The decline of marriage, especially in many low-income black communities, is cracking the foundation of the black nuclear family and worsening poverty and child welfare. According to The Brookings Institution, 70 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock and up to 85 percent of African-American children will spend some or all of their childhood in a single-parent home.
.......
The reasons for declining black marriage rates are varied and complex, said Lorraine Blackman, associate professor of social work at Indiana University and director of the African-American Family Life Education Institute.
The women's movement of the 1970s enhanced opportunities for many black women and changed their expectations of marriage, Blackman said. Simultaneously, because of a changing economy, job opportunities for non-college-educated black men have decreased. Furthermore, Blackman said, the government has inadvertently discouraged marriage among lower-income black women by denying them such safety net supports as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps if there is evidence of a man in the household.
Surprisingly, many black clergy who stood at the forefront of opposing same-sex marriage are eerily quiet when it comes to addressing the crisis of declining African-American marriage rates. The irony is that while same-sex marriage has little, if any, impact on the well-being of the black community, decreasing marriage rates between a black man and a black woman threaten to erode black social and economic progress.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1205/12edmarriage.html