I read an article in the Orlando Sentinel recently which made my blood boil so much, I decided to write about it. Here is the introduction. I have quoted portions of the article with my comments below the quotations.
The leader of the movement to ban same-sex marriage in Florida now wants to make
it harder and more expensive for heterosexual couples to marry — and divorce.
Just as he says gay unions would undercut the institution of marriage, John Stemberger
thinks the casual way people get married and the ease by which they can divorce threatens
the foundation of society. His goal is to change that.
"Harder to get in and harder to get out," said Stemberger, head of the Orlando-based
Florida Family Policy Council.
You are going to make marriage harder to institute because of high divorce rates? Will that really solve anything? Will that tell people "hey, it is going to be harder for me to marry, so I will do it more than sleep around and have bastard children"?
Stemberger's "Strong Marriages Campaign" is promoting a Premarital Preparation bill
before the Florida Legislature that would add $100 to the state's marriage-license
fee. Those who attend eight hours of premarital counseling would get their money
back.
Ahh yes, and this is how you will do it. Tack on $100 to the fee, and boom! everything is solved. I do not see your logic here, Stemberger. In fact, I believe all you are doing is snagging more money from couples who wish to marry. Don't you understand that people are avoiding marriage and then having bastard children? Now you want to charge them $100 extra to marry. I really think you have your philosophy backwards.
Money not returned to couples would go into a Marriage Education Trust Fund, which
would provide grants to premarital counseling groups.
Premarital counseling! Now let me ask you this, oh saint. Would most people go to the counsiling to get their money back, or will they go to genuinely learn about how to keep a marriage? And what will you teach them at the sessions, that sex is bad for you? Or will you tell them, oh senator, that even though they're married, it's a good idea to abstain from sex? That "premarital counsiling" phrase is too vague for my liking.
Part of Stemberger's selling point in the bill to raise the requirements for marriage
is that divorce is costly for the state because it results in poverty programs for
households headed by single women. A 10percent reduction of Florida's 86,000 divorces
a year would save the state $100 million a year, he said.
If divorce is costly for the state, can you stop it by preventing people from marrying? Yes, you can. In other words, oh senator, you are advocating less marriages! The only people who can marry are those who have the extra $100 to dish out, and are willing to go to counseling. This will debase the importance of long-lasting marriages, my lawmaker, because the success of marriages will be attributed to "help" received before marriages, not a couple's intellectual abilities, and abilities to sort problems. You seem to be another way for psychiatry to infest the human mind--"you can only be happy if we drug you; and you can only be successful in marriage if we counsel you."
Critics contend Stemberger is using the state's budget crunch to push a conservative
Christian religious ideology disguised as public policy. Most children living in
poverty are not the products of divorce but of unwed mothers, said Judith Stacey,
a sociology professor at New York University.
Agreed. Thank you Sociology! Did you hear that, oh lawmaker, "unwed mothers." Why unwed mothers? Because people like to sleep around and not marry, that's why. Now you are making it even harder to get married.
"Cohabitation and marriage are not equal," said Live the Life founder Richard Albertson.
"The institution of marriage is so much better than cohabitation."
Stemberger said Live the Life and 12 similar "community marriage initiatives" in
the state have proven to reduce divorce. Those types of organizations would be among
those eligible for state funding, Stemberger said.
I do agree with you on this one, lawmaker; still, your means of repair are off the mark, and here is why:
Other states have enacted similar laws to encourage premarital counseling. A law
passed by Minnesota seven years ago has increased the number of couples receiving
premarital counseling from 24 percent to 36 percent. But the majority would still
rather pay the higher fees for a marriage license than go through the required 12
hours of marriage counseling.
Just what I predicted earlier. People either avoid it, or go there just to get their money back. Again I ask you, will making premarital counsiling mandatory do any good at all? According to human mentality, probably not.
Stacey argues that making divorce harder doesn't make marriage better. And making
marriage more expensive hurts those who have the lowest marriage rates to begin with:
the poor.
"One hundred dollars if you are poor is different than $100 if you are rich," she
said. "If you make it harder to get married, you will have more unmarried people.
And they will become poorer faster."
Again, I agree with the sociologist. Hats off to you, ma'm.
You have the right idea, lawmaker, but you are going about it incorrectly. Firstly, because we live in a liberal country, divorce is very easy; I agree with you on that. However, the problem (as we saw above) is mainly unwed mothers. People are not marrying anyway.
Secondly, here is my alternative to your proposal. After a couple is married (at the normal rate,) they have the option to go for marriage counseling. When they do this, they will be paid a reasonable amount--let us say $100 to attend the sessions. Next, if they divorce, they return that money to the state. If they do not, the collection agencies will be notified. This way, divorce is free, but with an indirect penalty. Also, keep in mind that I am not advocating premarital counsiling; I am advocating counsiling after the couple is married, since this is a more suitable time (they will have gotten to know each other somewhat well by then, and can sort their differences out from the beginning instead of at the beginning of the beginning.): " And one of His signs is that He created mates for you from yourselves that you may
find rest in them, and He put between you love and compassion; most surely there
are signs in this for a people who reflect" (The Holy Quran 30:21).
Ma'a sallamah,
Munawar
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