As I predicted when Ohio Issue 1 passed, and pointed out just six months later, controversy ensues over the amendment.
The Ohio Supreme Court heard a case today involving a domestic violence arrest after Issue 1 passed. Michael Carswell was charged with felony domestic violence against his live-in girlfriend. He’s arguing that’s an invalid charge, since Issue 1 says that there “shall not [be] a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” I hate to, but I agree with Mr. Carswell and his attorneys. The definition of family or household member includes this definition:
“Person living as a spouse†means a person who is living or has lived with the offender in a common law marital relationship, who otherwise is cohabiting with the offender, or who otherwise has cohabited with the offender within five years prior to the date of the alleged commission of the act in question.
That certainly sounds like something that “approximates the design or effect of marriage.”
Those who suggest that assault laws can handle situations like this don’t understand the way DV laws work. There are different standards for how DV arrests are made, and escalating charges for successive DV charges. It just won’t work the way it’s set up now.
Sadly, I pointed this out to Christian friends before the election, and their only response was, “Well, maybe people shouldn’t live together then.”
1 Comment
jlwrites says
Not all of your Christian friends were so insensitive. I think it’s a shame that there are those Christians out there who will shake their heads and say “well, perhaps they shouldn’t,” implying that it’s therefore the result of “living in sin” that’s brought the abuse on them. To me, that’s like saying my husband has a right to beat me simply because I vowed in our wedding to honor and obey him. Neither option–abuse by a spouse, or abuse by a cohabitor–should be sanctioned in any way. Yeah, I think cohabiting isn’t the smartest idea in the world, and I happen to disagree with it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think those who chose to live that way shouldn’t be protected. Why am I more worthy of legal protection from my husband than the girl down the street is from her live-in boyfriend?
However, clearly 62% of voting Ohioans were too concerned with protecting the sanctity of marriage than they were with making sure what they were voting on wasn’t going to come back and bite them in the tush later.
This glaring loophole is why I voted against the issue, why my husband and our three nephews voted against it. We counseled everyone we spoke to about it, including our pastor, to vote against it. It’s bitten us all in the tush anyway.
What I said back then, I still stand by: If Burress’s organization had left well enough alone and drafted the law at just the first sentence, marriage would be protected as one man/one woman, and those seeking an easy escape from DV charges wouldn’t have such a huge hole to leap through. I think that Burress was incredibly irresponsible in not seeing the potential problems–after all, he has a legal background he’s quite proud of–and I think it’s just as incredibly naive of him to assume that the state legislature will find an effective way to close the loophole.