The Center for Marriage Policy (CFMP) was founded with the knowledge that heterosexual marriage is the structural prerequisite for a successful economy, limited purposeful government, low taxes, balanced state and federal budgets, freedom, and an internationally-competitive nation.

Marriage-absence is the primary driver of America’s self-compounding intergenerational socioeconomic and governance problems:

• Poverty and across-the-board growth in runaway social entitlement spending
• Lack of health care coverage
• Insufficient assets for retirement
• The shrinking middle class
• Growing numbers of struggling unmarried mothers requiring costly governmental  husbandry, and unmarried men unable to support two households
• Growing tax burdens and fewer taxpayers, driving politicized class-warfare between rich and poor
• Sexualizing of children, child abuse, and child neglect
• Participation in the underground economies of crime, drugs, gambling, prostitution, and pornography
• High incarceration rates and the shifting of taxpayers to tax-burdens.
• High taxes on business, and subsequent exodus of jobs and factories to foreign soil.
• An overall moral decline affecting our nation at every level
• Children’s psychological problems, poor school performance, involvement in gangs and the drug culture, teen pregnancy, incarceration, and failure to enter the workforce and advance to higher income levels
• Disassociation from society and government
• The perceived need for abortion
• Low happiness levels and feeling of security for both adults and children
• An overall breakdown in ethics of politics, law, business, investing, and contracts.
• Explosive growth of government

Rebuilding heterosexual marriage as the social norm is the necessary structural foundation for successful American socioeconomic reconstruction.

Our Foundational Principle: Marriage must be reconstituted and enframed as a sacrosanct and core cultural institution while preserving individual liberties, promoting private sector autonomy, and limiting government involvement to the fullest extent possible (favoring private sector involvement over local government, local government involvement over state, and state involvement over federal).  Otherwise stated, marriage policies must share a commitment to encouraging, strengthening and preserving marriage, but accomplished in such a way so as to minimize the extent to which the government is directly involved in defining the nature and practice of marriage.

CFMP engages in the creation of sound socioeconomic reconstruction policy rising from well-founded objective footings of history, peer-reviewed science, and constructionist Constitutional principles of law consistent with Judeo-Christian principles that have proven to work across all civilizations for thousands of years.  Our policies address the needs and rights of Americans by addressing problems at their source.

Professionals such as economists, attorneys, former judges, psychologists, sociologists, legislators, government operations, legislative research, writers, grant writers, publicists, and leaders of other organizations working to restore marriage who desire to serve on our board of advisors may contact us at the above email address.   Only individuals with a demonstrated and consistent history defending, building, or advancing heterosexual marriage will be considered.  All members of the board of advisors must agree with the principles set forth in our Mission Statement.

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William J. Federer – Vice President, American Studies

Bill is a nationally known speaker, best-selling author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage.

TELEVISION: A former U.S. Congressional Candidate, Bill has appeared on: CSPAN, FOX, Hannity & Colmes, O’Reilly Factor, NPR, MSNBC, ABC-Time Warner Affiliates, CBN, TBN, INSP, TCT, FamilyNet, FamilyLand TV, Coral Ridge Hour, 700 Club, AT&T Cable, Charter Cable, Danny Fontana Show, iLife TV, FOX Strategy Room with Brian Kilmeade, hosted CSPAN’s George Washington Book Festival-February 26, 2000, CTN with Herman & Sharron Bailey, Grizzly Adams Television Production documentaries, and numerous local programs.

RADIO: Bill has been interviewed on thousands of radio programs, including Focus on the Family, Janet Parshall’s America, Point of View, USA Radio Network, Salem Radio Network, Bott Radio Network, Michael Medved, Common Sense Radio w/Ollie North, D. James Kennedy’s Truths that Transform, Phyllis Schlafly Live, Beverly LaHaye Live, G. Gordon Liddy, Janet Folger’s Faith to Action, Clear Channel Radio, VCY America, RadioAmerica, BQ, Armstrong Williams, American Family Radio, Family Life Radio, USA Radio Network, Judicial Watch, InsightMag.com, Martha Zoller Show, Chuck Harder’s For the People, Derry Brownfield, Michael Reagan and others.

Bill’s AMERICAN MINUTE radio feature is broadcast daily across America and by the Internet.

PUBLICATIONS: Bill has been quoted or referenced in USA Today, Human Events, New York Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Roll Call, Harper’s Magazine, The Wanderer, George, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Fort Lauderdate Sun-Sentinel, Ted Baehr’s MovieGuide, England’s Surrey Hants Star, Insight Magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com, NewsMax.com, Catholic.org, Crosswalk.org, CitizenLink.com and other publications.

BOOKS: Bill’s first book “America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations” has sold over a half-million copies.

