WTF? The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative wants Sunday as ``Black Marriage Day.''

[rainbow4321]

http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=123365

Concerned about a steep decline in marriage rates among blacks, The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative is encouraging churches to observe Sunday as ``Black Marriage Day.''

The initiative, a state-funded program that hopes to reduce divorce rates, will host a celebration of the event Sunday at Langston University's Oklahoma City campus. Bob Davis, who works with the initiative program, hopes that at least 200 couples will attend and participate in a commitment ceremony.

The idea for ``Black Marriage Day'' was developed four years ago by the Wedded Bliss Foundation, which is a national initiative to promote marriage in the black community.

More than two-thirds of all births among blacks are to unwed mothers. The marriage rate in the U.S. fell 17 percent between 1970 and 2001, but among blacks, it dropped at twice that level. U.S. Census figures show that 43 percent of black men and 42 percent of black women have never been married. Davis said the marriage initiative hopes to make marriage as important as it once was to African slaves, who used to defy a ban on marriage and solidify their relationships by jumping over a broom.

[Frances]

1. When I was a girl, I heard people talking about

"jumping the broom" to refer to a common-law marriage.

[MistressOverdone]

2. Are the planners of this event white or African American?

That would really frame my opinion of it.

[rainbow4321]

3. Looks like they are AA (link to the foundation)

I guess it's the use of slavery era comparison that made me cringe..just a oddly worded/written article, IMHO.


http://www.weddedblissinc.com/wst_page2.html

[tammywammy]

4. And here's the website for "Black Marriage Day"

http://www.blackmarriageday.com/

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Great - more right wing dingalings

Just what we need.

Idiots that think a piece of paper called a marriage certificate has magic powers.
If you have one of these, what I call a "State sponsored screwing license",
then this piece of paper will make your spouse love you, respect you, and even get them a job.

The real problem is lack of jobs and lack of economic opportunity, not marriage. If they want stable families, they need to start providing decent jobs to people.
Leave it to right wing idiots to focus on a piece of paper that does NOT make a marriage real. It makes a marriage legal, but sure doesn't make it real.

What horseshit.

[HockeyMom]

6. Having been married 33 years,

I would hardly describe marriage as "bliss". Damned, hell of lot of hard work, pain, and lot of sacrifice. Absolutely.

If I wanted "bliss", I would have stayed single. At least then I would only have to worry about me.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. New Yorker article a couple of years ago

About a group that was showing movies to black people living in the projects in Oklahoma City, about how they should be married as part of that Federal Marriage Initiative.

They were single mothers, and were quite skeptical because they didn't have jobs, and their babies' daddies didn't have jobs either. I think the movies were probably produced by Dobson and his Focus On Your Own Damn Family (NOT) group.

The project these people lived in was in NW OKC and called Sooner Estates or something like that and the nearest place to get a job was the Penn Square Mall. Of course none of these poor people had cars to get there and the buses were not in the right routes.

[WinkyDink]

8. Let me know when it's "Winter Colors" Marriage Day, so I look my best.

[youngdem]

9. Strange indeed that a black church would refer to slave times as a goal

in ANY respect, no matter the context.

Whatever works. Here in New Orleans, the number of black children born to unwed black children is absolutely nothing short of a crisis. Whatever they can do to help.

[yurbud]

10. I will participate if a black woman will marry me