Posted on 11/21/2004 11:07:42 AM PST by DBeers
NEW YORK -- "Protection of marriage" is now the watchword for many activists fighting to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying. Some conservatives, however, say marriage in America began unraveling long before the latest gay-rights push and are pleading for a fresh, soul-searching look at the institution.
"When you talk about protecting marriage, you need to talk about divorce," said Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University professor who writes frequently about family issues.
While Christensen doesn't oppose the campaign to enact state and federal bans on gay marriage, he worries it's distracting from immediate threats to marriage's place in society.
"If those initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated -- if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness -- then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."
Gay-rights supporters, during their recent losing battles against gay-marriage bans in 11 states, often argued that if marriage in America was in fact troubled, it was heterosexuals -- not gays -- who bore the blame.
"That was the best argument same-sex marriage advocates had: 'Where were you when no-fault divorce went through?'" said Allan Carlson, a conservative scholar who runs a family-studies center in Rockford, Ill. "Any thoughtful defender of marriage has to say, 'You're right. We were asleep at the switch in the '60s and '70s.'"
Carlson hopes the same-sex marriage debate will encourage a broader national conversation.
"For the first time in about 50 years we are honestly looking at the state of marriage in America, and what we have allowed to happen to it," he said. "I hope the conservative side will do a little soul-searching and look for ways to rebuild traditional marriage into something stronger."
Carlson decries no-fault divorce, where neither spouse is held responsible for the breakup, but acknowledges that its demise is not imminent. He proposes more modest steps: tax revisions benefiting married couples, a more positive portrayal of marriage in textbooks, policies aiding young college graduates so they could afford to marry sooner.
In several of the states that approved gay-marriage bans on Nov. 2, initiatives are underway to bolster heterosexual marriage. A bill pending in Michigan's legislature would encourage premarital education; Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife have invited 1,000 couples to join them in a Valentine's Day covenant marriage ceremony in which they would voluntarily reduce their options for a quick divorce.
However, gay-rights supporters say slogans like "protection of marriage" are mostly used as code for anti-gay sentiment to further partisan aims.
"There's clearly a divide about what constitutes a healthy marriage," said Corri Planck of the Family Pride Coalition, which represents gay and lesbian families. "But there are countless gay and lesbian couples who, if they had legal recognition, would hold up their relations as models of good marriage."
Jordan Lorence, a Phoenix-based lawyer with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, has been active fighting same-sex marriage, but he agrees with those who see marriage facing broader challenges.
"For decades, Christians have been guilty for having a weak defense of marriage," he told the Christian Post earlier this year. "Marriage has become a junior high school dating scene where if I am unhappy I could divorce my husband or wife and move on to someone else."
In a telephone interview, Lorence said Americans face a choice of whether to view marriage as primarily an act of individual satisfaction or as an institution serving the communal good.
"That's the big battle line," he said. "I think people's attitudes are shifting, and they're saying the traditional way makes a lot of sense -- that you can't just get divorced at the drop of a hat."
Many of the groups campaigning against same-sex marriage evoke "the sanctity of marriage" yet make little or no mention of the problem of divorce.
One group, the Alliance for Marriage, has focused almost entirely in the past two years on advocating a federal amendment that would ban gay marriage. The alliance's president, Matt Daniels, said the proposed ban is an essential starting point for other initiatives to strengthen heterosexual marriage -- such as promoting family-friendly workplace policies.
"No one in the alliance believes saving the legal status of marriage as between man and woman will alone be sufficient to stem the tide of family disintegration," Daniels said. "But if we lose that legal status, we lose the policy tool we need to pursue our broader agenda."
Stephanie Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and author of a new history of marriage, said passing anti-gay amendments in hopes of returning marriage to some bygone traditional status is futile.
"Heterosexuals changed marriage, not gays and lesbians," she said. "None of these measures is going to change the fact that marriage no longer plays the same central economic and political role that it used to. ... People see it as more optional."
As someone who's been on the receiving end of an unwanted no-fault divorce, I strongly agree. No-fault quickie divorces are a scourge on the institution of marriage.
There are reasons for divorce. But, laws that allow it to happen in 60 days with no reason are a problem.
