Defending Marriage
Save the Children!
What the Marriage Debate is Really About
By
E. Douglas Clark
October 31, 2006
Last May while representing United Families International at the Warsaw planning meeting for the next World Congress of Families, I had the unforgettable experience of visiting the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
Walking into the place is like stepping back in time to 1944 when the citizens of the city rejected surrender and rose up to defend themselves and their families against the Nazi occupiers. The Polish heroes of the uprising are memorialized in the sobering display of photos, footage, letters and historical summaries and war memorabilia, all exhibited in a fashion that movingly recreates the terrible ordeal. As the Polish resistance incurred the increasing fury of Hitler's army, a cry rang out throughout the city, as seen on a small plaque in the museum: “Save the children—ours, yours… Collapsed buildings we can rebuild—the lost young generation we cannot.”
That urgent appeal goes to the heart of our battle to protect marriage. Blindsided by the strident voices demanding that marriage be redefined to include same-sex unions, a number of good-hearted and intelligent people seem swayed by the rhetoric of “rights.” Why deny “rights” to homosexual people? After all, isn't America all about “rights”? Why shouldn't the institution of marriage include same-sex unions?
To such questions, our response is the same rallying cry that once resounded throughout embattled Warsaw: “Save the children!”
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, chief executive of the first state in the Union to legalize same-sex “marriage,” recently observed: "Like me, the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians…. Should we abandon marriage as we know it and as it was known by the framers of our Constitution? Has America been wrong about marriage for 200 plus years? Were generations that spanned thousands of years from all the civilizations of the world wrong about marriage? Are the philosophies and teachings of all the world's major religions simply wrong? Or is it more likely that four people among the seven that sat in a court in Massachusetts have erred? I believe that is the case."
Romney then explained precisely how the court had erred. "They viewed marriage as an institution principally designed for adults. Adults are who they saw. Adults stood before them in the courtroom. And so they thought of adult rights, equal rights for adults. If heterosexual adults can marry, then homosexual adults must also marry to have equal rights." Hence their error, said Romney: "Marriage is also for children. In fact, marriage is principally for the nurturing and development of children. The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother."
Gov. Romney was so concerned that he wrote a letter to United States senators urging them to act to protect the institution of marriage. Romney is hardly alone in honing in on what the marriage debate is really about. The closer one looks at the marriage debate, the more it becomes apparent that the issue really at stake is not the sensitivities of a tiny minority but rather the protection and well-being of children—as explained, for example, on the website of the Arizona chapter of United Families International. Or you can read what Patrick Fagan, world-famous scholar at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, has said in a study called “The Transatlantic Divide on Marriage: Dutch Data and the U.S. Debate on Same-Sex Unions” demonstrating the debilitating effects on children and families of same-sex unions in the Netherlands. Or you may wish to review what the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey says in its study called “Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles,” which extensively documents the critical importance of children growing up with a married father and mother. Or take a look at the article by pro-family leader Marcia Barlow, in “What's Love Got to Do with It: The Fundamental Nature of Marriage,” explaining that “A ny public policy… that diminishes traditional marriage and the natural family is regressive, not progressive. Children have a fundamental right to a mother and a father.”
Such voices are among a growing number proclaiming with clarity that we must preserve marriage in order to protect our children. In the words of columnist Maggie Gallagher: “Winning the gay-marriage debate may be hard, but to those of us who witnessed the fall of Communism, despair is inexcusable and irresponsible. Losing this battle means losing the idea that children need mothers and fathers. It means losing the marriage debate. It means losing limited government. It means losing American civilization. It means losing, period.”
This is indeed a battle that we cannot afford to lose—precisely because we cannot afford to lose our children. And so we urge: Act now to preserve marriage for the benefit of posterity. Save the children!
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