet "To'eh bah" means something entirely different. The verse opens with (my paraphrase/translation) "He who lies with a man as he does with a woman...." and then says that this is "toevah". So what does "To'eh bah" mean? Doing wrong by her! In other words, for a married man to sleep with another woman is to wrong his wife, to commit adultery. - - - - - - Now I must wonder if the converse is true. If a gay male sleeps with a woman is he not cheating on his partner? Oh, wait, there was intercourse so the Supremes say yes. See?! The right-wingers were right. Now homosexual marriage is suddenly more sacred than straight marriage..... - - - - - - Corollary to the ruling: Bill Clinton did not commit adultery with Monica Lewinsky.
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(How do I adjust my monitor? I thought I saw something written by Mr. richard with which I agree.)
It's hard to believe that the usually-sensible Russ Cage wrote #8. The fault divorce system has all kinds of pernicious effects. A marriage is not like a commercial contract to which one party may compel adherence by the other. Rather, nowadays it is appalling that two people who no longer want to be married would be required to "prove fault" (one by the other) in order to dissolve the union. This often means, even in uncontested cases, that people have to go to court and lie under oath. Sure, everyone in the room (the other spouse, the lawyers, the judge, court reporter, spectators) KNOWS that the witness is lying. It makes a mockery of the legal system. Or, in contested cases, the fault system makes the fighting all that much worse, and sharply reduces the options of having a reasonable settlement. It means that matters which might otherwise be kept private get aired in open court, or even in the media. More court time (costing thousands in tax dollars), more legal fees, more hostility, worse outcomes for any children caught in the middle. This is yet another thing that Michigan gets right, and many other states get wrong.
As was pointed out, NH law requires coitus to have occurred for "adultery". So the court acted properly. The judge that disagreed was out of order as he acted because he wanted there to be a different law. But there wasn't. It is better if they had no-fault divorce.
Re #13: If only one party has to want out to get a no-fault divorce, that's different from a mutually agreeable dissolution. I am acquainted with someone who just walked out on her husband. Literally just walked out. She didn't let him know beforehand that she wasn't happy. She told me she didn't even tell her *son* (who she did not take with her, but left to live with his stepfather). Should someone like this be able to demand half of all "marital" property (even if it was his before marriage)? If the boy was his child, should she be able to take 40% of his before-tax income but leave him to pay the taxes on it? That's the problem with no-fault divorce. The consequences are that marriage has become dangerous to men, and they're shunning it. See http://www.mattweeks.com/strike.htm for some opinion on the matter.
The courts should see to it that a divorce is fair to all, including children. But I don't think that personal behavior that is not physically injurious to another is criminal, so even though a person can "cause" a divorce, it isn't right to make that a punishable offense.
>But I don't think that personal behavior that is not physically >injurious to another is criminal So taking all the comingled funds and writing a check to one's extramarital lover wouldn't justify criminal or even civil sanctions? How about chronic verbal abuse of partner and children? But most divorces aren't criminal matters, they are civil splits deciding who gets what. Ironically, if two people get together for a business venture they can sign a contract which states who is obligated to do what and any penalties for failure to deliver. If you invest time and money based on someone else's promise, you can get something back if they renege. Yet two people who get married can't do that. Under no-fault, anyone can walk out at any time. Worse, with custody and support laws the man is usually expected to pay for everything. This effectively pays women to go for divorce rather than hold to the commitment they made when they got married, and there is no civil remedy for the breach. If you don't think this is corrosive, you sure as hell aren't paying attention.
Fraud and abuse are crimes whether in or outside a marriage, and should be prosecuted accordingly. I think marriage contracts should be more businesslike with provisions in the contract for separation or divorce. Still, there is no need for "fault" apart from criminality. It doesn't matter who violates the social contract - all that does is break the contract, it needn't break the individuals.
resp:17 - Actually, people who get married can write up a pre-nuptual agreement if they wish. I believe that a couple can put such things as who gets what into such a contract.
