Divorce delay bill still has merit

    Ah, the agony of a weekly newspaper.
    Stories often come to life and die all in the bookends of a week.
    That was certainly the case for one state legislator’s controversial bill that would have institute a so-called “cooling-off” period for parents considering divorce.
    Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud) cited “extraordinary” feedback in his decision to pull back the bill Friday that could have required parents considering divorce to first undergo eight months of counseling and education.
    Lundberg’s decision was hailed by bill detractors who didn’t like the perceived notion that the bill would further allow the government to meddle into citizen’s lives and their own personal decisions
    What a paradoxical society we live in. The movement to legalize gay marriage continues to find traction across our country while any efforts to preserve marriage in general are met with vigorous opposition. Or maybe it’s more indicative of our “have your cake and eat it, too” mentality. Presumably everyone should have the right to marry and, conversely, everyone should have the right to end that marriage at a moment’s notice.
    Marriage is no longer a sacred union. Marriage is a store-purchased commodity that should come with a 100,000-mile tread warranty or, better yet, a lifetime refund guarantee. Should you happen to get a clunker, go ahead and push, pull or drag it back in for a newer model.
    That’s fact. That’s the state of marriage in our country. Marriage partners are easily replaceable.
    What’s troubling about the reaction to Lundberg’s bill is the fact that it didn’t even get a fair shot at discussion when it aimed to speak for some of divorce’s unintended victims: the children of broken marriages.
    That’s right, those pesky kids, the part of your broken marriage that the dealer won’t take back when the wheels fall off your relationship. 
    Why can’t parents call a timeout to factor in how the end of their marriage is going to impact their children? We don’t even have to be idealistic about it. Even if the marriage is irrevocably broken and will not, under any circumstances be saved, couldn’t the cooling-off time be used to develop some sort of plan for how those children will be taken care of in the future?
    But those who argued against this bill said, “Who is the government to stand in the way of people who have decided they want to divorce and do it now?”
    There are horrible extenuating circumstances to cause marriages to dissolve and to dissolve quickly. This bill would have accounted for cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse.
    I’m not naïve enough to believe that every marriage, given a little love and some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease, is salvageable. That’s just not always the case. But I think there is something to be said that few understand the work and effort that must be put into making a marriage work.
    It’s far easier to head for the nearest exit sign.
    But before parents head for the exit, why can’t they stop and look at who they are dragging along?