AN INTERVIEW WITH Rev. GEORGE YOUNG @ 

The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government June, 2004 

The Roundtable:  Tell me how you got involved with the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative.

Rev. Young:  In 1998-99, then-Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating had some work done by Oklahoma State University. They did a baseline study of marriages in Oklahoma, because our divorce rate was fluctuating between first and second in the nation. He stated he wanted to impact positively on the rate of divorce in Oklahoma.

He was approaching it from the standpoint of economics, because single parents, female heads of households, have the potential of being below the poverty line. He invited all the clergy to sign this covenant at the governor's mansion, and we agreed to do premarital counseling, to get involved with marital programs.

I started thinking what right does he have telling me about marriages, when marriage was created by God. If I'm called by God, then I'm the main steward of that. I got to my office and I had to repent, because God spoke to me and said, if you'd been doing what you're supposed to be doing, then (Keating) wouldn't have to do that. That's how I really got involved.

From there (the state) initiated PREP training--the Prevention and Relationship-Enhancement Program from the University of Denver.

The Roundtable:  Is that a strictly secular approach?

Rev. Young:  The PREP part is a secular approach that just deals with skills. They do have C-PREP, which is Christian PREP, which is used by ministers.

(PREP) training was presented in the state of Oklahoma. I was in one of the first classes to be trained as a workshop leader. By that time, the governor had cut out some of the TANF funds to create the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. Some questions were raised, and I jumped in and started answering some of those questions. After that (the woman running the training) approached me.

The Roundtable:  What kinds of questions were raised?

Rev. Young:  What is this thing about trying to make folks get married? Why is the government involved? It was a gathering of pretty selective Oklahomans--local politicians, judges, other people who would be interested.

The Roundtable:  What answers did you give them?

Rev. Young:  Look at our divorce rate. Obviously, if 75-80 percent of marriages that are performed in the state of Oklahoma are performed by clergy, something is wrong when we have such a high divorce rate. There are around 4 million folks in the state of Oklahoma, and we're number one or two in the nation in divorces. 

We're in the Bible Belt. Something's not right about that, if all of that goes together. So I said the government isn't doing anything except something that we should already have been actively involved in. That started me on the journey of saying the collaboration between state and faith entities is a necessity to handle some problems--and this is one of them. 

The Roundtable:  Could government do this alone? Must it involve the religious community?

Rev. Young:  Marriage was created. We believe that God did this in the first chapter of Genesis (the first book of the Bible). If the church is the steward of the institution of marriage, we ought to be the ones involved in doing it. I may not speak it when I'm traveling for ACF, but I believe there is an inherent power in marriages that was placed there by the creator to help them survive if that power is accessed.

I'm not crazy. The government is doing this for a reason. If they can lower the welfare rolls, if they can lower the economic drain single parents have on our national economy, it's going to make the government look better.

I see it as an opportunity to do what I've been called to do, and that's work on something beneficial to the community. And I think marriage is the bedrock of the community. If you're not married, you ought to want your neighbor to have a good marriage, because out of your neighbor's home will come the children that are going to be walking up and down your street.

The Roundtable:  Explain your current relationship with the state.

Rev. Young:  I'm an employee with the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative as a senior consultant. I came on to deal with the faith community and African-Americans. I've been doing a lot of work in both of those areas. After I'd started talking to pastors, they had a couple of conferences, and some of those folk were part of the Administration for Children and Families. They started asking me to go to other locations where there were other marriage initiatives beginning to start.

I really do believe that God has given me a calling to deal with this issue of marriage. I bring to it a voice from the faith community saying this is a good thing. If we look at our communities, especially African-American communities, and if we see the negative factors that impact our communities, what is the one thing that can offset those negative factors quicker than anything else? It is enhancing the institution of marriage.   Most youth who get in trouble come out of broken homes. We could lose some of that juvenile delinquency, we could lower some of that drop-out rate, giving those children attention.

I believe there has been an improvement because of settings like conferences we're having with the African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative. This conversation is in the air.

The Roundtable:  Where are you talking to people?

Rev. Young:  In the last two months, I was at two Head Start programs that sponsored a marriage initiative, and then I was in the city of Memphis, which had a healthy marriage initiative. At home, I'm doing PREP workshops.

The Roundtable:  Are men coming to the workshops?

Rev. Young:  I have a problem with getting the men engaged. In my community, with the large number of female, single-parent heads of household, if I try to deal with just relationships and marriage, I'm dead in the water. I've got to get those fathers back, even if they don't marry. I've got to get them engaged in the life of that child or else it will not work.

The Roundtable:  How do you get men involved?

Rev. Young:  I ask (women) to help me to be in touch with the men in their lives. I go and talk to those men about the importance of being in the life of their child. Some of them haven't even thought about it--you're talking about young men. The response has been awfully good.

The Roundtable:  What's happening at your own church since you got involved in this?

Rev. Young:  I talk about marriages, I talk about healthy relationships. We have courses on that. In the six years I've been at this particular church, I've only had two divorces. I've only had one or two births out of wedlock. I think part of that is the fact that we do talk about it. The discussion is open about marriage and the benefits of marriage are talked about all the time. Every month, we have a moment about marriage and relationships, we do something about families. 

I've got a whole lot more work to do developing a marriage ministry. My wife has a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, and we're looking at developing a counseling arm of the church that would deal with relationships and marriage issues.

The Roundtable:  One of the criticisms of the marriage initiative is that it could encourage people to stay in violent or damaging relationships. What would you say to that? 

Rev. Young:  I worked for almost six years at the YWCA. I was the coordinator for the domestic violence unit. I don't think that everybody should be married. I think (the critics) have a legitimate point. If you've got as much conversation as you've got coming from the government, there is a tendency to feel some pressure. So you have to be careful.

We work directly with the domestic violence people in Oklahoma. They're on board with us because they know we're not trying to put folk in situations that are dangerous. I don't want to endanger anyone, but I also want them to have the best opportunity to make that marriage work.

The Roundtable:  Thank you for speaking with us. ******************

 George Young will present three sessions at the July 2004 Dallas Smart Marriages Conference: 

> 217 - Fri July 9  > Oklahoma: Leading the Way > Scott Stanley, PhD, George Young, DMin, Theo Ooms, MSW, Mary Myrick > Lessons from a multi-sector initiative that uses TANF funds to strengthen > marriage and reduce divorce. Training models, evaluation, faith-based, > domestic violence and schools. >

616 - Sun July 11 > Fatherhood and Marriage > Rozario Slack, DMin, George Young, DMin, John Chacon > Marriage has proven to be the best path to successfully and continually engage > fathers in the lives of their children. Learn about fatherhood programs that > integrate marriage education and promotion. >

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