Counseled couples may get license discount

Betrothed couples who participate in counseling to ready them for married life would be eligible for a $20 discount on their marriage license under a proposal endorsed Wednesday by a legislative interim committee.

House Minority Caucus Manager Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake, said the counseling could help reduce divorce in Utah and its costs — estimated at $3.5 million annually just for the time spent by judges and clerks handling the cases.

Like similar bills McGee carried unsuccessfully in previous legislative sessions, the draft she presented to the Judiciary Interim Committee does not mandate marriage preparation counseling but provides for an incentive for couples who do.

"It would encourage voluntary marriage preparation counseling," McGee said.

Richard Stahmann, chairman of Brigham Young University's Marriage and Family Therapy graduate programs, told the committee national surveys of LDS Church bishops and other religious counselors identified problems in marriages that could be reduced by counseling.

The professors said encouraging marriage preparation counseling is good public policy.

All but two members of the committee supported the bill after changes were made to exempt from prosecution clergy and counselors who falsely claim the requirement has been met. Now only couples that falsify the documents needed for the discount would be in trouble.

The bigger hurdle, however, might be the price tag. The discount on marriage licenses is expected to add up to about $50,000 annually.

"It just seems to me it's not a value question," Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, said. "It's a funding issue." Bell told his fellow committee members that they shouldn't "be scared off" by the amount of money involved since federal grants could become available.

But Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo, said the state can't afford such programs and asked why no one was suggesting teaching pregnant women how to change diapers or breast feed. "We just don't have the money," Clark said.

McGee said the expense is worth it to reduce the actual, and emotional, cost of divorce.

Colleen Howard of Salt Lake City, who told the committee she was divorced after 25 difficult years of marriage, said the counseling would have helped her. "I'm totally convinced I either would not have gotten married or I'd still be married today," Howard said.