Trog said(in part)....
1) Two Catholic wed and agree, civilly, that a Church Tribunal shall have the last word on the validity of their marriage. They also agree in their pre-nup contract that, if either of them runs off, the other party shall have custody of the children and all the family property. One of them subsequently runs off without getting a canonical annulment. A squabble over the kids and property follows. How should a government court rule?
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In this case the government court could / should rule that the prenup was violated & the remaining party gets the children unless there were some other bar to that ruling. The division of property would be divided as per the prenup or at the direction of the church tribunal.
One significant development in the recent election was votes in four states approving same sex marriage initiatives. Until now, all previous state referenda to approve same sex marriage – 32 of them - failed.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page – a place where conservatives usually turn for intellectual capital – saw this as cause for celebration.
According to the Journal, marriage definition should come from voters, not from court orders. Americans, they argue, have “shown themselves more than capable of changing their views on gay marriage the democratic way.”
In other words, our definition of marriage should follow process, not...
2) Two Moslems get married and agree in their pre-nup contract that legal issues involving their marriage will be governed by Sharia. Some time later, one of the parties gets tired of being wife No. 4 and goes to a government court to argue that her pre-nup contract was unreasonable to the point of being invalid ab initio. How should the government court rule?
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In this case the government court would have nothing to say since both parties agreed & _contracted_ that Sharia would be the basis for rulings in this marriage. So long as the female in question was above the age of consent per the laws of the state & was not influenced in any way to sign her consent to the governance by Sharia then she's screwed.
In theory, all good answers and I could live with them. In practice, "ain't going to happen," because so many of us, including Christians whom you rightly reproach with not being too Christian, would find it intolerably harsh. And if anyone tried to legislate this, the courts would, I am sure, throw it out on the grounds that requiring government courts to recognize the decisions of religious courts is a violation of the First Amendment. For now, this is an interesting exercise, but merely a theoretical one until we go broke, have a civil war, and write a new constitution.
Yeah Trog I know.....So much for personal responsibility.
The government ends up shielding us from our own choices & thus doing a dis-service to all. This I believe is why we, as a Nation, are where we are now.