Bush renews marriage funds vow

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The Bush administration yesterday reiterated its intention, first announced in 2002, to spend $300 million annually to promote "healthy marriages."

President Bush and his administration "remain committed to those proposals and he will continue to work under the welfare reauthorization to implement these proposals and get these proposals passed. And so I think you can expect that that will continue to be a part of his budget proposal," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday.

Mr. Bush urged Congress to pass welfare-reform legislation that already contains measures to allocate $1.5 billion over five years to demonstration projects and activities to promote healthy relationships and marriage.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said recently that welfare reform is "a priority" and could be considered on the Senate floor by early March.

The landmark 1996 welfare-reform law expired Sept. 30, 2002, but has been extended since then. It opened the door for government promotion of marriage by adding support to two-parent families and discouraging parents from have children out of wedlock.

Several states, notably Oklahoma and Arizona, already have used welfare funds to subsidize media campaigns, studies, conferences and relationship classes aimed at explaining the importance of healthy marriages and relationships.

The $300 million-a-year marriage funding "is the most important part of welfare reform," said Robert Rector, welfare analyst of the Heritage Foundation.

Several welfare analysts and congressional aides said yesterday homosexual "marriage" is not connected to welfare marriage money.

"The issues are completely unrelated," Mr. Rector said. "Traditional marriage is deeply threatened both by out-of-wedlock childbearing and divorce, and this [marriage] initiative is intended to address both those issues."

"We have major problems among lots of low-income families with them trying to afford raising their kids," said one House aide.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the Bush administration should "recognize that cohabitation and divorce are not the only threats to the institution of marriage."

"Efforts to redefine marriage out of existence must be stopped and the president's support of a federal marriage amendment would go a long way in making sure that marriage is not only promoted, but protected," Mr. Perkins said.