Looks like it's just waiting on the Governor's signature. The big question is, how it will affect currently filed divorces?

[quote] Married couples with children under 18 would have to live apart for one year — double the current waiting period — to get divorced under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Tuesday.

House Bill 1379 passed the Senate Judiciary A Committee and now moves to the full Senate. The House passed the measure earlier this month on a vote of 58 for and 35 against.

Suzanne Hobgood of Clinton, who is married and the mother of four children, asked the panel to approve the legislation and said her experience helps show why it should.

Hobgood said that, when she encountered marital problems, she was too infuriated to want to see a marriage counselor after six months.

“In six months I was not clear-headed,” she said. “I was very angry.”

After that, Hobgood said, her outlook changed and the couple’s extended cooling-off period made a huge difference.

“It saved our marriage,” Hobgood said. “And it did not happen overnight.”

Under current law, living separately for six months is one of the grounds for divorce.

If the bill becomes law, couples with children under 18 would have to live apart for 12 months unless a court found physical or sexual abuse against a spouse or the children.

The bill would not affect other grounds for divorce, such as adultery.

Backers of the bill said 12 states have waiting periods of one year or longer and that the divorce rate is 23 percent lower in those states.

“We are just trying to tell these couples to think it through when you have children,” said Michelle Ghetti, professor at the Southern University Law Center and a member of the Louisiana Family Forum.

Ghetti said the hope is that, by extending the time for a divorce to be granted, the state gives a couple with young children more time to patch up differences.

Rep. Ernie Alexander, R-Lafayette and sponsor of HB 1379, echoed that argument.

“There is statistical evidence that the longer the delay the fewer the divorces,” Alexander told the committee.

He said minor children involved in divorces are twice as likely to drop out of school, three times more likely to become pregnant as an unwed teenager and 12 times more likely to end up in prison.

The only panel member who criticized the bill was Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans. Murray said that, for couples who have decided to split up, “this is not going to make much difference.”

Murray tried to change the bill so it would only apply to couples married after Jan. 1.

“We’re going to change the terms of people’s marriages,” he said of Alexander’s bill. Murray was the sole “yes” vote for his amendment, which failed.

The committee later passed an amendment to make the new rules effective with divorce petitions filed on and after Jan. 1. The bill eventually passed the panel, 5-1.

William F. Wooten, pastor of Gideon Christian Fellowship Church in New Orleans, also asked the committee to endorse the bill.

Wooten said two-thirds of black children are born out of wedlock.

“I think we should do all we can to protect that one-third or less,” he said.

“We are suffering in that community, suffering badly,” Wooten said. “This will help it, to know you cannot get out of marriage quicker than you can get out of a mortgage.” [/quote]