Government as Family Therapist

National Review Online ^ | May 6, 2003 | Stephen Baskerville

[RogerFGay]

Government as Family Therapist

A dangerous cycle.

By Stephen Baskerville

Something's gone wrong when liberals can criticize a conservative administration for imposing big government on the family. Something's especially gone wrong when the administration is then defended — by other liberals.

Bush administration proposals to promote "healthy marriages" have generally met with derision from the left, but a PBS documentary has already lent a sympathetic ear, and many Democrats are certain to go along.

Government as family therapy was an idea that in fact originated with the Clintons, who saw it as an opportunity for politicizing children and extending government into the deepest recesses of private life. "Children have been an obsession for this administration," wrote sympathetic columnist Richard Cohen. The marriage initiative extends Clinton-era programs for promoting fatherhood, such as one led by Al Gore on "Nurturing Fatherhood."

Politicians often spend money to avoid confronting problems. Yet marshaling the government to strengthen families seems especially pointless when it is government that weakened the family in the first place.

The government's new interest in protecting marriage is ostensibly targeted at poor families, which have been ravaged by decades of welfare policies that drove fathers out of homes and made them redundant by taking over most paternal functions.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now aiming to rebuild the families it has destroyed by introducing "marriage education." Workshops will impart "relationship skills" and introduce methods of "conflict resolution." "Anger management" and "child behavior management" are among the tools of family engineering already in use (and in dispute) in the private sector which have received the HHS imprimatur.

These schemes mushroomed during the 1990s along with middle-class divorce, which their promoters have no interest in bringing under control.

That the efficacy of these programs in actually preserving families is unproven may be less significant than the implications of having them mandated by the government. Putting more psychotherapists, social workers, attorneys, and (most recently) churches on the federal payroll will simply expand the patronage machine that governs family law.

From a public-policy standpoint, there is one reason why marriage has deteriorated: Thirty years ago, with no public discussion, "no-fault" divorce laws effectively abolished marriage as a legal contract. Anyone can now rip up a marriage agreement for any reason without accepting any liability for the consequences. Today, many divorces are enacted over the objection of one spouse. Almost all divorces involving children are initiated by the mother, who can expect to get not only the children but the cash that comes with them. The fathers then become criminally liable for financing, at extortionate levels, children they seldom or never see — even if they did nothing to bring about the divorce.

If the government is serious about reviving marriage, it must bite the bullet and roll back no-fault divorce. "Educating" people to put their trust in what has become a fraudulent contract will merely expand the gravy train of educators and other divorce practitioners who benefit from the deception.

Despite protests to the contrary, no government really wants to reverse the rise in single-parent homes. Governments throughout America are filling their coffers with federal money for everything from child-support enforcement to child protection to domestic violence programs — all of which proceed from broken homes. Hypocritical programs to preach the importance of marriage and fatherhood will merely result in new rosters of clients.

More ominously, Clinton-initiated fatherhood programs have already created a blend of psychotherapy with law enforcement, in one of the most dishonest and destructive policies ever foisted on the public: child-support enforcement. Welfare created this "gulag," as attorney Jed Abraham calls it in From Courtship to Courtroom: What Divorce Law is Doing to Marriage; no-fault divorce extended it to the middle class, where the money and political power are concentrated.

Recently, the Washington Times reported on a therapeutic child-support program in which penal officers inculcate "life skills and relationship" therapy, and fathers are forced to denounce themselves to government officials. Forced confessions and self-criticism are also a feature of federally funded domestic-violence programs.

Government claims of a child-support problem are almost entirely manufactured. No evidence indicates that large numbers of fathers are abandoning their children; the government has no compiled data to back its claims that they are not paying support; and no study has ever justified the expanding federalization of enforcement since 1975. Two federally funded studies have concluded that nonpayment has never been a serious problem. No public outcry ever demanded that government take action, nor has any public discussion of this alleged problem ever been held. The initiative has been taken throughout by government officials, who in doing so have vastly expanded their power.

Bryce Christensen of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society charges that "the advocates of ever-more-aggressive measures for collecting child support have trampled on the prerogatives of local government, have moved us a dangerous step closer to a police state, and have violated the rights of innocent and often impoverished fathers."

To soften its image, the child-support bureaucracy now markets itself as therapy. David Ross, Clinton's child-support director, appended the office mission statement to include "emotional support." "Child support is more than money," says the National Child Support Enforcement Association. "Child support is also love, emotional support, and responsibility." Love and emotional support are thus made bureaucratic mandates, to be enforced by government agents.