Some might consider pre-nuptual agreements or any discussion of divorce arrangements corrosive to the very foundation of marriage, but that vast segment of the population can be dismissed as merely sentimental. ;)
That is pretty nonsensical. With, what, 50%?, of marriages ending in divorce, society should *require* contracts that are more comprehensive. They could even include insurance!
(Liberal: A person who cannot bear to see something not regulated by the government?)
So - you would do away with marriage legalities? You are a better liberal than I!
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Re #23: I could probably be persuaded to support that.
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Just 'cause you're not married doesn't mean you can't have a will.
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A ridiculous position. is Springfield in NH?
(you'll have to be more specific; most of the United States have a Springfield.)
Re #28: If no one finds it, then you must have been oddly secretive about drawing one up.
re 30: that was a ref to the simpsons, and the ridiculosity of life there vs the ridiculosity of a lesbian who has extra-relationship sex being found not guilty of adultery.
(wow. an obscure Simpsons reference where the phrase "obscure Simpsons reference" isn't redundant.) ;)
re #22  ... uhhhh, rcurl your interpetation falters in yuor festerhood. sanctioning and regulating are rather different .. when you think about it. the state sanctions marriage .. yuo wnat the gummint to *regulate* it.
I'd just as soon see the state get out of "marriage" all together. The state can give people a civil union of some kind that has the legal benefits of marriage, but none of the religious connotations. If people then want to be married "in the eyes of God" they're free to have their church do so.
Massachusettes has legalized gay marriage. The Mass. Supreme court has ordered the state to issue marriage licenses to gay people.
Blimey. Is this new?
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I would guess they'll either legislate something or amend their state constitution.
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Thyey work fast.
Yeah, but it's going to be an interesting few years...a constitutional amendment wouldn't take effect until 2006.
Ah, the "Our constitution provides a minority too much rights -- let's 'fix' it..." approach. Like Hawaii's.
There's a push to do the same thing with the federal Constitution, unfortunately.
This marriage issue might wind up fixing some other festering
problems in society which have nothing to do with orientation.
Take the cost of benefits (please!). The cost of employee
benefits has gone up radically for most employers, and most are
looking for ways to reduce costs in any way possible. The
addition of same-sex couples to the list of people eligible
might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Solution: END BLANKET ELIGIBILITY FOR SPOUSAL BENEFITS.
Sounds radical? Sure. But when you consider that most couples
which are not raising children have two incomes (and most of the
rest could), it makes no sense for the employer of one to
subsidize the other. If you reduce eligibility to couples
which are raising children you accomplish two very worthwhile
things:
1.) You cut the cost to employers, making insurance more affordable.
2.) You decrease the subsidies to two-earner couples and increase
the funding available for children. Goodness knows we need it.
And with that you neatly get rid of the complaints that good Xtian
people are paying for the benefits of those evil homosexuals (unless
they are raising children, in which case you can play the "kid card"
against the nay-sayers).
You also get uninsured adults who have to declare bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical expenses and have not purchased insurance. Not everyone who works gets free health insurance from their employer. Not everyone who works even HAS an employer. Neither Jim nor I do.
re: "#45 (russ): . . . 1.) You cut the cost to employers, making insurance more affordable." Not exactly, Mr. russ. The cost may only, in reality, be reallocated. Employer A, who may pay for the benefits of employee Mr. X and his wife (Mrs. X) may realize a savings if it no longer pays the health care coverage cost of Mrs X; however, would not Mrs. X's employer (B), now being forced to pay for her health care benefits, suffer a loss of equal magnitude? So that which is more affordable for Employer A would become less so for Employer B. And, if all of the employees of A and the employees of B cancel each other out, nothing has been gained or lost by either.