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David G. Schramm, Ph.D., CFLE — Socioeconomic research

Dr. David Schramm is a State Extension Specialist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Missouri. His research interests focus on couple and family relational processes, with an emphasis on relationship, parenting, and marriage education and factors predicting marital quality. He also oversees a divorce education program called Focus on Kids, in over 50 counties throughout Missouri. He has conducted research on the economic consequences of divorce for the states of Utah, Missouri, and Texas. He currently serves as the Project Co-Director of a multi-state team of Extension Specialists that was awarded $1.2 million by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau to fund a five-year project called the Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education Training Project. The project will involve developing and pilot testing a marriage and relationship education curriculum that will address healthy marriage and relationship skills for populations underserved in the general population and overrepresented in the child welfare system.

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Dr. Don Dutton, Ph.D. — Science of family violence

Mr. Dutton received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Toronto in 1970. After receiving training as a group therapist at Cold Mountain Institute, he co-founded the Assaultive Husbands Project in 1979, a court mandated treatment program for men convicted of wife assault. He has published over 100 papers and five books, including the Domestic Assault of Women (1995), The Batterer: A Psychological Profile (1995), The Abusive Personality (2006), Rethinking Domestic Violence (2006) and The Psychology of Genocide (2007)). The Batterer has been translated into French, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Polish. Don Dutton has frequently served as an expert witness in civil trials involving intimate abuse and in criminal trials involving family violence. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia.

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The Honorable Donald D. Bernardi — Family law jurisprudence

Judge Bernardi is a graduate of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois (B.A. in Philosophy 1973) and Western New England College School of Law (J.D. 1978) in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was admitted to practice in Illinois in 1978, in the U.S. District Court, Central District of Illinois in 1980 and the United States Supreme Court in 1985.  He served as Assistant State’s Attorney of Livingston County from 1978 to 1982 and as State’s Attorney from 1982 to 1991 when he became an Associate Judge for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.  Judge Bernardi was elected as a Circuit Judge in November 1996.He retired from the Bench in December 2008.

Judge Bernardi is currently a lecturer in the Criminal Justice Sciences Department at Illinois State University teaching Evidence and Criminal Law and had been an instructor at the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois. Judge Bernardi is currently writing a Benchbook, entitled “Illinois Judicial Benchbook on Capital Cases” for the Illinois Supreme Court. He is a current member of the Illinois State Bar Association, McLean County Bar Association, and the Illinois Judges Association.

Judge Bernardi is a member of the Kiwanis Club of Bloomington.  He was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to teach at numerous Judicial Seminars, including the New Judge Seminar for the past 5 years; the Education Conference ’06, ’08, ‘10`; Selected Issues in Sentencing, and DUI Offenders in State Court, as well as the the Capital Cases Seminar,2005-2008.

Judge Bernardi lives in Normal and is married to Joan and they have three children, Leah 20, Caroline 19, and Daniel 16.

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David Heleniak, Esq.  —  Family law

David Heleniak has been a practicing civil litigation attorney since 1999.  In 2004, he received a MA in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University.  He is a writer, focusing on constitutional law, judicial behavior, and the religious aspects of the State, and an occasional constitutional litigator.  He gained recognition on the issue of domestic violence restraining orders with his 2005 law review article “The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act.” More recently, in the case Crespo vs. Crespo, he won a landmark decision in which the Honorable Francis Schultz of Hudson County ruled that the criteria for a final restraining order must be “clear and convincing evidence” rather than a “preponderance of the evidence.” (Unfortunately, the decision was overturned on appeal.)  Since then, his article “Erring of the Side of Hidden Harm: The Granting of Domestic Violence Restraining Orders” was published by the peer-reviewed journal Partner Abuse. He currently serves as the vice president of RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of the nation’s approach to solving domestic violence. Outside of the area of domestic violence, his article “Mock the Vote” received an unexpectedly warm greeting on the internet around the time of the 2008 election.

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Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D — Impact of government on marriage

Stephen Baskerville is Associate Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College and Research Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society and at the Independent Institute.  He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and taught politics at Howard University and Palacky University in the Czech Republic.  His second book, Taken Into Custody: The War against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family, was published in October 2007 by Cumberland House Publishing.  He is past president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

Baskerville is widely recognized as “the leading authority” (in the words of columnist Paul Craig Roberts) on the politics of divorce, custody, and family courts.  His writings on family and fatherhood issues have appeared in leading national and international publications, both popular and scholarly: the Washington Post, Washington Times, Independent Review, Salisbury Review, Society, Chronicles, Political Science and Politics, The American Conservative, Touchstone, Human Events, Women’s Quarterly, Catholic World Report, Crisis, Insight, World Net Daily, Whistleblower, The Family in America, Family Policy Review, American Spectator, The Spectator, The American Enterprise, National Review, Liberty, the Sunday Independent, LewRockwell.com, New Presence, MovieGuide.com, and others.  His work has also been published by major public policy “think tanks,” including the National Center for Policy Analysis, Institute for Policy Innovation, Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, and the Heartland Institute.

He has appeared on national radio and television programs, including The O’Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Dennis Prager Show, The Michael Medved Show, CNN, Court TV with Fred Graham and Katherine Crier, Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg, Janet Parshall’s America, the Albert Mohler Radio Program, and others.

He has been featured in profiles and write-ups in Human Events, Reason magazine, the Gannett newspapers, Enter Stage Right, News with Views, Men’s News Daily, Fathering Magazine, the Washington Times, Townhall.com, the Ottawa Citizen, the Royal Gazette (Bermuda), El Visitante (Puerto Rico), and elsewhere. He is an advisor to the Men’s Health Network and serves on the board of affiliates of Gendercide Watch, a human rights organization that monitors gender-specific atrocities.  He is a contributing editor to the journal, In Search of Fatherhood. Many of his articles on family issues are available at: www.stephenbaskerville.net.

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Cdr. James Semerad — Marriage and the military

James Semerad has studied family and children’s issues for more than 20 years following the research work of the Department of Health and Human Services, Heritage Foundation, American Psychological Association, and leading university programs on social work.  He participated in the introduction and review of family law and Shared Parenting legislation and served on Legislative committees. He has testified and spoken on numerous occasions to the legal and judicial community, Legislators, and community service organizations on issues ranging from children best interests, domestic violence, support, divorce, and custody.   He served as Chairman of DADS of Michigan Political Action Committee (PAC).  Mr. Semerad works as an Information Technology Consultant and supported VisionIT, Hewlett Packard, and EDS  helping fortune 200 companies leverage technology and supply chain management, globally.  He is a Commander in the U.S. Naval and lead programs on Family Readiness and Domestic Violence.  Mr. Semerad completed a Bachelors of Science degree and MBA from Louisiana Tech University.

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Kevin Weigler — Web Operations

Kevin is a motivated technical problem solver with an established record managing and delivering complex projects involving technology and cross-functional teams. Demonstrated ability to build excellent relationships with strategic customers, partners, and vendors. Outstanding record of delivering events, successful solutions, with cross-functional teams to nurture the intellectual capital of the key employees for a more effective and efficient workforce.

Dave is a policy analyst, political analyst, speaker, and journalist published in Human Events, World Net Daily, the American Conservative Union, Eagle Forum, Heartland Foundation, and college textbooks. He graduated Knox College in 1974.  Dave has been involved in socioeconomic policy and law at the federal and state levels for 24 years.  He previously served on the Boards of RADAR and the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

Dave spent many years independently studying law, social policy, management science, psychology, sociology, and culture.  He has been cited in peer-reviewed scientific journal studies and been a keynote speaker for Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Pi Sigma honors inductions.  He has been a guest on many radio shows across America, and published in Human Events, World Net Daily, News With Views, the Tea Party Tribune, Renew America, and many other online publications.  He has been cited in books and peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Dave’s expertise is analyzing highly complex problems and establishing innovative answers that meet everyone’s needs.   The “10 Marriage Values” socioeconomic policy framework is the culmination of many years of study and analysis.   Traditional social policy fails attempting to remediate consequences downstream of their causes.  Funding the consequences stimulates more problems now driving  means-tested demand spending in excess of $1-trillion annually.

Our hierarchical framework positively addresses problems at the source, while naturally rebuilding a necessary socioeconomic foundation of marriage as the social norm.   This approach deflates a long list of very costly social, economic, and human problems, deflating demand for social expenditures, without having slash budgets in the face of an angry public.   Our policies open the door to bipartisan answers heretofore impossible, and will shrink the “marriage-gap” vote that defined elections for the past 14 years.

Restoration of marriage as the social norm will result in a growing tax base, reduce the numbers of individuals needing government assistance, and bring about balanced budgets we have not been able to achieve for decades.  Major urban centers will become attractive places for employers to locate.  Lower taxes coupled with lower crime rates and a more stable work-force will encourage repatriation of jobs from overseas.  The policies address the concerns of many special-interest groups simultaneously.  This will end the era of unproductive special-interest politics, and shift the focus towards achieving common goals benefiting everyone.

In his professional career, Dave administers a corporate IT system he invented for a major telecommunications provider and is a patented inventor and pioneer in the now-established field of coherent fluidics.

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Cynthia Davis – Executive Director

Cynthia Davis served in the Missouri House of Representatives for eight years, was the Chairman of the Children and Families Committee and the Chairman of the Interim Committee on Poverty.  Her main accomplishments were tied to promoting legislation to facilitate positive public policy concerning children and families in Missouri.  As a wife of 30 years and a mother of seven, Cynthia has much direct experience in the area of family values and public policy.  She spends much of her time writing and speaking on these issues.