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson has inherited the nastier features of the Clintons' policies. Under a program started by Donna Shalala called "Project Save Our Children," Thompson recently announced mass arrests of the "most wanted deadbeat parents." Among "the worst of the worst" is James Circle, earning all of $39,000 and ordered to pay $350 a week for one child — about two-thirds of his likely take-home pay.

"More notable than any one arrest," says HHS, is the "message" that federal agents are being mobilized. In other words, the aim is not to prosecute individual lawbreakers but to spread fear among a target population. No government warns bank robbers or drug dealers that they are being watched. HHS knows it is pursuing law-abiding citizens.

In January, HHS announced $2.2 million in grants to faith-based groups to "improve the financial and emotional well being of children." Assistant Secretary Wade Horn says the grants "reach out to those who need help in acquiring the skills necessary to build relationships." Yet only 25 percent of the funds will promote marriage; the rest will deputize private groups to collect child support, though the therapy and the policing are often indistinguishable. The Marriage Coalition, a "faith-based organization" in Cleveland, will receive $200,000 to aid the feds with child support.

The two facets of the program are at cross purposes; each creates a problem for the other to solve. Christensen points out a "linkage between aggressive child-support policies and the erosion of wedlock." By subsidizing divorce, "child-support laws have combined with no-fault jurisprudence to convert wedlock into a snare for many guiltless men."

Here we see the culmination of a government perpetual-growth machine that has been building for decades: Destroy the family through welfare and no-fault divorce; then evict and criminalize the fathers; then institutionalize the children as state wards through various "services" to relieve single mothers. This is precisely the loss of freedom through the erosion of the family that conservatives have long been warning against. Now their own leaders are implementing it.

— Stephen Baskerville is a professor of political science at Howard University.

[RogerFGay]

ping

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

And... make sure you don't leave no child behind.

m'kay???

[Lorianne]

If the government is serious about reviving marriage, it must bite the bullet and roll back no-fault divorce.

And who, pray tell, will be the arbitor of "fault"? I'll answer, the government. Talk about getting the government more involved in people's private lives. Sheesh.

[Orangedog]

Any man who reads this that is still seriously contemplating marriage or has not looked into getting a vasectomy is stupid. It's no longer "The government is coming for your kids"....the government already has them!

The "funny" part is that the mothers in divorce court are too wrapped up in their own greed and thirst for revenge that they can't see that THEY are being used just as much as the fathers are. Custody by default and a fat, tax-free subsidy to their income (that the "uncaring bastard" has to cough-up, or else!) artfully hide the fact that her kids aren't really hers...because for now, Uncle Sugar is content to let her keep them.

[Orangedog]

ping!

[texgal]

And who, pray tell, will be the arbitor of "fault"? I'll answer, the government. Talk about getting the government more involved in people's private lives. Sheesh.

No-fault divorce means that a marriage can be dissolved on the whim of one party to the marriage with the state bringing its full force and effort on the part of the person wanting to break up the marriage - regardless of the reason or for absolutely no reason at all.

Returning fault basis to divorce would at least allow the courts to make a decision as to whether or not a divorce should be granted - right now it WILL be granted regardless of fault or any other reason.

Under no-fault, the party who does not file first is the one who is penalized in terms of property settlement and visitation.

Doing away with no-fault would return due process to our family courts. A person charged with the most heinous crime has more rights under the law than does the law-abiding spouse sued under no-fault grounds. They have the right to know the charges against them, the right to a jury trial, the right to a proper defense and most importantly - the right to the presumption of innocence and a decision based upon facts presented in their defense. You don't have that under no-fault. Wake up, the government is already involved in your private lives to the extent that you, as a person being sued for divorce has absolutely no rights under no-fault laws. You will be found "guilty" under no-fault laws. No-fault is unconstitutional by it's very application under law.

Kathlyn Smith

President

Marriage Our Mission

[Pikachu_Dad]

ping ping ping.

[frodolives]

Fight single parent homes? Sure! It's called birth control. Promote mariage? Easy- make good fathers and husbands.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Nope, its called 'state sponsored shotgun marriages' for unmarried parents.

