Posted on 11/22/2004 12:20:52 PM PST by freeparella
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."
The liberals pushed the divorce laws, encouraged the extreme women's liberation movement, and dissed marraige for the last 50 years. They have done everything possible to ruin marraige, and now they blame others. Typical.
The article is correct, but I disagree that Christians were asleep at the wheel when no-fault divorce was pushed through. The no-fault divorce was an important part of the feminist agenda to end Patriarchal oppression of women, and back in the 60s and 70s the feminists were just too powerful.
I think that those of us who are Christians need to start fighting for covenent marriage.
"Deliberate childlessness?" Nope, can't have that, now can we? Gotta get the government to start coercing people to have children even if they don't want them. < /s>
This Christensen guy is a wacko.
I guess there is no reason for Jews not to fight for covenant marriage, although it seems a little odd since it was Jesus who created it, when he said that the only reason for divorce is adultury. http://www.covenantmarriage.com/
I'm not sure what childlessness has to do with the marriage debate. Maybe some of you can elaborate? Also, I'm too young to remember what you had to do to get a divorce before no-fault. Did someone have to be blamed for the break-up? I think divorce should always be permissable when there's abuse or serial cheating going on.
In reality, the only consequence of tightening up divorce laws will be a reduction in the # of marriages.
Divorce laws cause divrorce? Isnt that like saying guns cause.... oh nevermind.
>>Divorce laws cause divrorce?>>
Actually, depending on the state, dovirce laws make it profitable to divorce instead of stay together.
True. If there is one factor in the web of causation for almost every serious social problem we're facing, it is no-fault divorce.
I was thinking that too.
I would love to see them try to pass some "refusal to populate the homeland" bill.
Some people just don't know when to quit do they?
Yes, in most states someone had to be blamed, resulting in a lot of false accusations being lodged in court, even when both parties just wanted to go their separate ways. Some troglodytes want to return to this system.
Yes, Communist Romania had one of those. The results weren't pretty.
Well, I don't know what it would solve to go back to the old way. It may make people think more seriously about who they marry in the first place, one would hope. In any event, you can force people to stay together, but you can't coerce them into making it work if they simply don't want to be together. I'm uncomfortable with the government trying to social engineer. But what can be done? At my church we require counseling before marriage and I've heard about older couples mentoring younger couples.
Regardless of what the laws say, two people who no longer want to live together won't. The problem lies with the individuals, not the state.
If we want a return to Democratic supermajorities in both houses of congress, this is just the ticket to run on!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.