Mike Moser "I Say" Published Jan. 28, 2005

There is only one flaw with covenant marriages

Feel-good legislation looks good on the books but to me this covenant marriage bill is another case of the government meddling in personal affairs of its citizens with the desired effect never becoming reality.

And I am left wondering how Memphis solon Sen. John Ford will vote.

About the only good thing about the bill is the fact that it is a voluntary option to a regular marriage license and generally will cost no more or less than a traditional license to wed.

The plan is for couples planning to get married to opt for a covenant marriage which requires them to attend counseling when troubles arise, and wait longer for a divorce to be granted. The idea is to lower Tennessee's high divorce rate.

States that have enacted a covenant marriage bill, however, report that the prevention of divorces has not happened. Proponents say that is because not many couples are opting for covenant marriage. And therein lies my argument.

Living in a throw-away society where we fix nothing and just toss what is not working out onto yesterday's trash heap, covenant marriage is no different than traditional marriage. It takes two and it takes the desire of two to work.

All the counseling in the world, nor all the legislation in the world, can make a couple's marriage successful if one party is of a different mind. To make a long story short, it is a society issue and not a government issue.

Thinking about covenant marriages led me to wonder how Sen. John Ford of Memphis will vote on the proposal.

Ford was in court late last year to stop a hike in child support, requested by the third mother of his children. I find it interesting that Lt. Gov. John Wilder continues to allow Ford to chair the senate committee on child welfare.

The Memphis Democrat told the court that he has two homes and when the referee in the case commented that she found that unusual, Ford quipped, "I know people who got five."

One household actually contains Ford's ex-wife and their children. This is the same woman who in 2002 ran her car into the home of Ford's long-time girlfriend and their two children. That girlfriend is now six-months pregnant with another Ford child.

And a third woman is wanting more support for her 10-year-old child whom Ford fathered.

A columnist for The Tennessean wrote this week, "Ford's antics would be hysterical if not for the truth that his kind of behavior is destroying more black families than the most vicious white supremacist ever could."

Which brings me to what a local minister told me around Christmas about the state mandatory pre-marriage counseling: "All the counseling in the world is not going to help two people if they don't have love for each other in their hearts."

The General Assembly can pass the law. It won't hurt a thing. The law will please the moral right but will it be anything more than a feel-good piece of legislation?

I don't think it will help anything and it sure won't change the mind set of our throw-away society. Society has to first change its heart.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.