No, I think the intent and effect would be to shift at least some of the cost of health insurance back to the recipients. For example, if a couple has one working and one nonworking spouse, they would have to pay something extra (maybe a lot) to cover the nonworking spouse. Sometimes health insurance is cumulative. With Delta Dental, sometimes half the cost of a procedure is paid by one spouse's insurance, and the other half by the other spouse's. With only one spouse having health insurance, you'd have a 50% co-pay. If a couple both work, and both have health insurance via the husband's company, as klg seems to, perhaps the wife's employer doesn't offer health insurance (to people in that job category, say). Russ wasn't suggesting that the wife's employer be "forced" to offer health insurance. Maybe the wife declined her employer's health insurance -- that doesn't seem likely. I think keesan's objection is more salient: given the choice of paying for extra health insurance for the spouse who is uncovered by russ's proposed rule, I think a great many of them would decide not to spend scarce resources on insurance. Result: more uninsured, more burden on costly emergency care, more bankruptcies. Russ is absolutely right that the automatic assumption of spousal coverage is grossly unfair to single employees. But getting rid of that automatic coverage would probably add many millions more uninsured, and worsen all the associated problems. Further, there are certain economies of having a whole family covered by the same health insurance, since oftentimes more than one member is affected by the same medical problem -- I'm thinking of contagious or hereditary conditions. The fundamental problem here is that our system in which most people get health insurance as part of employment is badly flawed. It's a huge drag on economic activity. If I understood this right, the U.S. steel industry says it pays a higher percentage of its revenues for health care than its overseas rivals pay in total taxes. Foreign companies make steel more cheaply because they don't have to pay for employee health insurance, even though they pay more in taxes. (Of course, if this is true, it may partly reflect that people working in steel mills have high healthcare costs.)
re: #48 (polygon): No, I think the intent and effect would be to shift at least some of the cost of health insurance back to the recipients. (.....The response in #47 was to the scenario of a dual income family.....) For example, if a couple has one working and one nonworking spouse, they would have to pay something extra (maybe a lot) to cover the nonworking spouse. (....It would be likely that a good portion of the current health care costs incurred by the employer would be passed on to the employee in the form of wages....) Sometimes health insurance is cumulative. (.....The correct term is "coordination of benefits," although some policies provide that the secondary carrier will kick in only the amount that will bring the total coverage by both carriers to the level the secondary carrier would pay if it were the sole insurer......) With Delta Dental, sometimes half the cost of a procedure is paid by one spouse's insurance, and the other half by the other spouse's. With only one spouse having health insurance, you'd have a 50% co-pay. If a couple both work, and both have health insurance via the husband's company, as klg seems to, perhaps the wife's employer doesn't offer health insurance (to people in that job category, say). Russ wasn't suggesting that the wife's employer be "forced" to offer health insurance. Maybe the wife declined her employer's health insurance -- that doesn't seem likely. (.....It is likely! The spouse frequently declines coverage - particularly if one employer offers the employee a cash incentive for doing so....) I think keesan's objection is more salient: given the choice of paying for extra health insurance for the spouse who is uncovered by russ's proposed rule, I think a great many of them would decide not to spend scarce resources on insurance. Result: more uninsured, more burden on costly emergency care, more bankruptcies. (.....Perhaps people need to be reeducated that health insurance is a proper use of scarce resources. They use scare resources for other important (food) and less important (fancy stuff) purchases, don't they?......) Russ is absolutely right that the automatic assumption of spousal coverage is grossly unfair to single employees. (....That is a huge assumption. Some argue that married employees are more productive/more loyal than single employees and, therefore, are worth the extra cost....) But getting rid of that automatic coverage would probably add many millions more uninsured, and worsen all the associated problems. Further, there are certain economies of having a whole family covered by the same health insurance, since oftentimes more than one member is affected by the same medical problem -- I'm thinking of contagious or hereditary conditions. (....We fail to see how having the same company pay the providers would have any effect whatsoever upon the treatment. Would not that be dependent upon the providers of service themselves???....) The fundamental problem here is that our system in which most people get health insurance as part of employment is badly flawed. It's a huge drag on economic activity. If I understood this right, the U.S. steel industry says it pays a higher percentage of its revenues for health care than its overseas rivals pay in total taxes. Foreign companies make steel more cheaply because they don't have to pay for employee health insurance, even though they pay more in taxes. (Of course, if this is true, it may partly reflect that people working in steel mills have high healthcare costs.) (.....Perhaps what is needed is to provide more market incentives in the purchase of health care. Making individuals responsible for more of the cost would put the "drag" on prices, perhaps making everyone better off!!!......)
