|
|
RICHMOND--Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine announced yesterday a package of family-friendly proposals that include creating a voluntary "covenant marriage" option in Virginia--an issue usually championed by conservatives.
Covenant marriage is meant to strengthen the commitment of marriage by requiring couples who choose covenant marriages to undergo counseling before marriage and before they consider divorce.
In the three states that have adopted covenant marriage laws--Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona--couples who choose covenant marriage can get divorced only by showing that their spouses committed adultery, or a felony, or abused them or their children. Otherwise they have to be separated a year--two if they have children--before they can get a divorce, and they have to undergo counseling.
Kaine's bill is not a strict covenant marriage bill in that it doesn't increase any of the restrictions on divorce; couples who chose it would simply have to undergo counseling before marriage and if they were considering divorce.
"You wouldn't want to make it harder for somebody in an abusive situation," said Kaine, whose wife is a juvenile and domestic relations court judge.
Kaine said the bill would "let couples express their lifetime commitment in a deeper way.
"Marriage is sort of the bedrock of society," he said. "Anything you can do to make marriages stronger is a good thing."
Covenant marriage is an issue that has traditionally been pushed--when it's pushed at all--by conservatives.
Kaine's championing of covenant marriage, even though his bill doesn't go as far as most covenant marriage bills in restricting divorce, has many calling it a political maneuver designed to soften his liberal image in anticipation of running for governor in 2005.
"It's not the pure Louisiana covenant marriage," said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. "It's just something he can label covenant marriage so people will say, 'Oh, Tim Kaine's more conservative than I thought.' But he does need something like this. I don't think in and of itself it will be convincing. But Tim's profile is very liberal.It is political positioning by Lt. Gov. Kaine, there's no doubt about that. And that's ok. He's in a political office, and one suspects he's running for another political office."
"Everything I do, because of the position I'm in, people will talk about what the politics are," Kaine said. "For people who know me well, these are not surprising things."
Covenant marriage is an issue that has never been terribly popular with Virginia lawmakers, who have quashed at least two such bills in years past.
Those bills were introduced by Del. Robert McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, who hadn't planned to introduce a covenant marriage bill again this year--until he saw Kaine's.
McDonnell's new bill, which has been drafted but not filed yet, is a traditional covenant marriage bill--it requires counseling and imposes strict requirements for covenant couples to divorce.
"It's a very interesting turn of events," McDonnell said of Kaine's bill.
Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore--also widely held to be running for governor in 2005--said, tongue-in-cheek, that Kaine's bill is "a move in the right direction.
"Hopefully, the lieutenant governor can cause some of the Democrats who killed the bills for the past few times to come over and make sure it passes," Kilgore said. "Welcome aboard on this issue."
But Republicans are wrong to assume they own the patent on family-friendly legislation, said Del. Albert Pollard, D-Whitestone.
"There's a concept out there that issues of family preservation are the province of one party," Pollard said. "That is wrong. The idea that marriage is a sacred bond is not unique to one party."
Kaine's legislative package also includes a bill to reclassify egregious nonpayment of child support--defined as being six months in arrears or missing six payments in a 12-month period.
The bill would make such nonpayment a felony offense instead of a misdemeanor. Felony warrants are entered into national police databases, which would make it easier to find a deadbeat parent.
Kaine also is pushing a bill to require clergy to report suspected child abuse.