According to ABC News, Texas is sending a bill to the governor's desk that would promote healthy marriages.
As an incentive, the bill would waive the marriage license fee for those who attend premarital counseling. (Legislators are also considering a bill that would require at least one of two spouses seeking a divorce to attend seminar which would outline some of the problems divorce causes, such as financial and family issues).
While government intervention in people's lives should always be weighed carefully, it should also be remembered that marriage isn't just a trip to the store or buying a TV or even getting a new job.
Marriage is the joining of a man and a woman physically, emotionally and spiritually. It was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden and is also the basic building block of civilization.
Families are built on marriage because, without stringent contraceptive intervention, children are the natural result of marriage. Children, for the first 18 years or so of their lives are very dependent on their parents for everything, from material needs to the need for emotional stability and gender modeling.
When families are torn apart, this does incredible damage to children, not only in their emotional development but in academics and other behavioral areas. The vast majority of the problems experienced by youth today--and the problems they cause society in general--from vandalism, theft and other crimes and going on to substance abuse and suicide (these problems eventually translate into adult societal problems, if they live long enough) comes down to a disintegration of stable families.
In short, there is a very, very compelling state interest in promoting wise marriage choices, strong marriages, and reducing divorce with its devastating effects on children.
And before the Godless Left starts calling this an unwarranted intrusion into people's personal lives (I've already made the case that it's warranted) and some new sinister plot by the Religious Right theocrats, remember that the current environment of no-fault divorce is a relatively recent development.
It was invented by the communists in Russia after the revolution as a way to help pave the way to their egalitarian paradise. In the United States, it's a product of the Marxism-infatuated moral cesspool that was the 1960s.
Before that, you had to have a good reason to get a divorce (i.e. adultery). Now it's just "I'm tired of him/her" or "Some other guy/gal gets me hot where my spouse doesn't."
I hope other states, especially South Dakota, will make similar commitments to preserve and strengthen marriage.
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Friday, May 18, 2007
Building Stronger Marriages
