So, Al and Tip are calling it quits. And they're just -- really! -- peachy-keen about it. Ya know, amicable and everything sophist(ry?)icated like that.
Me, I'm kinda of the same mind as this http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/06/gores-have-handled-their-decision-to.html commenter:
"...Look, this is how I have come to see divorce. On one hand, Jesus comes out pretty strongly against divorce in general, but on the other hand, there is the story of my sister. She was beaten by her first husband. She is now married to an absolutely wonderful man. I literally only wish she had met him sooner. I look at the picture of the newly-formed family (now 7 years ago) and I think to myself there is no way God was not happy when my sister left her ex, and when she found her new husband. There is no way God isn’t glad my niece finally has the father she deserves.
"And the way I reconcile it comes down to this. A divorce should be seen almost like an intentional killing of a person. Almost every time an intentional killing happens, a crime has been committed. But its not always the person doing the killing who is responsible. When a person comes at you with a knife, and you pull a gun and kill your attacker, you have intentionally killed him, but you aren’t the criminal; the criminal is the attacker.
"I feel the same way about marriage. If a man or a woman is forced into divorce by the behavior of another, then who 'murdered' the marriage? Not the person who files for divorce, but the person who made marriage intolerable. And I don’t limit that to extreme situations like abuse. My brother, for instance, had a nutjob for a wife. He isn’t perfect, but perfect wouldn’t have made a difference. No matter what he did, their marriage was doomed, because of her own psychological damage that she couldn’t get past. And hey he is remarried, even has a family, now, with an absolutely wonderful woman.
"But if it is 'no one’s' fault, then guess what? Its EVERYONE’S fault.
"So I am watching Al and Tipper throw away this marriage, murder it. And people think its wonderful because it isn’t ugly. They are exactly wrong. Its horrible precisely because it isn’t ugly. Not that I have to see the ugliness, but hearing positively that it is an amicable break up, is horrible. If they can get along enough to divorce without acrimony, they should f---ing stay married. My only solace is that in truth they really do hate each other, really do have pain and they are just keeping it from us. Because otherwise this is an arbitrary destruction and that is horrible in my mind.
"I know that puts me greatly out of step with a lot of people. And I am not even sure that this should be how the law should see it, although I do question how much we really benefitted from moving to 'no fault' divorce. But morally, that is how I see it."
Well said -- and me, too.
