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November
19, 2004 A Mandate for Marriage By
Congressman Joe Pitts John Adams
once said, “Statesmen… may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is
religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which
freedom can securely stand.” Mr.
Adams understood, as did many of his colleagues that liberty when left to
grow unchecked by morality and faith cannot stand.
This forms the basis of our democracy: freedom governed by the rule
of law supported by a firm foundation of values. I cannot help but think that the “moral values”
identified by voters as the top issue facing our nation on Election Day
are very similar to the ones that inspired John Adams so many years ago. One such value that motivated these voters was the
value of marriage to our culture. In February, the On election-week Friday, David A. Keene, chairman of
the American Conservative Union, offered in a tongue-in-cheek thank you
letter to Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of Massachusetts his
“heartiest congratulations and thanks for almost single-handedly making
possible” President Bush’s re-election. Mr. Keene wrote that had it not been for Justice
Marshall’s rulings in favor of gay marriage and her decision to
“unilaterally impose…progressive personal opinions on the law,
marriage might never have become the defining issue of the 2004
presidential election.” I agree with him.
In response to the Voters in each state overwhelmingly approved the
initiatives. More than 70
percent of voters in eight of these states cast votes in favor of these
initiatives. In only two of
the remaining five states did the percentage fall below 60 percent (59
percent in The issue for voters wasn’t whether adults should
have the ability to live as they choose.
The backlash against the court’s ruling was motivated primarily
by a desire to protect marriage and prevent courts from deciding a
question that should be left to the American people. Candidates who voiced support for similar
legislation on the federal level enjoyed similar success.
At the top of the ticket President George W. Bush, a vocal
supporter of the Marriage Protection Amendment, became the first President
since his father in 1988 to secure a majority of the popular vote
(President Clinton secured a plurality in both 1992 and 1996). Five Senate candidates who support the Marriage
Protection Amendment won. Of
these five, four replaced retiring Senators.
The fourth, John Thune, defeated a leading Senate opponent of the
Amendment, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
Three Senators who support the Amendment were replaced by
candidates who share their view. Only
one Senator who supports the amendment, retiring Illinois Republican Peter
Fitzgerald, was replaced by an opponent to the amendment. In the House, the numbers are similar.
On September 30, 2004 the House of Representatives voted on the
Marriage Protection Amendment. The
proposal did not secure the two-thirds majority required for
constitutional amendments, but it did garner a majority.
The vote put representatives on the record regarding an issue that
has become a motivating force for values voters. These results translate into a mandate for marriage.
Voters have made clear that when given the choice they support
marriage. Sadly, activists
intent on using the courts to redefine marriage believe that this view is
bigoted. They could not be
more gravely mistaken. In the next two years we will vote on this again, in
both chambers of Congress. It
has become and will continue to be a conflict between opposing sides of
the cultural divide. The value
of marriage and in family is based on the very idea that they are sacred,
they hold a value set apart from anything else in our culture.
Even apart from religious faith, philosophers and
sociologists identify the family, and more specifically marriage, as the
foundational element of any culture. Volumes
of research demonstrate that a great number of the social ills besetting
our country are rooted in the decline we have already seen in the
traditional, nuclear family. To
allow this decline to continue would irreversibly break apart the
foundation of our culture. The majority of Americans support marriage and want
to preserve it. The question
is whether Washington and activist judges will listen. #
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