Word: lat
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...David B. Lat, in his column "Imposing Morality is Fun" (Nov. 28, 1995), commits two serious errors in his lessons on marriage and the moral nature...
...Lat is right when he says that children are probably better off raised by both parents. But this is not true if the two parents are unhappily married. When I was eight, I tried hard to prevent my parents from getting divorced, wanting to live in a stable home with both my parents. But they grew apart, and would have been miserable living together no matter how hard they tried. I think it was much healthier for me to grow up exposed to my parents living in separate loving relationships than to remain with both parents in a home environment...
...Lat's second assertion, however, that all laws involve an imposition of morality, is to me the more pernicious of the two. Lat argues that preventing people from getting a divorce has the same characteristic of moral judgment as every other...
...experiences of a lifetime can alter a situation dramatically. If a woman discovers that her face has been permanently damaged by a violent husband, should she try to work it out to maintain the institution of marriage? I am being slightly unfair in this point, since both Lat and the Pope concede that physical separation may be necessary in the case of abusive relationships...
What would you say to them, Mr. Lat, when they realize that, despite much hard work, they have failed? Would you tell them to be miserable for the rest of their lives? In its own way, that sort of mental torment can be just as destructive as physical abuse...