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Michael J. McManus — Vice President, Rebuilding Marriage Culture

Michael and Harriet McManus co-founded Marriage Savers to push down divorce and cohabitation rates and raise marriage rates.  Their key strategy is for local clergy to adopt a Community Marriage Policy, a signed covenant by scores of churches across denominational lines, to take specific steps at five stages of marriage to better prepare couples for a lifelong marriage, enrich existing ones, save troubled marriages, help the separated to reconcile and stepfamilies to be successful. . Marriage Savers also trains clergy and Mentor Couples in participating churches to achieve the goals. More than 10,000 pastors and priests signed CMPs. An independent study by the Institute for Research an Evaluation of the first 114 CMPs reported that on average, county divorce rates fell 17.5% over 7 years. Seven cities such as Austin, Kansas City, KS, Modesto, CA, and El Paso slashed divorce rates in half.  From 1990-2000 cohabitation fell one-third lower in CMP counties than in control similar counties.

Mike and Harriet co-authored Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, “In this ground-breaking book, Mike and Harriet McManus dispel the myth that living together before marriage leads to `happily ever after’ and give the secrets for making marriages succeed,” write David and Claudia Arp, authors of “10 Great Dates.”  Mike McManus published a second book in 2008: How to Cut America’s Divorce Rate in Half: A Strategy Every State Should Adopt.  Mike Huckabee wrote the Foreword and 13 legal and religious experts wrote Endorsements for his suggestion on how to reform No Fault Divorce, which grants every even though divorce is opposed by the other spouse in four out of five cases. “Mike McManus puts his finger on a simple but profound answer: require that in cases involving children that both parents would have to agree to a divorce, except in cases of adultery or physical abuse. I believe this change in the law could cut the divorce rate in half.  That would spare 500,000 children from seeing their parents divorce each year, and save $50 – $100 billion in taxpayer funds,” wrote Rev. Richard Cizik, then Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals. Mike’s first book was Marriage Savers: How To Help Your Family and Friends Avoid Divorce (1993, 1995), and two collections of his columns have been published: 50 Practical Ways To Take Our Kids Back from the World and Insuring Marriage: 25 Proven Ways To Prevent Divorce.

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Suzanne Venker — Vice President, Women’s Outreach

Suzanne may be a writer and social critic, but above all, she is a dedicated family woman.

Her roles as wife and mother make up the core of her existence—shaping her attitudes, beliefs, and several of her books. Women, according to Venker, are happiest and most satisfied when they reject the feminist creed and embrace their femininity.

Suzanne is the author of four books, including How to Choose a Husband (And Make Peace With Marriage) (February 2013), The War on Men (February 2013, eBook only), The Flipside of Feminism (2011), and 7 Myths of Working Mothers (2004).

Suzanne has written extensively about politics, parenting, and the influence of feminism on American society, serving as a frequent contributor to FoxNews.com and The Huffington Post. Her writing has also been published in the New York Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Parents.com, Human Events, WND, and CNSnews.com. Additionally, Suzanne has appeared on ABC, CNN, FOX, and C-Span—as well as hundreds of radio shows throughout the country.

This Midwest-born, East Coast-educated writer is no stranger to controversy. Her first book, 7 Myths of Working Mothers, argues that young children and demanding careers are incompatible. The Flipside of Feminism, released in 2011, is an explosive account of the damage left in the wake of the feminist movement. Her eBook original, The War on Men, is a concise, authoritative look at the myth of gender equality. And her latest release, How to Choose a Husband (And Make Peace with Marriage), takes a hard look at the sexual revolution and encourages women to reject the cultural script they’ve been sold about love, sex, men, and marriage.

Suzanne lives in St. Louis, MO, with her husband and their two children.

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Stephanie Rubach – Vice President, Social Policy

Stephanie Rubach, RN serves as the St. Louis District Coordinator for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest women’s public policy organization. She assists in monitoring public policy action on state and local levels, from tracking legislation, writing alerts and press releases, to working with pro-family groups and lobbying elected officials at various levels.

Stephanie is a founding member of move-on-up.org a social network of conservatives African Americans where she connects with others and works towards building positive, life affirming outcomes in the Black community and our nation at large.

Stephanie serves on the Board of Directors for the ‘13th Amendment Freedom Week Movement’ which is designed to promote the freedom philosophy in all its dimensions, including individual freedom, political freedom and religious freedom.

Stephanie speaks regularly at Tea Party events on the subject of pro-family African-American activism. She shares her story and addresses critics of the Tea Party that claim we are without diversity.

In addition to these endeavors Stephanie teaches Advanced Cardiac Life Support to other health care professionals, and is a certified aerobics instructor.

Stephanie is the mother of 3 adopted children, Kenny, Brian and Carlie, and received the 2010 Congressional Angel in Adoption award.

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