I think employers are steadily moving toward eliminating health insurance as a benefit for anyone. I know I get substantially less health care benefits from my employer than I got 2 or 3 years ago. I wouldn't be too surprised to see family members eliminated from these plans first. Dismayed but not surprised. If it happens, it will be interesting to see the effects on the pharmaceutical and medical industries. People will change their health care habits, and I imagine the first thing to go for most people will be preventative health care. Then a greater demand for emergency health care and more expensive drugs, which might lead to more government regulation of both. That way lies a national health care plan, with possibly even conservatives such as myself in favor of it. I struggle at even imagining that.
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klg: "It would be likely that a good portion of the current health care costs incurred by the employer would be passed on to the employee in the form of wages...." ROTFL!
(Mr. polygon, unlike this poster, probably has had no employment experience in employee/union relations.)
r52: what an interesting fantasy life klg must have.
re #53: I have. On BOTH sides. And it is my firm belief that the statement by klg that polygon is laughing at is a huge crock and deserves no consideration beyond derisive laughter.
Indeed. Why is it that 'health care costs' are rising at orders of magnitude greater than even the inflationary BLI CPI (itself hugely larger than the real 'adjusted' CPI)?
Why is it that large numbers of 'health care providers' are leaving that industry in favor of IT jobs (not exactly booming right about now) and others? s/BLI/BLS/ above (sorry).
Health care costs reflect the cost of expensive new equipment. My last CT scan took 20 min on the machine and was billed $3800.
Indeed, while drugs are not cheap, the machinery is very expensive, both to create and to utilize. MRI and CAT machines are worth millions. they are delicate, they are power hogs, and tehy require specialists both to operate and to read the results.
Everyone wants cheaper medical care until they, or someone they love, is ill. Then they want the best money can buy, using the latest technology, without consideration of age or quality of life.
Does a CAT scanner really consume that many resources when run for 20 minutes? Even a fraction of $3800 worth of electricity is a *lot* of juice to be passing through a patient.
They do not run electricity through patients with a CT scanner, rather low level radiation. The technicians have two years training. The people who read the results have more than 8 years (radiologists). The equipment needs a lot of maintenance. Both times I was there at least 2 machines were broken and they are always having to reschedule. I had a two hour wait first time. PET scans probably cost even more. They can determine whether something detected by the CT scan as being a mass is actually cancerous. Positron emission tomography. Then there are MUGA scans, ultrasound, xrays....
Re 61: It's not electricity, it's magnetic fields that pass through the patient. They need to generate a really strong field; strong enough that there was an incident where a police officer came into the CAT room in some facility and his gun was sucked into the gap from several feet/yards away.
Oh, that explains why they wanted to be sure I was not wearing or carrying anything metallic such as buttons or zippers or snaps. If you are, they make you switch to a hospital gown. It is chilly in these gowns in the basement where they keep the equipment. I make sure to not wear zippers. Are the magnetic fields generated by electricity?
A huge contributor to the cost of health care is the cost of malpractice insurance. I recently attended a seminar on malpractice reform in which it was revealed that over 80% of physicians have been sued. Another interesting thing that was revealed was that the vast majority of patients who suffer injury at the hands of physicians don't actually sue. The point being made was at least in part that the vast majority of suits filed have little legitimate basis, but the presenter was not so coarse as to actually say that. What I found most revealing in that was that no effort at all was made to define injury in the sense being applied.
Mr. Scott- re: 63 Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Computed Axial Tomography. One uses X-rays. The other uses a magnetic field. You have 2 guesses to match them up. (Our qualifications, you may ask?? . . . How about working with radiologists to write Certificate of Need applications for CAT scanners? Note to Mr. drew - We did not incorporate the "cost of electricity" into the operating expense projection.) klg re: "#54 (happyboy): r52: what an interesting fantasy life klg must have." Mr. happyboy- You are so correct. Including our "fantasy" of having served on the negotiating team for a major automotive manufacturer. We considered total labor costs and did not really care all that much whether they were paid out in the form of benefits or wages. Perhaps you might tell us your source of expertise with regard to this subject. We would be fascinated to know. Thank you.
