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WE ARE MARRIAGE educators, scholars, civic leaders and others who support the Administration’s marriage initiative. We come together today to voice this support to our fellow citizens and to seek to correct misconceptions about the initiative that have arisen recently in the public discussion.

We who come together today are a diverse group. We disagree on some issues. For example, we disagree on who should be the next president. Some of us will vote for the Democratic nominee, some of us will vote for President Bush, and some of us are undecided. We also disagree on the issue of same-sex marriage. Some of us support it. Others of us oppose it. Some of us are undecided.

But we all support this marriage initiative.

The initiative has two basic components. The first is the proposed legislation, first introduced into the Congress in 2002, that would specifically allocate federal funds for marriage education and promotion as part of TANF re-authorization, or welfare reform. (Strengthening marriage as a part of the TANF program dates from the welfare reform law of 1996 signed by President Clinton.) The second component consists of several marriage research, evaluation, training, and demonstration projects initiated in 2001 by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Both components aim to stabilize and strengthen marriage. Both seek to achieve this goal through increased social services, more and better education, and projects aimed at community organizing and empowerment. Both focus particularly (though not exclusively) on low-income communities with high rates of family fragmentation and high rates of child poverty and distress.

We support this initiative for the following reasons.

1. Based on a large and growing body of social science research findings, we believe that the health and well-being of U.S. children are strongly linked to the health of marriage, our society’s most pro-child institution.

2. Based on a similarly strong body of recent research, we believe that the well-being of adults (both married and unmarried) and of society as a whole is significantly linked to the health of marriage.

3. Our experiences teach us the importance of preventive approaches. Treatment or deficit models - providing services and treatment to suffering individuals - are vitally necessary, but insufficient. We believe that strengthening marriage is one important preventive approach to meeting human needs and confronting social problems.

4. For these reasons, we believe that strengthening marriage is a major social priority and a legitimate and important goal of public policy.

5. Some of us are scholars and students of public policy. We are impressed that this marriage initiative is appropriately modest in design and scope. The initiative is essentially a series of pilot projects intended to test new models of education, community mobilization, and service delivery. It contains well-designed evaluation procedures to be carried out independently by some of the most respected researchers in the field.

6. Some of us are marriage educators, and all of us are familiar with the current state of marriage education in the United States. We believe that marriage education, including in particular some of the curricula now available, is a promising strategy for helping couples who are married, or who are interested in marriage, to strengthen their relationships. Providing greater access to marriage education for people in low-income communities is one important way in which public policy can seek to support and strengthen marriage.

7. We believe that low-income people are no different from other people in their basic human needs and aspirations regarding marriage, and in their capacity to benefit from expanded educational opportunities and from more supportive and marriage-friendly social and community networks.

8. We know many of the people who are already doing this work, typically without public funding, in communities across the country. Overwhelmingly, they are dedicated, competent, well-trained, and public-spirited. What they do is no cure-all, but what they do is potentially quite important. Evaluations to date suggest that their efforts are getting results and achieving successes. For these reasons, we believe that what they do deserves support - including the support that would come from modest levels of state and federal funding, combined with rigorous independent evaluation focusing on measurable outcomes.

9. This initiative does not exist in a vacuum. We who come together today are part of a larger “marriage movement” - a broadly based social change movement aimed at strengthening marriage so that, as we said in a joint statement in 2000, “each year more children will grow up protected by their own two happily married parents, and so that each year more adults’ marriage dreams will come true.” This marriage movement is diverse and politically non-partisan, believing that healthy marriages and strong families are quintessentially bipartisan issues. The movement’s agenda is broad and multi-faceted. Marriage-supportive public policy is a part, but only one part, and not even the main part, of this agenda. This movement significantly predates the Bush Administration’s marriage initiative - its roots go back several decades and it was revived in the mid 1990s - and will outlast it. The movement does not depend on government funding now and, we are confident, will never become primarily dependent on it, and will never permit government funding to dictate its priorities. We support the Administration’s marriage initiative at this time not because we are political partisans, or because we are or want to be government workers, but because we believe that this initiative is largely consistent with the goals of the marriage movement that we help to lead.

Current Misconceptions

Since just prior to President Bush’s State of the Union Address, which was delivered on January 20th, scores of stories and editorials in the print and broadcast media have focused on the Administration’s marriage initiative. We are surprised and disappointed by much of this public discussion, not only because so much of it has been critical, but even more, because we know that most of it is based on serious misconceptions. The following are some of the most important misconceptions.

Is the marriage initiative a new, election-year announcement?

No. The Administration began the initiative in 2001, President Bush’s first year in office. The legislation for specific marriage education funding connected to TANF re-authorization was introduced into the Congress in 2002.

Dozens of media stories have referred to the election-year announcement or unveiling of the Administration’s initiative. But there was no announcement! No recent press release or press conference, no recent public statement - not even a mention of the marriage initiative in the president’s State of the Union Address.

