When Faith Defines, and Divides, Family: Lessons for Avoiding Bias in Family Court Decisions

• Author: Robin Fretwell Wilson, Aylin Cakan, Marie-Joe Noon, Marlus Reque Jr., Rebecca Valek
• Pages: 21-29

WINTER 2022 21

As America becomes more diverse, so do

American families. Americans are marrying

across faith traditions and today are “twice as

likely to be in religious intermarriages” as

couples who married before 1960. Pew Rsch.

Ctr., Ch. 2: Religious Switching and Intermarriage, in America’s

Changing Religious Landscape (May 12, 2015). Among those

who have wed since 2000, nearly 40 percent “have a spouse

who identies with a dierent religious group. . . .” Id.

For many devout people, religious practices matter across

the lifespan of the family (Robin Fretwell Wilson & Shaakir-

rah Sanders, By Faith Alone: When Religious Beliefs and Child

Welfare Collide, in e Contested Place of Religion in Family

Law (Robin Fretwell Wilson ed. 2018) [hereinafter e

Contested Place of Religion]): at birth, during childrearing, at

marriage, after divorce, and at the end of life. Naomi Cahn

& Amy Ziettlow, Personal Religious Identity at the End of Life,

in e Contested Place of Religion.

Yet, when couples marry or form families, they often do

not discuss the thousands of decisions that will confront

them as a couple. W. Bradford Wilcox, Faith and Marriage:

Better Together?, Inst. for Fam. Stud. (July 6, 2017); Jamie

Spain, 21 ings at People Don’t Talk Enough About Before

Marriage, BuzzFeed (Jan. 25, 2021); Robin Fretwell Wilson,

Divorcing Marriage and the State Post-Obergefell, in e

Contested Place of Religion. ose who marry or parent across

religious dierences are no exception. In 2013, less than half

of interfaith couples, before marrying, jointly pondered and

discussed the faith in which they would raise their kids.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, Opinion, Interfaith Unions: A Mixed

Blessing, N.Y. Times (Apr. 5, 2013).

When one or both persons are observant and the relation-

ship dissolves, clashes often center on the couple’s children.

Will they attend a religious school (Kelly v. Kelly, 217 N.J.

Super. 147 (1986)) or participate in a faith community, soak

up the “wrong values” at the other parent’s house, associate

with those outside the faith, or become confused if one

parent is religious and the other is not or because the parents

are pushing dierent values (Pater v. Pater, 63 Ohio St. 3d

393 (1992)).

Just as faith can matter intensely to a fractured family, it

can also matter intensely to the intact family. Americans

remain deeply spiritual (Michael Lipka & Claire Gecewicz,

More Americans Now Say ey’re Spiritual but Not Religious,

When Faith Denes, and Divides, FamilyWhen Faith Denes, and Divides, Family

Lessons for Avoiding Bias in Family Court Decisions

BY ROBIN FRETWELL WILSON, AYLIN CAKAN, MARIE-JOE NOON,

MARLUS REQUE JR., AND REBECCA VALEK

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 44, Number 3, Winter 2022. © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

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