For Immediate Release

February 5, 2007

In contrast to many organizations that are promoting February 11-17 as "Marriage Week", the Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP) believes that Valentine's Day is everyone's opportunity to celebrate love and should not become limited to promoting an exclusive institution. AtMP believes that marriage is only one of many acceptable family forms, and society should recognize and support healthy relationships in all their diversity.

"Let's not confuse love with marriage," says AtMP board member Julie Bluhm, MSW, LGSW. "Framing Valentine's Day within a public relations blitz about marriage is divisive and unfairly dismisses the great majority of loving relationships that are not marriage-based."

In honor of Valentine's Day, AtMP encourages both personal and societal celebrations of love. "As individuals, we should reflect on the relationships in our lives and the ways in which others have influenced us and made us who we are," suggests Bluhm.

AtMP's Executive Director Nicky Grist says that "Making public policy as though civil marriages are the only relationships worth supporting is inhumane. Relationship counseling, child care, and health insurance are just as necessary to unmarried families as married ones. Singles, just like marrieds, have earned the full value of their contributions to the Treasury and Social Security."

AtMP urges media reports on Valentine's Day to recognize that the diversity of loving relationships includes not only romantic couples (married and unmarried), but also relationships among friends and families.

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About the Alternatives to Marriage Project:
The Alternatives to Marriage Project advocates equality and fairness for unmarried people, including people who are single, those who choose not to marry, cannot marry, or live together outside of marriage. We provide support and information for this fast-growing constituency, fight discrimination on the basis of marital status, and educate the public and policymakers about relevant social and economic issues. AtMP is a national nonprofit organization. More at http://www.unmarried.org.