A bill that takes the government out of the marriage business also makes it harder for couples to divorce.  House Bill 931 would make Texas the fourth state to allow people to enter covenant marriages or sign contracts agreeing to marriage.  Louisiana was the first state to legalize covenant marriages in 1997. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and his wife wed in a covenant ceremony, but few people in the state have followed suit. “Because so few people have chosen covenant marriage in Louisiana, it seems like an unpopular choice,” Johnson told the AP in 2001. “It’s not unpopular. It’s just unknown. Once the message is out there, a whole lot more people will choose it.” Covenant marriages are also legal in Arizona and Arkansas. House Bill 931, sponsored by Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, would amend legislation throughout Title 1 of the Texas Family Code, namely in chapters 2 and 6, related to the creation and dissolution of marriage. Edward Jaax, Cody Vasut’s chief of staff, said the main goal is to strengthen marriages. In a covenant marriage, both parties must sign the affidavit of intent to be wed for life in a loving, honoring and caring marriage. The bill also outlines requirements for a minimum of five hours of pre-marital counseling and a minimum of six hours of marital counseling before a divorce can be filed. As an incentive, a covenant marriage license would be free in Texas while a traditional marriage license would still have a fee of $60 if no premarital education classes were completed.  Arizona and Arkansas legalized covenant marriage in 1998 and 2001 respectively. They were the only states to follow suit and only 1 to 2 percent of couples in the three states chose to enter into a covenant marriage, according to SSRN in 2006. As the one of the only bills in the last century to make divorce laws stricter instead of more lenient, many look to the conservative evangelicals to support it. Arizona adopted covenant marriage in 1998, but Arizona  Presbyterian (PCA) pastor, Scott Brown said he had only heard of it broadly. “It’s never even crossed my mind when I do a wedding to be like, ‘make sure you do your wedding this way,’” he said. If Texas were to approve covenant marriage it would be an option not be a requirement. “I just think I think it’s kind of an interesting thing for the state to enter into this covenant concept and offer an alternative like, ‘You, you can have a marriage where it means very little, and over here, you’re gonna have one that is a covenant,’” Brown said. “But generally speaking, when you sort of take the idea of the state out of it, yes, I think premarital counseling is a really important thing, and ongoing counseling is a super important thing.” While Brown and other elders at his church in Arizona often do encourage couples to go through premarital counseling, he said the covenant in marriage is between one another and God, not the state. As both author and sponsor, Vasut is an outspoken Christian conservative. He is married with three children. If his bill passes, Vasut could retroactively enter into a covenant marriage with his wife, attending marital counseling signing the affidavit. Many of the concerns with the bill revolve around the stringency of the divorce option.