November 15, 2012
Column #1,629
What Matters Is The Marriage Gap Not A Gender
Gap
By Mike McManus
According to CNN exit polls, what
mattered in the election was the gender gap. Women supported
Obama by 11 points while men favored Romney by 7 points.
However, David Usher, President of the Center for Marriage
Policy argues, “What matters is not the gender gap, but the
marriage gap.” Married men supported Romney by a big 60% to 38%,
and even married women, by 53% to 46%.
By contrast, unmarried men voted for Obama by 56% to 48%, and
unmarried women by more than 2-1.
Therefore, if conservatives want to win next time, they need to
ask their churches to do a better job preparing couples for
marriage, enriching existing ones and saving those in trouble.
Conservatives are church members, therefore their voice can be
heard.
The agenda for the next few years should be to restore marriage
in America. Consider three steps.
First, create Community Marriage Policies to cut divorce and
cohabitation rates.
In Austin, Texas pastors and priests from 252 churches signed a
covenant that all would require couples getting married to react
to a premarital inventory with 150 statements like these:
• When we are having a problem, my partner often refuses to talk
about it.
• Sometimes I wish my partner were more careful in spending
money.
They also agreed to train couples in healthy marriages to meet
with premarital couples to
discuss the issues. In addition, the churches held an annual
marriage enrichment event. They also pledged to train couples
whose marriages nearly failed, to mentor those in crisis.
If one spouse wanted a divorce, but their partner did not,
churches helped the committed spouse to take a course with a
friend of the same gender, “Marriage 911,” designed to attract
back their errant mate. Finally, if this was a remarriage, with
stepchildren, churches agreed to create “Stepfamily Support
Groups,” that saved 80% of marriages that usually divorce at a
70% rate.
Result: Austin’s divorce rate plunged 50% in five years.
Disclosure: my wife and I persuaded the clergy to create that
Community Marriage Policy, and have done so in 229 cities to
date. On average, divorce rates fall 17.5% in seven years, and
cohabitation drops by a third compared to similar cities in the
same state.
And in some cities, marriage rates are rising.
Second, change state law to cut the divorce rate.
Americans divorce at the world’s highest rate. After five years
of marriage, 23% of Americans have divorced which is triple the
8% of British or French. Why? If a British spouse wants a
divorce, but their partner is opposed, the couple must wait five
years to get divorced and six years in France. That allows a lot
of time for reconciliation.
By contrast, 25 U.S. states have a ZERO waiting period or only
20-60 days.
Therefore, a Coalition for Divorce Reform calls for a minimum of
a one-year waiting period during which the couple would take
classes on how to communicate and resolve conflict better. And
if the couple has children, they would have to take a course on
the impact of divorce on kids before filing for divorce. The
year’s delay combined with marriage education would slash the
divorce rate.
Another divorce legal reform would reward the spouse trying to
preserve the marriage with 50% to 67% of child custody time and
60% to 100% of family assets. Why should a father who abandons
his family to run off with a younger woman get half the family
assets of a marriage he has destroyed, impoverishing his kids?
Conversely, most divorces are filed by women, on the assumption
they will get custody of the kids. What if the father got
custody and most family assets? How many would file for divorce?
The divorce rate would plunge.
Third, stop subsidizing cohabitation. Most out-of-wedlock births
are to cohabiting couples. Yet the government gives the mother
of an unwed birth Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax
Credit, housing subsidies, etc. as if she were raising the child
alone. But she has access to the father’s income as if she were
married.
That’s why cohabitation has soared 18-fold to 7.6 million
couples last year and unwed births are now 41% of all births. No
wonder the marriage rate has plunged. Yet if she marries the
father, she loses $25,000 of benefits.
Conservatives: persuade your governor to say in his State of the
State Address, “If cohabiting couples with children marry, we
will not cut benefits for two years, and then taper them off.
The state should subsidize marriage – not cohabitation.”
Let’s rebuild marriage in America!
|
|
Since 1981...
2000+ Columns |
|
LATEST ARTICLE |
|
March 2, 2021: Column 2064: Stop
Executions for Murder |
|
Recent Columns |
|
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE |
|
Observing Lent |
|
Celebrating Marriage Week |
|
A Case for Pro-Life
|
|
End
The Death Penalty? |
|
Christian Choices Matter |
|
2020 Was A Terrible Year |
|
Suicides Rates Are Rising |
|
The Biblical Sexual Standard |
|
How to Cut the Divorce Rate in Half |
|
Divorce Rate Is Falling |
|
How To Save Marriages |
|
55 Years of Marriage |
|
How To Cut America's Divorce Rate |
|
Suicide Rate Rising |
|
Overcoming Porn Addiction |
|
The Devastation of Pornography |
|
Marriages Are Falling - But Improving |
|
Divorce Rates Are Falling |
|
Cohabitation: the Enemy of Marriage
|
|
How To Reduce Suicide |
|
How To Stop Drug Addiction |
|
Cut Federal Funds for Planned Parenthood |
|
The Horror of Soaring Suicides |
|
Make
Adoption More Appealing |
|
The Addictive Nature of Pornography |
|
Abortion Becoming Illegal |
|
Protecting Girls from Suicide |
|
The Worst Valentine:
Cohabitation |
|
Pornography: A Public Health Hazard |
|
Sextortion Kills Teens |
|
Cohabitation: A Risky Business |
|
Recent Searches |
|
gun control,
euthanasia,
cohabitation,
sexting,
sextortion,
alcoholism,
prayer,
guns,
same sex marriage,
abortion,
depression,
islam,
divorce,
polygamy,
religious liberty,
health care,
pornography,
teen sex,
abortion and infanticide,
Roe+v+Wade,
supreme court,
marriage,
movies,
violence,
celibacy,
living+together,
cohabitation,
ethics+and+religion,
pornography,
adultery,
divorce,
saving+marriages |
|