[El Gato]

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

More government inaction would be more appropriate. It was "Government Action" that is/was the major factor in weakening marriage in the first place.

[El Gato]

"A high number of African-American men have been in prison — that limits their future earning potential and makes them bad marriage partners, regardless of what kind of person they are,"

The fact that they have been in prison gives us a clue as to what kind of person they are.

[captjanaway]

Ok, now I’m confused :)

I thought the big thing in schools is to teach kids marriage isn’t important, give them condoms at the school prom and if they want to have a passionate love affair with a sheep, that’s ok, too, just DON’T talk about a man and woman getting married and staying married.

I don’t know which is worse, the groups “advocating more government action to bolster marriages” or the fact $112 BILLION of our hard earned tax money is being spent on “out of wedlock childbearing”. It’s just a result of the liberal, hippie, take no responsibility for your actions mentality these same folks have been spouting since the 60s.

[MrB]

There is no social problem we face today that isn’t the result of some “liberal” policy.

[ottbmare]

More government inaction would be more appropriate. It was "Government Action" that is/was the major factor in weakening marriage in the first place.

I agree; I can't think of anything government could do to strengthen marriage, especially when liberalism is working constantly to undermine it.

My personal theory is that divorce became more prevalent when major anti-society influences during the 1960s, like feminism, various psychologists, and the porn-lite industry (like Hugh Hefner, movie makers, TV writers, etc.) began to make people of both sexes feel that they had a "right" to put their own pleasure before anything else in life, to abandon faith, responsibility, and morality in pursuit of sex and fun. It became officially and socially okay to ditch your spouse and kids, to screw around, to wreck lives, if you pleased. "I have to do what's right for me," became the mantra of the period.

And as a society we are so terrified of being called judgmental (the worst insult you can address to someone apart from calling him a child molester) that we don't condemn people who do such slimy things. Selfish men and women are given tacit permission or approval by a society that rewards infidelity.

How government could rectify this, I can't imagine.