So why avoid metal buttons during CT scans?
Why do they have stainless steel IV stands in the room?
not only that, but you are required to undergo an exray prior to MRI, because even minute fragments of metal that might be found in your body, can becomee projectiles in the field. notthing quite like a steel sliver ripping thru an eyeball to spoil your day.
Re 53. Like other, I do have experience with employer/union relations, both from a management and union standpoint. It is also true that unionized employees make up a steadily dwindling fraction of the U.S. workforce, so the situation that obtains in a labor negotiation is largely irrelevant to most employees.
Re #66: There's some validity in what klg says. In the last round of faculty/administration contract negotiations at EMU, the administration agreed to a $1000 increase in the base salary of any faculty member who elected a particular health care plan that would save the administration money. (However, it was the administration who was pushing the health care package and the union that suggested boosting salaries as a reward.)
Re #63: That would have been an MRI scanner, not a CAT scanner. CAT is just a two-axis X-ray machine and no more needs magnets than fish need bicycles. MRI uses the gyroscopic moment of certain atomic nuclei when they are in a magnetic field, and depends on multi-Tesla superconducting coils to give the nuclear spins something to react against. MRI machines are noisy, because there are large radio-frequency (27 MHz or so) pulses to kick the nuclei spins, and "gradient coils" which move the center of the magnetic field around and permit measurements of different points inside the magnet bore. The gradient coils are driven by massive audio-frequency amplifiers, and while they have lousy treble response I'm told that the lows can literally shake buildings. An MRI expert I know told of a time that someone played In A Gadda Da Vida over an MRI's gradient coils (crazy Brits).
I believe the phrase you're looking for is "eccentric Brits".
re #69: Funny, I wasn't required to undergo an x-ray before my recent MRI. I just answered a bunch of questions. And the machine was REALLY noisy. I brought good earplugs because I expected there to be a lot of noise, but I figured it would have something to do with keeping the huge electromagnet cool. That was obviously not the source of the noise (a lot of clunking and banging, mostly) and even with the info in #72, I'm still quite puzzled as to exactly what the noise was.
There have been some horrible accidents involving MRI scanners, and stray metal either in the room, fragments in the patient, or even undiscolsed older implants. The last one I heard about involved a young boy who was emergently sent to MRI and in the rush to get him scanned nobody realized a portable O2 tank had been brought in and was parked in a corner. During the scan it was sucked into the MRI tube and the boy's head was crushed.
ouch
Sounds like bad design of room/rooms.
And this is why malpractice insurance is so expensive....;-)
whores?
Re #56: It probably has more than a little to do with the fact that drug company profit margins are some of the highest in existance. Re #66: My personal experience is different. My employer cut back on health care benefits and I didn't get any increase in salary. In fact no one has had a raise in two years. Maybe it's 'cause I'm not union. Re #68: Most grades of stainless steel are not attracted to magnets.
re: "Re #66: My personal experience is different. My employer cut back on health care benefits and I didn't get any increase in salary." This is not evidence that the labor cost, in total, was reduced. It may, in fact, have increased.
I suppose. Still, I have my doubts. Salaries are set by competition on the labor market, so just because an employer saves money doesn't mean they'll pass that along as higher salaries. Unless the labor market is tight they'll probably just pocket it.
(Salaries/wages AND benefits - i.e., total labor costs - are set by competition??)
That may be, but salary is what's usually advertised.
(It is????? We generally see benefits listed, but no salary level.)
I see benefits listed for things like government jobs, where the salary is almost always lower than an equivalent private sector job, in an attempt to make the job seem more attractive. I don't think I've seen benefits listed on a regular basis for private sector jobs.
I think we should have SOCIALISED WHORERY!
Do you find that the private sector is not delivering whores of sufficient quality?
You have several choices: