Like nearly every other 2008 presidential prospect, Barack Obama failed the marriage test on Sunday. Speaking to a church congregation, he bemoaned the trend of violent young men “sickening the soul of this nation."

Barack pointed out that thirty students have been killed in Chicago this year -- more than the number of Illinois servicemen killed in Iraq.

Obama’s answers are the classic prevarication uttered by anti-family politicians for the past forty years: more federal programs regulating guns, and after-school programs to keep kids off the streets. He did not mention new criminal programs he certainly has in mind.

Like many politicians in both parties before him, he intentionally ignores the obvious: Marriage is important. Two generations of young men have been raised in broken families, with little parental guidance available. The future was easily predictable then, and it is upon us now.

In 1980, crime in Los Angeles increased by 17%. LAPD Chief Darryl Gates was at a complete loss for an explanation. The answer was behind door number one: increases in divorce and illegitimacy in Los Angeles in the early 1960’s yielded the first bumper crop of fatherless boys. Today, Wade Horn and former senator Kit Bond are finding out the hard way that begging on street corners for fathers does not work.

Marriage is critical. We simply cannot replace in-vivo parenting with federal programs. Washington has done this since 1965, with declining social data every step of the way.

If Obama were serious about reversing the trend, he would call for end of no-fault divorce. He would call for reform of the Violence Against Women Act (which is more of an entitled feminist marriage destruction machine than anything else).

If Obama were serious about ending crime, he would call for funding programs that help spouses work through the normal problems of marriage and aging. He would call for reform of every section of federal code that entitles marital and reproductive irresponsibility. He would call for changes in federal funding to penalize states that do not require shared parenting, in cases of divorce or illegitimacy where a parent is not found unfit.

Marriage is the most important social building block of the future. In this day in age, recognizing the importance of marriage is actually a progressive idea, because conservatives have abandoned it.

Politicians who fail to realize this and aggressively work for change, are sentencing America’s women and children to continuing decreases in social and economic well-being. They are sentencing boys to growing up without a future in American society. They are leaving America to continue living in the longest civil cold-war in American history.

As Barack Obama is a member of the black community, he is the first man who should know these things. He is the first who should be working on it. Let us hold him to that standard.

David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition