June 12, 2003
Allan Carlson Calls for
Rolling Back No-Fault Divorce at US Senate
No-fault divorce should be ended and fault
grounds restored to divorce proceedings, according to Dr. Allan Carlson,
President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society (http://www.profam.org). In
a lecture delivered in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC,
entitled "Marriage on Trial: Why We Must Privilege and Burden the Traditional
Marriage Bond," Dr. Carlson outlined trends in
the deterioration of marriage and offered several policies
recommendations. Repealing no-fault was his first
recommendation. Dr. Carlson said it was imperative that parties in divorce
proceedings be required to take legal resposibility for their
actions.
In response to Dr. Carlson's lecture, Dr. Wade
Horn, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, described the Bush
administration's proposal for the federal government to encourage "Healthy
Marriages". Dr. Horn heads the Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), which will oversee the Healthy Marriages program under the
auspices of the child support enforcement system, which it also
administers. Dr. Horn said it is appropriate for the government to be
involved in marriage counseling in part because the government already
regulates the private lives of noncustodial parents in matters of visitation and
child support. In his remarks, Dr. Horn
made no reference to Dr. Carlson's call to reinstate fault grounds in
divorce.
The lecture was sponsored by the
Family Research Council (FRC). High-profile conservative political groups
like FRC have been relunctant to take on issues of divorce, custody, child
support, and parental rights. But this may be changing. By
sponsoring Dr. Carlson, FRC (where Dr. Carlson currently holds a fellowship) may
be indicating a broadening of its approach to protecting the family to
include the threat from unregulated divorce.
Dr. Carlson is not a
conventional conservative. He is a highly respected scholar known for
avoiding doctrinaire positions. Like the English controversialist G.K.
Chesterton, whom he quoted in today's lecture, Dr. Carlson attributes much
of the deterioration of the family to the effects of industrial
capitalism. His recent prominence in Washington could be influential in
shifting the terms of debate on family policy toward areas that have previously
been avoided by both major political parties.
Stephen Baskerville