By Margaret Carlson’s judgment, an American politician who
renews his commitment to his wife and encourages his constituents
to do the same compares unfavorably to an adulterous British royal
and his mistress. The American’s offense? Arkansas Governor Mike
Huckabee tried to revive his constituents’ interest in challenging
a culture of divorce by choosing voluntary covenant marriage.
On Valentine’s Day, Gov. Huckabee, and his wife Janet, with
thousands of other couples in Little Rock’s Alltel Arena,
“upgraded” their marriage to covenant marriage status. Existing
covenant marriage statutes establish a completely voluntary
alternative to the standard “no-fault” divorce model. Couples who
choose covenant marriage must complete marriage counseling before
they wed and before they divorce. Additionally, divorces are
allowed only after a set waiting period, usually following
separation, and require justification unlike universal “no-fault.”
Huckabee’s covenant marriage ceremony was intended to renew
interest in covenant marriage in Arkansas and elsewhere. Huckabee
has pledged to cut Arkansas’s soaring divorce rate in half in ten
years.
To Margaret Carlson, such idealism is an outrage — literally.
She termed it her “Outrage of the Week” on CNN’s
Capital Gang on February 19. With her usual mix of
ignorance and snobbery (she couldn’t resist mentioning
that the Huckabees lived in a double-wide while the governor’s
mansion was renovated), Carlson argued in her syndicated column that Huckabee’s
a political huckster crassly manipulating moral issues in
preparation for a potential White House bid. While Huckabee
“flaunted his moral values… [in a] made-for-TV wedding” like
Prince Charles’s first wedding, “Charles and Camilla are likely to
do a lot more than Mike and Janet for the institution of marriage,
for the simple reason that their wedding is for them, not us.”
To Margaret Carlson, any politician who voices the idea that the
state ought to discourage divorce is an opportunist cashing in on
the culture war. But Huckabee was just laudably drawing attention
to a crisis that demands more coverage and discussion.
As an institution integral to any healthy society, marriage
deserves much more legal protection than it receives today. The
recent gay marriage battle is merely the “last stand” in a war
ignored for decades. Huckabee sees that any solution addressing the
divorce crisis must involve the law. Divorce rates are a function
of both the culture and the law. No-fault divorce laws were a
response to increased divorce rates — justified as measures to
remove the acrimony from the divorce process — and a cause of many
more. Allan Carlson of the Family Research Council cites
research in the Journal of Marriage and the Family
showing that 57,000 divorces a year nationwide are directly
attributable to no-fault divorce.
In principle, voluntary covenant marriage legislation is an
improvement and advances an important discussion. Such laws
demonstrate states’ disapproval of full, no-fault divorce and its
ills. Marriage is undoubtedly troubled and even the most symbolic
gestures on behalf of the state to shore it up are helpful.
Some states and activists are eyeing voluntary covenant marriage
legislation. Three states have already adopted it in recent years
and about half have considered it. The Indiana and Ohio state
legislatures could take a look at it this year. That the author of
the Louisiana law, Tony Perkins, is president of the Family
Research Council ensures a degree of national attention and
influence for such legislation in coming years.
But it is important to keep in mind that statistics and research
show that voluntary covenant marriage is just a start to reducing
substantially divorce rates. Only Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana
have adopted such statutes. Covenant marriage has been optional in
Arkansas since 2001, and from 2002 to 2004 only 768 couples out of
almost 112,000 marriages chose it — less than one percent.
Consequently it is not surprising that the number of divorces
hasn’t declined (in fact, it increased by one percent in 2002 and
then dipped by three percent in 2003). Arizona enacted its law in
1998. Since then divorce numbers have slightly varied: in 1998,
there were 25,798 divorces, and in 2002, 25,896.
Voluntary covenant marriage is a worthwhile token, contra
Margaret Carlson. But the law’s proponents should recognize it as
such and seek a more fundamental solution to the divorce crisis.
Ultimately, this will require facing down no-fault divorce
laws.
