Applauds Bright’s light on bathroom bill
To the editor:
I applaud Senator [Lee] Bright for protecting normal folks over the sexually confused. Who is being discriminated against? Is it the vast majority?
Apple has stores in Saudi Arabia where gay people are executed in public. CEO Tim Cook is a hypocrite. PayPal employs hundreds in Malaysia where homosexual conduct results in beatings and prison. Yet, they bully N.C. for acting to protect the innocent. Shame on the hypocrites!
— Carol Martin, Spartanburg, S.C.
Bright is dimmest bulb in legislature
To the editor:
People as irresponsible as [Sen. Lee] Bright have no business being in any office that has impact on anything in the state of South Carolina. We have entirely too many major issues such funding for public education, roads and infrastructure, health care, water quality, flood recovery, support for farmers…I could go on, but I fear reciting all of these issues would just generate a duh from this idiot!
— Helen C. Foley, Columbia, S.C.
Time is now for alimony reform
To the editor:
There is a unjust weight being placed on those forced to pay permanent alimony. When the law says “permanent alimony,” it means that this payment is for the rest of your life unless your ex-spouse remarries. There are so many payers who can never retire because they are burdened with lifetime alimony payments.
We currently have four bills in the Senate (1087, 1115, 1169,1170) and one bill in the House (4029). These bills are very fair and do not take any discretion away from the family court judges. It actually gives them even more discretion than they now have and gives them the latitude to weigh the circumstances more broadly before rendering a decision at retirement age. It changes the law and allows a rebuttal presumption to end or modify permanent alimony at retirement age based on changes in circumstances of both lives.
As the laws stand now, only one side receives any consideration for their future quality of life. The payee can many times stop working and live a life of virtual retirement while the other side faces a lifetime of hard labor and the threat of jail time hanging over their heads. As they age and their bodies break down, they can no longer work and they are unable to continue paying their permanent alimony payments. They also cannot afford to go back to court due to the financial distress that they are under due to a lifetime of struggling to support another person who is perfectly capable of self support. Can you imagine having to work until you are in your 90s and facing jail time if you cannot pay alimony payments? We are only asking for fairness to both sides.
The argument from some of the legislators is that the current alimony laws work just fine and are equitable. That is absolutely not true! In most cases, the assets are divided equally among the two parties and then the courts take from the half that was given to the payer and distributes a portion of their half to the payee in the form of permanent alimony. They also distribute a portion of any retirement benefits to the payee. As they approach retirement age, the ex-spouse is then eligible to receive the full Social Security benefits of the payer. How is this equitable? Both sides should be considered when rendering alimony payments. At the very least permanent alimony should be offset by the amount of Social Security that the ex-spouse is eligible to receive.
No one should have to pay another person for the rest of their life simply because their marriage failed.
— Wyman Oxner, S.C. Alimony Reform, Orangeburg, S.C.
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