The civil government indeed has a stake in marriage. Experimental revisions in marriage, such as giving homosexual pairings the same benefits as married couples, need to be challenged. Obstacles to healthy child-raising need to be addressed, including the way our entertainment industry degrades and corrupts children, to the point that we have become in effect a culture that eats its young. Already our country is experiencing the consequences of neglecting marriage. Children born outside marriage have become the biggest casualties of the sexual revolution.
Single parents trying to raise their children alone make up the group most ensnared in poverty.
When the family is minimized, state power rushes in to fill the void by assuming responsibilities of child raising, education, and values training that are properly the calling of families. If the state were to recover a proper understanding of the family, it would recognize what it needs to leave alone and what it needs to support. The spheres of authority and responsibility would be clearer, and it would be evident that stronger, better families will make a stronger, better nation. Today the government needs to know more about marriage, not less. And married people need to stand up and be counted.