Divorce, cellphones are worlds apart

Jenny Bioche's latest screed, in which she laments it is easier to get a divorce than break a cellphone contract, is factually barren and wrong on too many levels to count (“Friends don't let friends get divorced,” June 2).

I need not retain an attorney, negotiate property division and child custody, nor go before a judge to end my “marriage” to my cellphone provider. Changing my cellphone provider will not require me to vacate my residence, does not impact my credit rating, nor require payment of child support or alimony. That commercial relationship does not bear the emotional burden of ending a personal relationship. Does Bioche really think two adults can sever their legal and romantic ties with the same cavalier ease of switching from Verizon to AT&T?

The nadir, however, is Bioche's unfounded, ridiculous call to end no-fault divorce. I will grant Bioche the assumption of good faith, that she is too young to remember how bitter and contested many divorces were when either party had to produce grounds to justify ending their union.

Bioche needs to learn how no-fault divorce was a necessary step forward in ensuring that couples who were no longer compatible could end their relationships with some grace, without having to pull out the long knives of character assassination and recrimination, aired in court, to separate. May I respectfully submit she is too preoccupied with how other people live their lives.

As for The Gazette, perhaps better editorial judgment is called for.

Jeff Klinzman

Coralville