Marriage. . . is a damnably serious business, particularly around Boston.
- John P. Marquand, "The Late George Apley"

The institution of marriage is so much in the news of late that a description of its state seems in order.

The report begins in 1996 when former president Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act. That bill was a bit of a surprise since it didn't do what its name suggests. It was not to prevent the likes of Newt Gingrich and other members of Congress from divorcing and remarrying wives. The bill had a different goal. It said, among other things, that: "The word marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman, as a husband and wife, and the word spouse refers only to the person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." It prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages and permitted states to ignore same-sex licenses issued by other states.

Fast forwarding brings us to July 2003, when we learned that President Bush was not satisfied with the language in the statute that described marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman. . . ." Mr. Bush said that his staff was looking at ways to "codify" his belief that marriage was limited to a union between a man and a woman. His spokesman said it was possible that a constitutional amendment might be needed to protect the institution of marriage — by denying any kind of legal status to those who preferred relationships with people of their own sex.

Two months after the president's ruminations, the Senate Finance Committee approved the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families bill. Like the bill earlier passed by the House, the bill provides. $2 billion in funding to encourage people to get married. (The full Senate is to consider the bill in March and its passage seems likely.) The bill provides that states must use federal funds to "encourage the formation and maintenance of healthy two-parent married families." Each bill provides $500 million for research, demonstrations and technical assistant to be spent on marriage promotion activities such as public advertising campaigns on marriage and skills needed to increase marital stability, education in high schools on the value of marriage and similar programs.

On Nov. 18, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gays have a right to marry in that state. Not surprisingly, that ruling rekindled the president's interest in the Constitution. In a December interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Mr. Bush said: "If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman. . . . The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they're allowed to make, so long as it's embraced by the state. . . unless the judicial rulings undermine the sanctity of marriage, in which case we may need a constitutional amendment." (In the State of the Union speech, the president declined to call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage but said if judges forced their will on people, "the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage." He did not say that divorce was bad.)

Earlier, on Jan. 14, Mr. Bush had let it be known that he wants to provide $1.5 billion for training to help couples develop interpersonal skills that sustain "healthy marriages." An adviser who thinks Mr. Bush's standing among conservatives may be shaky said: "This is a way for the president to address the concerns of conservatives and to solidify his conservative base." It may not solidify his base among other groups.

The Pew Research Center said that in 2002, 74 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats surveyed voiced opposition to government programs aimed at promoting marriage. That's probably because they don't know what the money will be used for. They soon will.

Wade Horn, assistant secretary of health and human services for children and families, said the administration is spending about $7 million a year on pilot programs to promote marriage. It wants to expand those programs using the $1.5 billion. Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, N.J. has a $19.8 million federal contract to measure the effectiveness of premarital education programs that focus on high school students, young adults interested in marriage, engaged couples and unmarried couples at the moment of a child's birth. Fiscal conservatives can only hope that by the time the money is appropriated the studies will be completed and we'll know if the money will be well spent or wasted.

Christopher Brauchli is a Boulder lawyer and and writes a weekly column for the Knight Ridder news service. He can be reached at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu

Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera and the E.W. Scripps Company

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