It seems plain to us that there was no announcement because there was nothing new to announce. As best we can determine, the ubiquitous talk of election-year announcing and unveiling, complete with heavy speculation about political maneuvering and political intrigue, stems mostly from a page-one story in the New York Times that seemed to suggest - erroneously - that an announcement or new declaration about the marriage initiative either had been made or was about to be made.

Is the marriage initiative a political ploy intended to please religious and social conservatives?

No. Of course, we do not speak for, or know the minds of, the president’s political advisors. But we who come together today to support this initiative - marriage educators, scholars, and leaders of the grass-roots marriage movement - constitute a group that is politically and philosophically quite diverse. We are anything but a special interest group operating within one of the two parties. In addition, if President Bush had wanted to appease the right wing of his party in an election year by making an announcement about his marriage initiative, wouldn’t the president have … made an announcement? We believe that there is no factual basis for asserting, as dozens of media stories have asserted and continue to assert, that this marriage initiative is an election-year political ploy.

Is the marriage initiative part of a plan to oppose same-sex marriage?

No. None of these programs have anything to do with same-sex marriage. Some of us oppose same-sex marriage and some of us favor it. As individuals, we are not neutral on this question, but as a group, our purpose is to work to strengthen marriage through education and community mobilization, not to lobby politically for, or against, a federal marriage amendment or any other proposals related to same-sex marriage.

Does the marriage initiative seek to force people to get married?

No. A basic tenet of modern marriage education is that some couples should probably decide not to get married. Another basic tenet is that marriage education does everything possible to detect signs of, and protect current and potential victims from, domestic violence and child abuse.

All aspects of this marriage initiative are based on the premise that participation is voluntary and depends on personal choice. These social services and educational programs are always offered, never imposed or required.

Does support for the marriage initiative imply a rejection of economic-empowerment strategies for strengthening marriage? Does support for the marriage initiative imply a rejection of other strategies for reducing poverty and helping families?

Of course not. We believe that these community-based education and mobilization programs aimed at stabilizing and strengthening marriage can be one valuable way of helping families to realize their goals and enrich their lives, including helping some of them to avoid poverty and build economic assets. But there are obviously many other vital public policy strategies regarding both marriage and poverty reduction, including jobs, job training, access to education, legal reform, and numerous others. Supporting one good idea does not require anyone to reject other good ideas.

Conclusions

We recognize that there is a serious budget deficit. We know that lawmakers will have to make important choices and trade-offs in the area of federal spending. Making those difficult choices is not our responsibility, and not our area of competence, and therefore we do not, in this document, seek to intervene in that area of the Congress’s work.

We believe that strengthening marriage is an important national goal, and that this promising initiative might help us to reach that goal.

Signed:

Francesca Adler-Baeder, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, State Extension Specialist for Children, Youth, and Families, Auburn University (Auburn, AL)

William D. Allen, Ph.D., L.M.F.T.
Owner, Healing Bonds (Minneapolis, MN)

Claudia S. Arp and David H. Arp, MSSW
Founders and Co-Directors, Marriage Alive International, Inc. (Knoxville, TN)

Julie Baumgardner, MS, CFLE
Executive Director, First Things First (Chattanooga, TN)

Sandra Bender, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Marriage Coalition (Cleveland, OH)

Lorraine C. Blackman
African American Family Life Education Program, Indiana University

David Blankenhorn
President, Institute for American Values (New York, NY)

Susan L. Blumberg, Ph.D.
Co-author, PREP: The Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (Denver, CO)

Craig A. Cardon
Lucius N. Littauer Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Tim Clinton, Ed.D., LPC, LMFT
President, American Association of Christian Counselors (Forest, VA)

John Crouch, Esq.
Executive Director, Americans for Divorce Reform (Arlington, VA)

Rita DeMaria, Ph.D.
Director, PAIRS Programs, Council for Relationships (Philadelphia, PA)

Patricia Dixon
National African American Relationships Institute (Atlanta, GA)

William J. Doherty, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota

George Doub, M.Div., MFT
Family Wellness Associates (Scotts Valley, CA)

Dianna Durham-McLoud
President and CEO, Illiana Coalition for Family & Community Restoration (Hazel Crest, IL)

Jean Bethke Elshtain
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, University of Chicago Divinity School

Patricia Crane Ennis, MSW, CSW
National Director, The Third Option (Syracuse, NY)

Blaine Fowers, Ph.D.
Professor, Counseling Psychology, University of Miami

Robert M. Franklin
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Maggie Gallagher
President, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (Washington, DC)

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)

Norval D. Glenn, Ph.D.
Stiles Professor in American Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Leo Godzich, D.Min.
Executive Director, NAME - National Association of Marriage Enhancement (Phoenix, AZ)

