The Manhattan Declaration after ten years

For nearly fifty years millions of men, women and children have been robbed by state and federal governments. I am not referring either to taxes or to federally planned inflation. I am referring to the government’s dereliction of one of its most basic duties—to enforce marriage contracts.


Marriage, of course, is far more than a contract. It is a sacred covenant. But it is a covenant with an economic impact. The Christian Church recognizes that marriage signifies the holy bond between Jesus and His Church. Unbelievers recognize that it bestows tangible goods on husband, wife and any children that are conceived in the conjugal union.


Tax privileges and social standing are not the tangible goods of marriage. Rather, marriage’s unique ability to raise upstanding citizens causes governments to incentivize it and societies to honor it. Most fundamentally, governments the world over honor marriage by recognizing and enforcing the legal contract at its heart.


When a woman enters motherhood, (Latin: “matrimony,” French “marriage”), her energies are refocused in fundamental ways. The physical, psychological and emotional demands of pregnancy and child rearing impact every area of her life. Marriage serves as a legal contract to guarantee her the support of the child’s father both during these affected years and beyond.


When a man enters fatherhood (patrimony), his life changes as well. His chromosomal connection to the child creates a legal and social obligation that is enforceable by law, whether he is married to the mother or not. Marriage not only seals his obligations to the mother it also obliges the mother to cooperate with him in the raising of the child.


Children are the greatest beneficiaries of these mutual obligations. When mother and father are cooperating on the child’s behalf, the child’s “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is protected. Greater cooperation means greater benefits, and lack of parental cooperation robs the child of its birthright.

When a couple files for a marriage certificate, they have every expectation that the government issuing the certificate will enforce the contract. But so-called “no-fault divorce” laws changed that. The first such law was passed in 1970. Soon, every state was reneging on its promise to enforce marriage contracts. Libertarians and libertines said, ‘keep the government out of people’s lives. If they want to get a divorce, they should be free to get a divorce.’


The problem is that married couples practically never want a divorce. Rather, one party to the marriage wants a divorce while the other does not. “No-fault divorce” laws do not make the government neutral. They put it on the side of whoever values the marriage least.


A woman or a man who accepted the economic disadvantages of child-rearing based on a promise for the future is defrauded when those promises are not kept. A government that fails to hold people to their promises becomes party to that fraud. Even worse, the children who ought to be protected from the loss of life, emotional support, education and inheritance, are completely disregarded.

Divorce courts should admonish divorce-minded parents to work it out for the sake of their children. Instead, they usually rubber-stamp the breakup. All that remains is for the welfare state clumsily to micromanage the broken home and throw money at the child, as though that could substitute for losing a parent.


Tomorrow (November 20) marks ten years since 152 Christian leaders released the Manhattan Declaration. Since then, over a half-million others have signed it. I am one of them.


The Declaration was the brainchild of the late Chuck Colson. He asked Drs. Robert George and Timothy George (unrelated) to draft a document that recognized both the public and the churchly nature of marriage. He recognized that anti-Christian religious forces often use the religious nature of marriage to delegitimize and silence Christians who speak about public marriage policy.


The Manhattan Declaration is an appeal to everyone who considers himself a Christian to recognize that the sacred nature of marriage is no reason to be silent about its public benefits. Rather, precisely because Christians know both the sacred and the secular value of marriage, they owe it to their secular neighbors to defend their marriage even when the government will not.

Since marriage so deeply impacts the welfare of children, the Manhattan Declaration also calls upon every Christian to speak in defense of the life of every child conceived—whether in the marriage bed or in a laboratory. Christian scriptures teach that the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of marriage are two sides of the same coin. And it recognizes that the calling to defend the lives and marriages of Americans who do not know this teaching is a duty of love for all people.


The Declaration states: “Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense... We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”


Those trying to intimidate Christians into silence have only grown louder in the decade since these words were written. They have passed laws that strip infants of legal defense both before and after birth. They continue to press a radical agenda that allows embryonic children to be bought and sold on the open market—and do precious little to halt the trafficking of older children. All the while, there is a never-ending parade of government-sanctioned indoctrination aimed at destroying the marriages of generations to come.


To shield these anti-child and anti-marriage policies from criticism, they carelessly bludgeon fellow citizens with labels meant to intimidate and silence. They press for so-called “hate crime” laws that use the power of government to silence their opponents. Laramie and Jackson have already passed such laws that reach into the sanctuary of churches to prohibit sermons and ceremonies that they deem offensive. These laws have yet to be enforced. They are too valuable as intimidation to risk their being overturned in a court of law.


Measured by its impact on public policy, the Manhattan Declaration doesn’t seem to have done much after ten years. But public policy was not its chief aim. The Declaration was and remains a personal pledge. Signers promise to continue speaking and acting in defense of their neighbors no matter what the cultural or political costs. By that measure, its effectiveness can only be measured by you.

Frederica Matthewes-Green, a Greek Orthodox scholar, captured this thought in her own reflections on the Declaration, “[E]very generation faces an issue that draws a line between those who will stand up for what is right, and those who just go along. It’s only the bravest who take a stand, and continue to bear witness even when others mock them and misrepresent them; only the bravest keep standing when, from a worldly perspective, the cause looks lost. Only the most dedicated people are willing to keep working for change, when the struggle is all uphill and they reap nothing but rejection.”


The Wyoming Pastors Network was formed to encourage and equip anyone who answers this call. Marriage, life and religious freedom are worth defending because people are worth defending. Read the Declaration and take a stand.