WHO KNEW?:

Marriage is best for bringing up children, says Tory study (Graeme Wilson, 07/09/2006, Daily Telegraph)

Marriage is the best environment to raise children and offers the greatest chance of a stable upbringing, an independent study commissioned by the Tories reveals today.

Unmarried parents are up to five times more likely to experience family breakdown, according to the survey of 15,000 families carried out for the social justice policy review group headed by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader.

The findings will put intense pressure on David Cameron to offer voters a cast-iron guarantee that he will put marriage at the heart of Tory policies on the family.

Some of the Conservative leader's advisers want him to tone down the party's support for marriage because they fear the party risks alienating support from unmarried families.

But the study said that such a strategy was misguided.

You can't be a conservative pary if you question: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. "

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2006 10:11 PM