Ruth Institute Blog

Report on the Panel on “the Politics of Marriage and Family” at the 2009 National Summit on Marriage, Parenting and Families at Hampton University.

By Lynn D. Wardle, Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University.

I was honored to participate in the recent National Summit on Marriage, Parenting and Families at Hampton University, September 29-30, 2009, co-sponsored by the National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting.  My panel on Wednesday addressed “The Politics of Marriage and Family” and included in addition to myself former Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears of the Georgia Supreme Court, former Judge Arthur Burnett of the District of Columbia Superior Court, two Virginia elected officials (a state Senator and a city councilman), and Theodore M. Shaw, former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund was moderator.  
The principal focus of the Summit was on addressing issues concerning the state of marriage, parenting and family in the African-American community.  That is especially important for (as Kay Hymowitz has so eloquently explained in “Marriage and Caste”) there “two Americas” — separate and unequal.  One is relatively rich, the other one poor; one thriving and the other struggling; one is mostly white, while the other largely of minority races (especially African-American). This is also true particularly of and within the African-American communities; there are two communities: one is married, the other unmarried (single or cohabiting or divorced); one bearing children after marriage, the other bearing children out of wedlock; one making progress, the other falling behind; and marriage is the major and most significant difference between the two communities and the two Americas.
The meaning of marriage and family are the defining issues of this generation; they are the primary civil rights issues of our day; and the protection of the institution of marriage is the major civil rights battle of our time.  How these issues are resolved will determine the future of America, and of African-American communities in this country – whether they prosper or wither, whether they grow of dwindle, whether they flourish or languish.
There are two major categories of issues.  The practical marriage formation/breakdown issues are enormous; we now see a culture that celebrates cohabitation in lieu of marriage; childbearing out of wedlock not in marriage; a consumer idea of marriage instead of a commitment idea of marriage marriage; that views marriage as a “disposable” commodity via easy divorce instead of a life-long relationship of commitment and trust.  For example, the number of cohabiting couples has risen from approximately 500,000 in 1970 to over 6,000,000 in 2006, and the percentage of households made up cohabiting couples has grown from 0.8% to 5.4% in that time.  The percentage of population married has fallen from 71.7% to 50.0% in the same period.  The percentage of American children born out of wedlock has risen from 10.0% to 38.5% during the same time, and in the African-American community it has doubled from 34.9% to 69.3%.  Divorces have risen from 2.2 per 1000 population in 1960 to 4.1 in 2005, and the the percentage of adults divorced has quadrupled.  There is a crisis.
The major conceptual issue concerns legalization of same-sex marriage which strips marriage of the conjugal meaning and weakens the link between marriage and procreation and parenting.   The practical and conceptual issues are related: it is not mere coincidence that the movement to accept non-marital cohabitation and to legalize same-sex marriage began to grow and emerge just one generation after the legalization of no-fault divorce on demand in America, when children who grew up on broken homes became adults and began to reject marriage and search for alternative kinds of relationships.
African-Americans oppose legalizing same-sex marriage more firmly and consistently that most other groups in America.  For example, the African-American vote in favor of State Marriage Amendments (barring SSM) exceeds the vote of all Democrats in all (30) states, and the African-American vote in favor of State Marriage Amendments (barring SSM) exceeds the vote of all voters generally in many states.  Exit polls in California reported that 70% of African-Americans who voted there voted for Prop 8.  As the authors of a study entitled “Why Did Californians Pass Proposition 8?” put it, under one model of analysis, “Blacks were expected to be 16 points less supportive [of same-sex marriage] than comparable whites, while Latinos and Asians were statistically indistinguishable from whites.” Gregory B. Lewis, & Charles W. Gossett, Why Did Californians Pass Proposition 8? http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/2009092401.pdf (for 2009 American Political Science Association annual meeting, Toronto, Ontario), at p. 31.
Likewise poll data in Washington, D.C. confirm African-American opposition to same-sex marriage.  “A poll conducted in May for same-sex marriage supporters found that whites in the District back same-sex marriage by more than 8 to 1, while blacks were against it 48 percent to 34 percent.”
This is the critical civil rights issue of the day.  Legalizing same-sex marriage will undermine the civil rights of those who do not approve of or who oppose same-sex marriage. Those who oppose same-sex marriage will be simply bigots. Opposition to same-sex marriage be “invidious discrimination.” Changing the core definition of marriage in the law will lead to clashes between law and religion and diminution of protection for religious liberty. Robert McCartney, Same-sex marriage: Exploring the Racial Divide, Washington Post, September 20, 2009, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/19/AR2009091902376.html  (seen 090921).
There is strong support for the concept of marriage in the African-American community. I commend those who are seeking to build that support within and to strengthen practical marriage and family living practices of the African-American community. The National Summit was a very important step in that cause.