Marriage is, and always has been, the union of a man and a woman.
The majority of the public does not want marriage redefined. Thirty-one states have voted on the definition of marriage and in every instance the citizens of America voted in favor of keeping the true meaning of marriage - one man & one woman.
Children are our future. It is important for the state to adopt laws and policies that provide the best environment for nurturing our future generations. Same-sex households always deny children either a mother or a father. Every credible study confirms what we all know - children need and thrive best when raised by their mother and father.
Transvestites, Bisexuals, and Homosexuals can continue to have relationships with anyone they choose. However, they do not have the right to force the rest of our society to re-label those partnerships as marriage.
Attorneys Austin Nimocks and Edward Whelan defend DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) against efforts to repeal the federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Attorney Nimocks serves as senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund at its Washington, D.C., