Jonathan Lange: Family Issues Should Be Bipartisan, Again

“Marriage is the foundation of a successful society.” 

“Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children.”

 “Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.”

These three statements are not my own. Nor are they from some religious institution, conservative think tank or political party. They are United States Public Law 104-193. 

These words were sponsored by former senator and future president Joseph Biden, 29 years ago this month. He put them up front in S.1867 – A bill to restore the American family. 

They were adopted verbatim into H.R. 3734 and passed by Congress. The vote wasn’t even close. In the House of Representatives, 358 yeas overwhelmed the 54 nay votes.

And in the Senate, it was 74 to 24. Wyoming’s entire delegation (Sens. Alan Simpson and Craig Thomas, and Rep. Barbara Cubin) voted with Republicans and Democrats alike to put it on the president’s desk.

President Bill Clinton signed it into law. And, to this day, it is still the law of the United States of America. 

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

The American family has been under sustained attack at least since an activist Supreme Court overruled the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013. But they have never overruled the reasons that we must defend marriage.

The congressional findings above are not partisan boiler plate. They are supported by the ponderous weight of decades-long research.

Those congressional findings go on to stipulate: “The negative consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth on the mother, the child, the family, and society are well documented.” 

Among these harms, Congress noted: 

• “Young women 17 and under who give birth outside of marriage are more likely to go on public assistance and to spend more years on welfare once enrolled.” 
• “Children born out-of-wedlock have a substantially higher risk of being born at a very low or moderately low birth weight.”
• “Children born out-of-wedlock are more likely to experience low verbal cognitive attainment, as well as more child abuse, and neglect.”
• “Children born out-of-wedlock were more likely to have lower cognitive scores, lower educational aspirations, and a greater likelihood of becoming teenage parents themselves.”
• “Being born out-of-wedlock significantly reduces the chances of the child growing up to have an intact marriage.”
• “Children born out-of-wedlock are three times more likely to be on welfare when they grow up.”

All of these combine to make the defense of marriage more than a matter of morality. It is necessary for the welfare of the children, for the welfare of the mother, for the welfare of fathers, and for the economic and social welfare of the nation. 

Marriage and family are not Freedom Caucus issues. How can they be when such a bitter critic of the Freedom Caucus—the late Alan Simpson—voted for these findings?

Neither is the restoration of the American family a Republican issue. How can it be when the most recent Democrat president sponsored “A bill to restore the American family” premised on these findings?

In fact, the public laws on marriage, which were overwhelmingly passed almost three decades ago, were the fruit of work begun by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) when he was serving Democrat president Lyndon Johnson. 

Moynihan issued a famous report on the harms done to men, women and societies by misguided government policies. When welfare discourages the formation and maintenance of the only institution designed to keep a child’s mother and father under the same roof, everybody suffers.

The Moynihan Report, which came out 60 years ago, is worth reading. It has been called controversial by the gas-lighting class. It is anything but. It is common sense backed up by detailed analysis of hard facts. 

Moynihan does not blame the victims of broken families, broken neighborhoods, and broken lives. He lays the blame on ham-handed, big-government, social welfare policies. Not only do they not deliver what they have promised, all too often they harm the very people that they purport to protect. 

Had Rep. Harriet Hageman not co-sponsored legislation to designate June as Family Month, I would probably be writing about something else.

But Hageman’s encouragement to set aside June “for the purpose of rededicating our Nation to the importance of this essential unit,” challenged me to dig into the facts. I wanted to know why “the traditional nuclear family is the foundation of a healthy society.” What I learned as a result floored me.

Had I not deliberately sought it, I would never have found it. The propaganda outlets of our day would like you to forget the past. Leave it buried by the sands of time.

But Biden’s 1996 bill, and the Moynihan Report behind it are buried treasures. Our legislators would serve us well by reading the federal law that was passed 29 years ago this summer and employing its forgotten principles and federal resources to restore Wyoming families.

Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.