At first blush, the Bush administration’s initiative to spend $1.5 billion on a new proposal to promote marriage may sound uncontroversial. Regardless of one’s ideology or political perspective, marriage is generally considered a good thing in society. If the Bush White House wants to help train people to sustain “healthy” marriages, what’s the harm?
The truth, however, is a little more complicated. I’m a big fan of marriage, as my wife can attest, but not of this initiative.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t an entirely new idea for the Bush administration. Last year, HHS announced that it was distributing $2.2 million to sponsor marriage-strengthening programs. Also last year, the White House pushed for a $300 million program to promote marriage.
Now, however, it appears that the administration is making a more concerted effort to make this part of Bush’s 2004 domestic agenda. We’re even likely to hear something about this in next week’s State of the Union address.
On a philosophical level, the idea that the White House wants to spend billions of dollars to promote what is obviously a very personal and intimate matter seems odd for an administration that claims to embrace small, limited government. It seems that the government that wants to “help” prepare two people for a marriage is about as big a federal government as I can even imagine.
Indeed, the hypocrisy on the right is breathtaking. For the better part of the last generation, conservatives had a name for the liberal desire to use the power of the state to shape and improve people’s private lives: social engineering. It wasn’t a compliment. Now that conservatives are running every branch of government, however, suddenly using the federal government as a tool to promote their own goals for Americans’ private lives is not only acceptable, it’s valued at $1.5 billion.
The Heritage Foundation, the preeminent conservative think tank, even proposes the creation of a federal “marriage office.” The idea has caught on in some states, with places such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Florida launching marriage “initiatives” of their own in recent years. (Isn’t it an odd coincidence that Bible Belt states, with the highest rate of fundamentalist Christians on earth, has the highest divorce rates? But I digress…)
I also find it odd that conservatives are on a drive to promote marriage because of the societal benefits of having stable households, but literally want to amend the Constitution to prohibit gay couples from embracing marriage and adding to that societal stability.
But like most Bush administration proposals, my biggest beef with this initiative isn’t philosophical, it’s practical and political.
Politically, one gets the distinct impression that this is an election-year gimmick aimed at pleasing conservative activists and the religious right. In fact, the New York Times quotes a Bush advisor today as saying the marriage initiative “is a way for the president to address the concerns of conservatives and to solidify his conservative base.”
The White House, which is aiming this initiative particularly at low-income families, also sees the value of a good photo-op. A White House aide told the Times, “The president loves to do that sort of thing in the inner city with black churches, and he’s very good at it.” (No word on whether Bush will be wearing a flight suit at the black churches)
Moreover, as a practical matter, I’m more than a little concerned about how, exactly, the White House is going to promote marriage.
The Times article, for example, noted that the administration has retained consultants to help “religious groups,” among others, develop marriage-promotion programs. This leads me to wonder, of course, which religious groups are we talking about?
It’s not like we can count on Bush to value the principle of church-state separation, which he has long abhorred. Will we soon hear that the White House is directing “marriage grants” to evangelists supporting Bush’s political agenda, such as Jerry Falwell, Sun Myung Moon, and Pat Robertson? Will the “wrong” religions be excluded from receiving these federal handouts?
The always-brilliant Rob Boston published a terrific article about the church-state implications of a marriage initiative last year. As he noted, the Bush administration’s track record is already pretty bad.
For example, Bush’s HHS, when distributing tax dollars on marriage promotion last year, earmarked some money for “faith-based” approaches. One grant went to an Allentown, Pa., group called Community Services for Children, Inc. The organization received $177,374 in tax money to offer classes in “family formation and development.” The problem is that classes at the facility must include a religious component.
So when you hear Bush tout the value of stable, lasting marriages, believe him. When you hear him tout the merit of his marriage initiative, don’t.