The Conservative Case for More Pro-Marriage Democrats

It’s not every day that someone right of center gives former President Barack Obama credit for anything, but National Marriage Week (February 7-14) is a perfect opportunity to observe how far most Democrats have strayed from their former standard-bearer on family matters.  

As both candidate and president, President Obama regularly drew a connection between family structure and social outcomes. He gave a Father’s Day speech in Chicago during his 2008 presidential campaign that noted half of black children live in single-parent homes. He took absent dads to task for failing to realize that “what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child—it’s the courage to raise one.”  

His 2013 speech in Chicago about strengthening the economy for the middle class included his belief that “strong, stable families” are the most important ingredients for success, “which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood.” 

The responses to Obama in both instances point to one reason very few, if any, elected Democrats speak this way today. His progressives detractors accused him of speaking down to black voters and blaming them for the socioeconomic conditions. They insisted he use his bully pulpit instead to spotlight jobs, education spending, affordable housing, criminal justice disparities, and access to healthcare.  

In short, progressives wanted him to focus on every institution except the institution of marriage, and every structure aside from family structure. Democrats got the message. Today they rarely, if ever, speak publicly about marriage the way Obama did.  

President Obama made history as the nation’s first black president. It would be a shame if he also ended up being the last pro-marriage Democrat.

Perhaps many don’t fully grasp the magnitude of the issue. In 1965, married couples comprised over 70% of all American households. Only 8% of children were born to unmarried parents. Today, married couples make up 47% of U.S. households, 40% of children are born outside marriage, and roughly 25% live with a single parent. 

The aversion progressives have to the “m-word” is one reason family policy has become the newest battleground in the culture war. This explains why conservatives promoting policies and cultural norms that would lead to stronger marriages and more secure children are frequently painted as anti-woman.  

But hostility to marriage and family structure—as policy matters—is bad for everyone, especially the youngest members of the household. Children have a right to the affection and protection of the man and woman who created them, and that right is best exercised in a loving home with their married biological parents. 

Even if Democrats reject this framing of family structure, they should at least consider viewing the issue through an equity lens. In 2024, just 5% of children in married-parent families were living below the poverty line, compared to 31% of children in families headed by a single mother, and 14% of children in families headed by a single father. Children living with their married birth parents also earn better grades and are less likely to be suspended or expelled.  

One reason Democrats avoid the issue is fear of offending their most loyal voters. But according to the CDC, 77% of black children in Washington, D.C. are born to unmarried parents, while 93% of white children are born to married parents. It is highly unlikely that a 70-percentage-point racial disparity in any other area would be met with such deafening silence by progressives in Congress, academia, or the media.  

The good news is that change is possible with just a modicum of political courage and rhetorical clarity. In 2013, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a campaign to reduce teen pregnancy that gave young people the three-step plan known as the Success Sequence — “finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children” — that would virtually guarantee them a life free from poverty. Any leader could run similar ads today. Indeed, a few states are currently considering Success Sequence programs. 

Elected officials can also incorporate family structure into program priorities, data collection, and policy analysis. For some, that will mean highlighting the work of local churches providing counseling about marriage to cohabiting couples with children. Others might decide to begin reporting education outcome data by family structure. And some might consider halting or changing family programs that provide cash assistance to mothers and their children without any acknowledgment of fathers.  

Many young people today have no reason to believe that marriage should come before children—or to aspire to get married one day—because no one in their lives has ever communicated the message that marriage and healthy societies are linked. They don’t hear it from their parents or their elected officials. This can change, but not if matters of hearth and home are seen by progressives as right-wing obsessions.  

President Obama made history as the nation’s first black president. It would be a shame if he also ended up being the last pro-marriage Democrat.  

Delano Squires is the Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing at The Heritage Foundation. 

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