I guess you don't think meeting an 18 year old cheerleader is a good reason?
Although I don't approve of the idea of same-sex "marriage" I have to agree that divorce is much more detrimental to traditional marriage. My parents divorced when my brothers and I were quite young...the fallout was pretty much nuclear on my family. How much worse it would have been if they had stayed married, I don't know, but they were my age (29 and 31) when they divorced. Maybe they could have gotten counselling and worked things out.
No fault divorce is egotism run amok.
Heh, nope. But at least I've lived past it long enough to laugh about it now!
Somehow, my Webster's definition of committment didn't include an out for younger ladies. :-)
I saw this on ABCnews website. It is more liberal media bias. To imply that one cannot oppose gay marriage unless they first do something about divorce shows a complete ignorance of the religious context of marriage.
Procedures for divorce are prescribed in the bible... gay marriage is never even mentioned. Divorce is far too rampant nowadays, but it is a totally different issue from Gay Marriage. This is just liberal media misrepresenting religious and conservative views and putting them on the defensive.
Several states have passed laws creating what are called 'covenant marriages,' which are entirely voluntary alternatives to a 'normal' marriage. One of the distinctives of the covenant marriage is a legal binding against 'no-fault divorces.'
I agree -any other 'contract' is treated much differently within our legal 'system'. Can you imagine if no-fault methodology was applied to every breach of contract? I would suggest that such contracts would become meaningless...
IMHO -'fault' was required proven prior to the 'liberal' no-fault laws were ushered in across the country. Proving fault was a necessary hurdle to 'allow' a 'no-fault' breaking of the marriage contract by the petitioner...
The no-fault laws were intended to discourage divisive litigation (fostering potential reconciliation), reduce court case loads, and prevent exorbitant legal costs impacting families.
The no-fault laws written then interpreted by the same elite liberal and morally corrupt legal minds that would usher in gay 'marriage' do nothing they were intended to do...
Yes, they are separate issue; however, I would suggest they are rooted in the same morally corrupt liberal agenda... Regardless, if conservatives write the laws -who cares how the liberals 'spin'...
My complaint is about every article I read presenting things as though conservatives are weary of or divided on conservative causes. I remember reading a Nytimes article saying that Evangelicals werent planning to vote this year, looks like they were wrong on that one, ;)
Conservatives are spinning their wheels. If you want to start to reform marriage you have to deal with the Model Divorce Code which is produced by a susidiary of the American Bar Association. This voluntary organization has produced a work of sample laws which reside in all legislatures and has been pushing to make all states compatible with the model code.
This model code includes sample laws for same sex marriages, standing for homosexual sex partners to have standing in for custody in divorce cases, and even seeks to make the focus of marriage recreational sex an children just an accessory for heterosexuals.
No.
forgot to add.
There must be a reform conservative model divorce code put forth to compete with the leftist ABA model code.
No fault will never be removed from the landscape HOWEVER there is nothing that prevents mitigations and marital facts being required to be considered when deciding property and custody divisions.
The is nothing preventing legislatures from taking the 'models' and dumping them in the trash along with all the rest of the elitists' social engineering endeavors...
LMAO -yes, conservatives are weary and divided -why believe stupid and objectively measurable things like trends in successively predominant strong and unified election results...
I agree with this. Human nature is such that if you want someone to give you something -helping them 'give' it will facilitate gift fruition...
Inserting a broad-brush condemnation of "deliberate" childless marriages in an otherwise valuable discussion on conservative thinking about protecting the institution of marriage is counter productive at best. I'm tempted to say more, but it would probably just be deliberate mockery of Mormons.
As for the homosexuals, they are trying to justify further destroying marriage because it's got problems. We need to work on fixing marriage, not destroy it with man-man-man-woman, man-goat, woman-horse, woman-woman marriages.
Yes it is -no doubt, the 'objective' reporter thought long and hard before inserting this 'moderate' nugget into the article...
LMAO
I follow those pretty closely as well as laws which make it not-quite-so-easy to get the divorce in Texas. It's been 16 years since I went through that kind of hell but since then I have worked within my church in a support system for divorce recovery. As such, this issue is very dear to my heart.
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