On-Line Marital "Tune-Ups"?

Per the New York Times, a number of efforts are afoot to provide on-line tools for "preventive maintenance and assessment" for married couples. (Providing relationships with something between scheduled maintenance/inspection visits by your car dealer, and your annual physical?)

Professors from UCLA and University of Miami are soliciting 500 married couples to participate in a study of on-line self-help couples therapy.

Researchers at Brigham Young offer an (inexpensive) on-line martial/relationship assessment which, they say, yields a graphic report depicting a couple’s communication and conflict style, and how much effort each partner puts into the relationship.

A similar assessment tool is also being studied in Australia as part of a telephonic and remote program of marital counseling, intended for those in remote areas who simply cannot practically arrange for face-to-face contact with a counselor.

Custody and Religion Part 4: Something in the Water in Chicago?

I won't really get incensed (pun intended) until I read a clearer and more definitive description of the facts and order in the underlying case, but a recent report suggests that Chicago judges are willing to make intrusive orders not only against divorced parents, but against new step-parents, in regard to issues of religious upbringing, seemingly pretty much ignoring that stuff about "establishment of religion" it mentions in my pocket Constitution.

. . .and another hat tip (diamond-crown two-tone straw) to Howard Friedman at Religion Clause for the pointer.

I've Always Wanted to Be A Cover Model!

There we are, on the cover of this month's CEB catalog!

Abbott: Supreme Court Decision on International Child Abduction Issues

The SCOTUS has decided, 6-3, in Abbott v. Abbott, a lingering issue in international child custody abduction cases. Only a parent with a "right of custody" can invoke the Hague Convention to compel the return of the child. Lower Federal courts have disagreed as to whether a parent with only "visitation" rights, but with a "ne exeat" order (forbidding the removal of the child from that country) could request return of the child under the Convention. The Supremes (or at least six of them) say that he can.