[Orangedog]

That has kinda been tried before under the umbrella of common-law marriages. Most states have thankfully done away with it. I know for a fact that the law passed in Ohio to do away with them almost died in committee until some prominant people at Probate and the Attornies General from the state and at least one county discretely pushed for it's passage. They did this because of the potential for the courts, Probate, and AG offices (who issue marriage licenses) to be flooded with some some "unintended consequences." Since common law marriages could so easilly be claimed, and had been so readily and frequently recognized by the courts (both civil AND municipal), it could REALLY complicate things. One of the possible legal conditions to be met would be having a child together, but that was not a requirement. They would only have to meet one of a number of requirements to meet the legal standard. The girlfriend having mail sent to her at her boyfriend's apartment would do it. Hell, she could just use his last name instead of hers on a magazine subscription would do. Keep in mind this could just as easily happen to the man as it could happen to the woman.

For instance, lets say that a couple met the legal requirements to be married by common law and also have a child together. They split up and she files for divorce, citing the existance of a common law marriage. Later, they get back together and drop the "divorce." A couple of years down the road, they split up again. This time she takes the cheap way out and just gets a child support order. A few months later, she gets married to someone else (a "real" marriage, with a license and the whole 9 yards). Since common law marriages were just as legal and binding, she has just committed bigamy! The boyfriend could file bigamy charges against her. This is where it could get messy. Probate and the AG's office could possibly be flooded with cases of common lay bigamy and falsifying public records for not listing the common law marriage on the marriage license application. The domestic relations courts might have liked the extra business, but the other courts and offices wanted nothing to do with it.

[RogerFGay]

And who, pray tell, will be the arbitor of "fault"? I'll answer, the government. Talk about getting the government more involved in people's private lives. Sheesh.

I'll go half way with you on this one. Reinstate individual rights as the Constitution demands and assure that the courts enforce them. The "government" (especially Congress) can back off, and the judiciary's involvement will be limited by the proper limits of government stacked against our sacred right to a personal life.

[RogerFGay]

Doing away with no-fault would return due process to our family courts. A person charged with the most heinous crime has more rights under the law than does the law-abiding spouse sued under no-fault grounds. They have the right to know the charges against them, the right to a jury trial, the right to a proper defense and most importantly - the right to the presumption of innocence and a decision based upon facts presented in their defense. You don't have that under no-fault. Wake up, the government is already involved in your private lives to the extent that you, as a person being sued for divorce has absolutely no rights under no-fault laws. You will be found "guilty" under no-fault laws. No-fault is unconstitutional by it's very application under law.

RIGHT ON! Are you prepared to do battle against other pro-marriage groups -- just wondering: read Hounding Baskerville; a critical response to Dr. Baskerville's article.

[Orangedog]

The author of "Hounding Baskerville" is about as close to a the perfect example of being invincibly-ignorant as one can find. He refuses to even look at what the industry has done and continues to do each and every day. Marriage is yet another thing that was screwed up abuse of the power of government, and he wonders how anyone could be susspicious of further involvement by the feds. We don't need (and likely can't take much more of) their "good intentions"

[texgal]

RIGHT ON! Are you prepared to do battle against other pro-marriage groups -- just wondering: read Hounding Baskerville; a critical response to Dr. Baskerville's article.

I agree with much of what Dr. Baskerville says, but not always. 80% of all divorces are contested - meaning that 80% of the time someone is being denied due process. Would we stand for that in any other situation? I think not.

In answer to your question regarding who I am willing to "take on" to save marriage, yes, if it will change the law. I am currently suing the State of Texas for removing my common-law right to sue a third party for intruding in my marriage (alienation of affection) and I also have another suit against them for removing my common law right to sue for adultery (criminal conversation). These are common law rights that have been with us since the Magna Carta and the Texas Open Courts Act states that such common law rights can only be removed if (1) there is a clear and compelling reason for doing so - the only reason given in the legislative hearings was that they were "old fashioned" laws AND (2)the Legislature provides another avenue to address grievances that would have been brought under this law. Our Texas legislature did neither and therefore deprived every person who is married of any means to protect their marriage contract.

I am about to file a federal civil rights violation suit against my ex-husband, his whore, his attorney, the two judges and the State of Texas for conspiring to deny me DUE PROCESS.

[RogerFGay]

The author of "Hounding Baskerville" is about as close to a the perfect example of being invincibly-ignorant as one can find.

Not all social conservatives are politically conservative. I wrote a letter to NR in response to "Hounding Baskerville."

"Hounding Baskerville" was an appropriate title for Tom Sylvester's rather personal attack in response to "Government as Family Therapist," by Dr. Stephen Baskerville. Sylvester's arguments involved labeling, presumptive good by word association, and a straw man. What Sylvester didn't do was address the facts; including the overwhelming bi-partisan trend toward bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive government. If he hasn't noticed, he's apparently spent the past quarter century on another planet.

Baskerville is right that the solution to destructive government programs is to eliminate the programs, especially if they are unnecessary. Otherwise, one might replace a destructive program with one that is not so destructive. Sylvester argues that the solution is to keep the destructive program, put more power and money behind it, and add more intrusive and potentially harmful government programs on top of the old ones. Somebody should tell Mr. Sylvester that making a big government program out of everything that sounds good is not politically conservative.

He also needs to understand the history of the federal child support enforcement program, a subject of their debate. The program only passed into law in 1975 as an amendment to a more popular social services bill. When signing the bill, President Ford said that the amendment took the federal government too far into domestic relations. He promised to suggest legislation later to correct the problem, but did not follow up after losing the election in 1976. Today, with about $4 billion in public pork spilling out through this unnecessary and destructive program every year, it is nearly impossible to find a political insider who won't defend it.

Before he responds, remind him once again that we already had child support and enforcement in the states before the reform. The federal government didn't invent the original concept. Many fathers regard support of their children as one of their most sacred duties in life. Many of those fathers are subject to the new enforcement program and some of them will likely send Mr. Sylvester angry letters. He might even get mail from men who are being forced to pay for children after proving with DNA tests that they are not their fathers; for the sake of a state increasing the amount of federal child support enforcement funding they receive. The federal government did invent the program. If we let them reinvent marriage and family, we're about as far from politically conservative as it gets.

[Orangedog]

People like Sylvester are perhaps the best example as to why no one in or around any level of government will correct the situation. Until someone has actually been put through this meat-grinder, they refuse to acknowledge this industry regulalrly tramples on people's rights and treat them worse than a criminal because at least someone tried in criminal court is entitled to due-process. They honestly believe that these things are rare and isolated, and limiting the system's power is just not necessary.

I'm friends with the family that live next door to me. Both of their kids are grown. One of the two sons is happily married and the other has a child from a previous girlfriend. The one with the kid by the ex girlfriend recently started paying support after DNA testing confirmed that he was the father, and after confirming that the boy is indeed his, he was ready to pay child support and was looking foreward to being a father to him. The mother is about as bitter and hateful as they get, so she stuck it to him as hard as she could. He wound up being ordered to pay, based on a gross income of about $34,000.00, over $750.00 a month for one child. The mother shopped for the most expensive day care she could find, gave that figure to the enforcement agency (which they refused to even question when he objected to it) and that took the figure to $750. Then, she started having her mother watch the baby and pockets the rest of the cash...all tax free to her. He had to swallow what little pride he was left with and had to move back in with his parents because he was paying more in support than he was in rent.

Wait, it gets better! He was laid off a couple of months ago and called CS Enforcement to tell them that he was was going to pay for that week but it would be a five weeks until his first un-employment check arrived and that he would pay up for those weeks then as well as resume normal payments as ordered. CS Enforcement thanked him for keeping them informed then as soon as the phone call ended, they had his drivers license susspended! The day before he received the notice of susspension arrived in the mail he was pulled over for window tint. His car was ticketed for diving under susspension and his car was impounded. He had to borrow over $100 to get his car back and had to go to court three times to get it straightened out. The lessons to be learned here are:
1). Never tell CS Enforcement ANYTHING.
2). No one in a position to put the industry on a leash believes this happens every day or even gives a damn.

[Orangedog]

I admire your spirit, but I think I can guess how the court will ultimately rule in whatever level of court it is tried or appealed. I think the court will rule that "clear and compelling reason" for their denying due process to you would be the "burdon" placed the courts if people like you were allowed to sue home-wreckers. As for the requirement of legislation allowing them to do this, my guess is they will say that this cannot apply in these situation due to feedom of association nonsense or they will cite some arcane law passed in 1905 or the like. Remember, if it doesn't create a bunch of clerical civil-service jobs or threatens to make some of the positions unnecessary, the court will bury it.

The laws can be changed over and over, but in the end, the law means exactly what the robed thugs say it means, and nothing more.

[Protagoras]

Putting government in charge of morality is like putting pedophiles in charge of children

[Protagoras]

The idea that we should rely on government to do anything in our personal lives has been refuted by historical results.