02/09/2006

President Bush Signs $500 Million Law Funding Healthy Marriage Initiatives
Administration Credits Work Of Pioneering Couple in Passing Law

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 /Christian Newswire/ -- On the day President Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act, allocating $100 million a year for five years to fund marriage, HHS Assistant Secretary Wade Horn said the law wouldn't have been passed without the pioneering work of "one couple: Harriet and Mike McManus" of Marriage Savers.

"Today, for the first time, the U.S. will dedicate a funding stream to strengthen marriages," said Horn, who added the government's "Healthy Marriage Initiative" is modeled on Marriage Savers' Community Marriage Policies (CMP). "The $100 million dollars a year would not be where it is today if it were not for the work of the McManuses who had a vision to better America," Horn said at a Family Research Council forum today in Washington. "Their vision is that churches need to do more to help marriage."

Congregations wed 86 percent of all couples, but "do little to help prepare couples for a lifelong commitment, enrich existing marriages or save troubled ones," says McManus.

When churches create Community Marriage Policies, "divorce rates decline by as much as 50 percent and cohabitation rates by one third compared to similar cities without CMPs." The McManuses have worked with 10,000 clergy to create CMPs in 42 states.

"We're glad the U.S. government is finally helping marriages succeed rather than break them up," said McManus. Welfare rules have helped spur a 48 percent decline in the marriage rate since 1970. The new funding will make it easier to create CMPs to save marriages.

Marriage Savers trains mentor couples to help other couples succeed. "Community Marriage Policies have the blessing of pastors; but it is mentoring couples who do a lot of the work," said Tony Perkins, President of The Family Research Council and host of today's forum. CMPs also require four to six months of premarital counseling, a premarital inventory and training in conflict resolution before a couple can tie the knot. That can slash couple divorce rates to 3 percent over a decade.

There's been one divorce for every two marriages in America since 1973, affecting a million kids annually. The Heritage Foundation says broken marriages and unwed couples having children cost $150 billion in federal and state costs. However, McManus estimates that the new program can actually save taxpayers $4.5 billion the first year and $9 billion in the second, for only $100 million a year.

Horn outlined a competitive grants process open to local governments and faith based organizations. With the 200th Community Marriage Policy signed last month, McManus hopes clergy across the country will seek this new funding to slash divorces by 50 percent over the next decade.

Visit www.marriage savers.org for more information.