Saturday, July 19, 1997

Louisiana reforms marriage, divorce laws

By Mike McManus

Louisiana Governor Mike Foster signed a bill this week that is America's first state law to reform marriage and divorce law by allowing couples to have a "Covenant Marriage" in which they agree "to love, honor, and care for one another as husband and wife for the rest of our lives."

It doesn't sound revolutionary? No other state permits couples swear before a court clerk: "We understand that a Covenant Marriage is for life. If we experience marital difficulties, we commit ourselves to take all reasonable efforts to preserve our marriage including marital counseling." After Aug. 15, 1997 a couple marrying in Louisiana can have such a marriage.

What if counseling doesn't work? The couple agrees that "only when there has been a complete and total breech of the marital covenant commitment" as in the case of adultery, abandonment, imprisonment, physical abuse, or having lived apart for two years can the injured person file for divorce. The law thus reinstates the fault-based divorce system existing before "no-fault" laws swept the country, pushing divorce rates up as much as 25 percent.

However, Louisiana couples can also choose to have a marriage "for as long as love shall last," as some modern vows put it. When he was Secretary of Education, William Bennett attended such a wedding of a colleague. Afterward, he sent a wedding gift of paper plates!

The law gives couples a choice between a fortified marriage and a contract written with fading ink that can disappear if either gets disillusioned. It was attacked only by the ACLU, and sailed through the Louisiana House by a stunning 99-0 vote, and the Senate by a 37-1 vote.

After the vote, I was asked to debate ACLU's Martha Kegel on MSNBC. She said the law was "an attempt to use government to enforce one religious doctrine regarding divorce."

I replied, "I thought the ACLU believed in freedom. This bill gives people a choice."

Four leaders are responsible for the new law. One is an anonymous judge who invited Rep. Tony Perkins, 34, a conservative Christian in his second term, Rep. Jim Donelon, a 16-year veteran and a Catholic, and Catherine Spaht, 51, an LSU professor of law to lunch together.

Perkins complained that pro-family advocates are always on the defensive, fighting off bad legislation, and longed for a way to be on the offensive, pro-active. Ms. Spaht said the best place to start is with marriage: "I'm in the age group in which women stayed home and reared children whose husbands are now leaving them for a new model."

The judge said he heard about a bill called "Covenant Marriage" introduced in Florida by Rep. Daniel Webster. Spaht was familiar with the bill that foundered like all other attempts to reform no-fault, and pledged to research it.

Perkins said "We create law after law to try to address problems like juvenile delinquency and teen pregnancy issues that are only symptoms, all of which lead back to one source broken homes. Children in broken homes are disproportionately involved in anti-social behavior.

"As I see it, society is hemorrhaging at the family. It is like a chest wound. We are trying to put a compression bandage on so that we can get some help before it dies. From a Christian perspective, the family is at the core of society. ... Divorce is not an option in my family."

Indeed, Perkins first years of marriage were rocky, but the couple found hope at Marriage Encounter.

To sell the Covenant Marriage idea, he personally spoke to every state legislator. Spaht brilliantly drafted the bill to require couples to get premarital counseling so that they will understand the importance of the choice. Louisiana thus is America's first state to require marriage prep. The pastor must sign a notarized attestation that the parties were counseled.

The state's Catholic bishops are considering whether to require all Catholic marriages to be Covenant Marriages, since the church does not recognize divorce.

A surprising critic of the law is Gary Palmer, director of the Alabama Family Alliance who thinks the problem is not with marriage, but divorce law: "Legislators lack the political will or moral character" to reform no-fault divorce law directly, and are trying "this back door approach."

Mich. Rep. Jessie Dalman who tried hard to reform no-fault directly, is "delighted with the innovative law," and is willing to back a similar bill since "It will push down the divorce rate."

Louisiana is a lighthouse, sending rays of hope across America's bleak marital landscape.