You Thought NY was Tough? Here's what is happening in other jurisdictions.....

A controversial bill to mandate that a child in a divorce spend equal time with father and mother was resurrected Tuesday in Tennessee’s House of Representatives. Representative Mike Bell wants a new law that says when a couple divorces, father and mother would have equal time with the children. Bell doesn’t like what he says is the “standard plan” – a father gets his kids for a weekend every two weeks, and for two weeks in the summer.

Bell and his backers, mostly unhappy fathers, were upset when the “equal time” language was crossed out and “equal opportunity” written in by members of the House Children and Family Affairs Committee. Last week Bell yanked the bill out of play. But this week he went back to the committee and accepted the compromise.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles.....

 

A judge has ruled that a father may take his 3-year-old daughter to Mass even though her mother is raising her Jewish. A Cook County Judge  said this week that the father may take his daughter to "church services during his visitation time if he so chooses" and that he have visitation rights every Christmas and Easter. Likewise, the order stipulated that the mother always have their daughter on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Passover.

The judge refused to bar the father from taking his daughter to church as long as no evidence exists that it would harm the child. Although  the mother said that contrary religious teachings could confuse the preschooler, the judge avoided doctrinal questions, saying it was not the court's place "to focus on or attempt to interpret or judge official religious doctrines."

And in Texas........

The state of Texas,says a union granted in a state where same-sex marriage is legal can't be dissolved with a divorce in a state where it's not.

A judge in Austin granted a divorce for two women, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is appealing the decision. He also is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the "traditional definition of marriage" means doing the same for divorce. A state appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments in the Dallas case .

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