Family Law and Religion: Religious Divorce

It's not every day that someone's divorce results in protests to the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee. Maryland, unlike New York, apparently does not have a legal mechanism by which recalcitrant divorcing husbands can be directly coerced into granting their observant ex-wives religious divorces, so it appears the judge may have fashioned his own remedy. While I have some serious doubts regarding the Federal constitutionality of the New York get statute, I also understand the civil law effects, internationally, of the absence of a get.

Child Custody and Religion: The Hits Keep Coming, Folks!

An interesting case about medical decisions in child custody cases, with a religious issue overlaid on top of it. A judge, presented with giving either Dad, (who wanted child vaccinated) or Mom (who wanted the child NOT vaccinated, for ostensibly religious reasons) the decision-making authority to over-ride the other parent's preference, chooses Dad's view.

Query whether the outcome would have been the same had Mom's articulation of the religious basis for her objection been clearer, or if it had originated in a more "organized religion".

Hat tips to Doc Volokh and Howard Friedman for the pointer.

French Civil Unions: "Marriage Lite"?

There's a reported substantial upswing, in France, of young opposite-sex couples electing to contract "civil unions" instead of marrying. The French 1999 "pacte civil de solidarité" ("civil union") statute was apparently originally enacted, (as with the "civil union" and "domestic partnership" laws of several American states), as a"sort-of-marriage" for same-sex couples, but, as the New York Times reports, as of last year, 95% of the civil unions contracted in France were between mixed-sex couples.

P.S.: My thought, two months after I originally posted this, is that I'd like to know what happened to the marriage rate for the mixed-sex couples of the same age group during this period. Is it possible that having this option available for mixed-sex couples who were reluctant to marry, as the anecdotes suggest, actually increased the number of mixed-sex couples who were willing to make some sort of formal commitment?

Pre-Nups Valid in the U.K.

Maybe, says the U.K.'s Supreme Court. Thanks and a big 'ol Texas hat tip to Randy Kessler for the pointer.