Rev. Kathleen A. Goodrich
Marriage and Family Education Skills Training (MFEST) Program (Reading, PA)

Bernard G. Guerney, Jr., Ph.D.
Member, Board of Directors, Institute for the Development of Emotional and Life Skills (IDEALS); Member, Board of Directors, Association for Filial and Relationship Enhancement Methods (AFREM) (Bethesda, MD)

Rev. Dr. Ray A. Hammond
Pastor, Bethel AME Church (Boston, MA)

Senator Bill Hardiman
State Senator, Michigan

Ron Haskins
Brookings Institution (Washington, DC)

Alan J. Hawkins, Ph.D.
Professor of Family Life, Brigham Young University (Provo, UT)

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.
President and Co-Founder, Imago Institute International (Tenafly, NJ)

Thomas B. Holman, Ph.D.
Professor of Marriage, Family, and Human Development, and Chair, The RELATE Institute, Brigham Young University

Pamela Jordan, Ph.D., R.N.
University of Washington School of Nursing and Developer, Becoming Parents Program (Seattle, WA)

Michael G. Lawler
Amelia and Emil Graff Chair in Catholic Theological Studies and Director, Center for Marriage and Family, Creighton University (Omaha, NE)

Robert I. Lerman
Professor of Economics, American University (Washington, DC)

Pat Love, Ed.D.
Relationship Consuultant, Trainer, and Author (Austin, TX)

Barbara Markey, Ph.D.
FOCCUS, Inc., Center for Marriage and Family, Creighton University

Howard J. Markman, Ph.D.
President, PREPinc. and Co-Director, Center for Marital and Family Studies, University of Denver

Elizabeth Marquardt
Institute for American Values (New York, NY)

Barry W. McCarthy, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, American University

Nancy McLaren
The Loving Well Project, School of Education, Boston University

Michael J. and Harriet McManus
Marriage Savers (Potomac, MD)

Sherod Miller, Ph.D. and Phyllis A. Miller, Ph.D.
Co-Developers, COUPLE COMMUNICATIONS (Evergreen, CO)

Nisa Islam Muhammad
Founder and CEO, Wedded Bliss Foundation and Creator, Black Marriage Day (Silver Spring, MD)

David H. Olson, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota

Mary Ortwein, M.S., L.M.F.T.
Executive Director, Institute for Development of Emotional and Life Skills (IDEALS) (Frankfurt, KY)

Les Parrot, Ph.D. and Leslie Parrott, Ed.D.
Center for Relationship Development, Seattle Pacific University

Marline E. Pearson
Madison (WI) Area Technical College and Author, Love U2: Getting Smarter About Relationships, Sex, Babies, and Marriage curriculum

David Popenoe
Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, National Marriage Project, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ)

Stephen G. Post
Professor, Departments of Bioethics and Family Medicine, Case Medical School, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH)

Kay Reed
President, The Dibble Fund for Marriage Education (Berkeley, CA)

Gloria G. Rodriguez, Ph.D.
President and CEO, AVANCE, Inc. (San Antonio, TX)

Rev. Edward Santana-Grace, Ph.D., Th.M, STL, PCUSA (Bethlehem, PA)

Rob Scuka, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Executive Director, National Institute of Relationship Enhancement® (Bethesda, MD)

Kelly Simpson, MA Psychology, LMFT, CSC
Founder, Families Are Relationships Foundation (Dallas, TX)

Rozario L. Slack, DMin.
Director of Fathering and Urban Initiatives, First Things First (Chattanooga, TN)

Gary Smalley, Ph.D.
Smalley Relationship Center (Branson, MO)

Diane Sollee
Director, Coalition for Marriage, Families, and Couples Education (Washington, DC)

Katherine Shaw Spaht
Landry Professor of Law, Louisiana State University Law Center (Baton Rouge, LA)

Scott M. Stanley, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Center for Marital and Family Studies, University of Denver

Jana Staton, Ph.D.
Director, Marriage Works Learning Center (Missoula, MT)

Steven Stosny, Ph.D.
Therapist (Germantown, MD)

Peter Uhlenberg
Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

John Van Epp, Ph.D.
Founder and Director, P.I.C.K. a Partner (Medina, OH)

Linda J. Waite
Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago

Judith Wallerstein, Ph.D.
Founder, Judith Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition (Corte Madera, CA)

Roland C. Warren
President, National Fatherhood Initiative (Gaithersburg, MD)

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead
Co-Director, National Marriage Project, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ)

W. Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D.
University of Virginia

James Q. Wilson
University of California Los Angeles (Emeritus)

John Witte, Jr.,
Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Emory University (Atlanta, GA)

Sarah Woods, M.Div.
Director, Healthy Homefronts: The Anne Arundel County Coalition for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (Anne Arundel County, MD)

George S. Worgul, Jr., Ph.D., S.T.D.
Family Institute, Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA)

(Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.)