Would you want the government ‘helping’ your marriage?

"According to HHS guidelines, I have several thousand forms for you to fill out before we can get started."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is developing a new program designed to help keep marriages strong. In a ‘truth-is-stranger-than-fiction’ way, the information of the program’s demonstration and evaluation was released today through the Federal Register.

The program, being called the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI), is funded through Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grants and authorized by the Social Security Act. Aimed at low income families, the program is intended to “support healthy marriage directly and to encourage community changes that increase support for healthy marriages and improve child and family well being.”

The purpose of this information collection is to conduct a follow up survey of respondents from Wave 1 who live in the communities where CHMI demonstrations are operating, and a survey of CR141 program participants. The impact evaluation will assess the effects of community healthy marriage initiatives by comparing family and child wellbeing outcomes in the CR141 communities with similar outcomes in comparison communities that are well matched to the demonstration project sites.

Obviously, someone in the HHS is either: A) sorry that the government has all but destroyed the family through programs such as welfare, and thinks they can correct the problem with yet another government program; or B) trying to finish the job.

Regardless of the reasons and motivations, the government has absolutely no business interfering with anyone’s marriage – even if it is to just offer advice. There is no Constitutional mandate for such a program, and is in direct competition with the traditional marriage counseling services of the church. And, according to the release, over three thousand man-hours per year are required for this program. Your tax dollars at work.

Not that many priests or pastors would complain about the government playing in their sandbox, but it is just another way that bureaucrats are trying to replace the church.

Link to the release is here.

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