Family Leader
Delivers 31,520 Signatures to Protect Marriage
Representatives of
Family Leader Network with the help of Meridian
Magazine delivered more than 31,500 signatures
on a Defense of Marriage petition yesterday to
Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert.
In addition, Family
Leader Network contacted more than 35 other Representatives’
offices whose votes on the Marriage Protection
amendment are unclear, giving them additional
information on the amendment.
The Marriage Protection
Amendment will be debated and voted on today in
the House. In order for the Constitution to be
amended, the House and Senate must pass it by
a two-thirds majority and then it goes to the
states, where 75 percent must agree to its passage.
“The debate about
same-sex marriage is not a debate about tolerance
but a discussion about the future and purpose
of the institution of marriage,” said Maurine
Proctor, editor-in-chief of Meridian Magazine
and president of the Family Leader Network.
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“The erosion of marriage
throughout the past four decades has had disastrous
effects on both children and adults and lies at
the heart of many social problems. Children without
the stability of a married mother and father are
much more likely to experience poverty, abuse,
behavioral and emotional problems, lower academic
achievement, depression and drug usage. Welfare
dependence dramatically increases outside of marriage.
Nearly 80 percent of all children suffering long-term
poverty come from broken or never-married families.
“Yet, in our nation
marriage is suffering and therefore children are
suffering, too,” Proctor noted. “One out of three
children in America are born out of wedlock. Many
of their parents are in the twenty-something age
bracket who are simply choosing not to marry or
are marrying later. Only 45% of teenagers live
with their biological mother and father.
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“Clearly, it is in
the best interest of our society to do everything
that we can to support and protect marriage, the
most vital institution that affects not only the
future of our rising generation but our nation.
“Yet, right at
the time when marriage is already fragile, there
is a well-organized and funded movement to deconstruct
and redefine it. The judges in Massachusetts
resorted to calling marriage an ‘evolving paradigm’
‘rooted in persistent prejudices’ and ‘invidious
discrimination.’
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“Why would any nation
actively and aggressively pursue a course of action
that is self-destructive? Why would we seek to
undo our most vital social institution? Those
seeking to define marriage as any combination
of people who love each other, including two men
or two women or other variation must answer a
very important question: Which is unnecessary,
a Mom or a Dad?.”
The debate comes,
according to Citizen Link, http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0041275.cfm
“just as the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
is weighing in on state marriage-protection amendment
fights around the country. The nation's oldest
political party has reportedly developed a five-point
plan to fight ballot initiatives.
“The plan's existence
was leaked by The Washington Blade, a pro-homosexual
newspaper, which quoted a DNC spokesman last Friday
saying there is a "five-point-plan."
“Specifically, the
Blade reported that Democrats would:
