Partners News No 7 - April 2001
By Dave Percival
Is it time for Marriage Movement UK??
On 29th June 2000, a group of concerned citizens in the US started the Marriage Movement. This is how they describe themselves:
The Marriage Movement: A Statement of Principles
We come together as supporters of something new: a grass-roots movement to strengthen marriage. We come together to give public voice and direction to this new movement—to explain our intentions, specify our goals, and seek the support of our fellow citizens.
We are teachers and scholars, marriage counselors and marriage educators. We are judges, divorce lawyers, and legal reformers. We are clinicians, service providers, policy analysts, social workers, women’s leaders, religious leaders, and advocates for responsible fatherhood. We are people of faith, asking God’s blessing in the great task before us. We are agnostics and humanists, committed to moral and spiritual progress. We are women and men, liberals and conservatives, of different races and ethnic groups. We come together to pursue a common goal. We come together for a marriage movement.
Together they prepared a comprehensive and well researched paper that set out
- Where Do We Stand Today? The Contemporary Marriage Crisis
- Is Change Possible? The Case Against Despair
- What is Marriage? Six Dimensions
- Is Marriage a Private Matter? The Public Costs of Divorce
- Does the Public Care? Evidence of a Growing Marriage Movement
- A Call to the Nation
Is it time for something equivalent in the UK?? A number of initiatives are currently being discussed to draw together all the voices in UK to try to create a more coherent and strategic debate on the importance of marriage to a secure society. The "Marriage Charter", launched during National Marriage Week by Future Way Trust, has gained thousands of signatures and certainly illustrates the extent of ground-swell opinion that supports stable marriage in society.
Our role at 2-in-2-1 is to provide the network for communication for any and all the organisations working in the field; that's why:-
- we have carried the Marriage Charter for Future Way Trust, and promoted it from our front page
- carried the discussion form for Concorde - the initiative from Salvation Army
- we have provided the "Partners Forum" to enable discussion between the organisations here. We have now removed the requirement for a password to get in to make it even easier for your to share your views.
So do tell us, are you and your organisation ready to work with others in the field to create a UK Marriage Movement - or shall we just let apathy, and fear of each others interests stand in our way - please let us know through the Partners Forum!
