An ambitious agenda released last week is aimed at fostering a "marriage renaissance" that backers say is crucial to create strong, stable families in the United States even as the institution is embroiled in debate over who else deserves the rights and protections matrimony brings.

The 28-page document titled "What Next for the Marriage Movement?" calls for expanding marriage education programs, reforming divorce laws, building a stronger grass-roots base and creating a task force to help develop marriage-friendly public policies nationwide.

It was signed by more than 140 civic leaders - spiritual advisers, politicians, researchers, academics, legal experts, therapists, and family and marriage educators - and published by the Institute for American Values. Local signatories to the document include a handful of Brigham Young University and Utah State University professors.

Four years ago, movement organizers formally launched an effort to reverse a trend of family breakdown they said was signaled by spiraling divorce and out-of-wedlock birth rates.

Those trends have slowed, which the movement says shows a pro-marriage campaign, including education, financial incentives and national dialogue, has had an impact - a claim critics say is undeserved.

Divorce rates have modestly declined, unwed childbearing has leveled off and the proportion of children living in married-couple homes has stabilized.

"We've been arguing for the importance of marriage in the public debate for more than a decade, and community marriage education programs have mushroomed in recent years," said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, in a news release. "Research shows some of them are dramatically cutting the rates of divorce and unwed childbearing."

But marriage now faces "crisis" on two fronts: the move to blur legal distinctions between married and unmarried couples; and debate over whether to permit same-sex couples to legally marry.

In a controversial move, the statement's authors opted neither to reject nor endorse a specific position on same-sex marriage. Some conservatives refused to sign onto the document as a result.

"While I respect that, we can't let one issue divide us on something that is so incredibly important," said Alan Hawkins, a BYU family life professor.

Instead, the movement will seek to "model and help to lead a deeper national conversation on possible solutions" to the issue, an approach Hawkins said he applauds.

Likewise, the bulk of the new statement "shows the growth, maturing and evolving of the movement and how it is taking root at a grass-roots level and finding resonance at policy levels," he said.

The statement sets out seven broad goals and 86 additional ones tailored to different players in the movement, such as community organizers, marriage educators and government officials.

Critics worry that many of the movement's goals are aimed at "turning the clock back," as family scholar Stephanie Coontz puts it, particularly as states tinker with divorce law.

"I don't think that is possible, given my understanding of why and how marriage has changed, and could at times be counterproductive," said Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and national co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. "Much of what are claimed as victories of the movement are a stabilization of a new pattern of life."

Over 25 years, beginning in the late 1970s, a rapid societal transformation occurred in which sex, legal standing, inheritance rights and child rearing were decoupled from marriage, she said, and couples' roles changed.

Divorce skyrocketed, for instance, as women entered the workplace in the 1970s, she said. The rate is now falling for two reasons: Fewer people are marrying, and men have adjusted to wives who work and have increasingly shared parenting and household roles.

"It seems to me these gains are predicated on accepting the fact these choices are here to stay," Coontz said. "Policy should be aimed at making it easier to get and stayed married if people want, but also has to be supportive of people having healthier divorces if that is what they want.

"There is magical thinking going on that we can avoid dealing with all the issues raised by this massive rearrangement of family life and marriage if we come up with quick-fix solutions," she said.

Nevertheless, the momentum to keep pouring money, time and effort into such solutions shows no signs of slowing, in part because of a growing body of social science research that shows stable, healthy marriages are good for adults and children.

Among the latest news: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study this week that bolstered a century of reports that claim married adults worry less and are less likely to suffer ill health or engage in such harmful vices as smoking, drinking and inactivity.

The marriage movement's mission may get a high-level boost in support if former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt moves successfully from the Environmental Protection Administration to the top post at the Department of Health and Human Services. Leavitt was the first governor in the country to launch a marriage-boosting initiative when he set up a marriage commission in 1998.

The movement's goals are "the kinds of things I think he appreciates," Hawkins said.

But even in Utah, the marriage movement agenda has met with mixed results. The state has promoted marriage education programs and hosts annual marriage conferences.

Legislation that would give engaged couples a break on marriage license fees for taking a premarital education course failed last year. And a bill adding covenant marriage as an option, in which couples agree to seek counseling before resorting to divorce, has met with little enthusiasm.

The 2005 Legislature will consider a bill drafted by Rep. Ben C. Ferry, R-Corrine, that would require divorcing couples to go through one session of mediation if "contested issues" exist, and the conservative Utah-based Sutherland Institute wants lawmakers to eliminate "irreconcilable differences" as a reason to divorce.

Hawkins expects such divorce reform to encounter resistance, if not here at least elsewhere in the country.

"That is going to be a more difficult one, less realistic but not a pipe dream," said Hawkins, who last year was a visiting fellow with the Administration for Children and Families in Washington, D.C., which is leading the federal efforts to help couples form healthy relationships and marriages.

brooke@sltrib.com

Next steps to strengthen marriage

Goals for the second wave of the marriage movement include the following:

Create financial incentives, such as reduced license fees and tax cuts, for couples who take premarital education courses.

Make marriage and relationship education part of the public school curricula.

Increase federal funding for marriage education and programs serving low-income communities as part of welfare reform.

Combine longer waiting periods for divorce along with referrals to marriage education.

Create forums to examine legal and public policy solutions to the issue of same-sex unions.

Source: The Institute for American Values, "What Next for the Marriage Movement?"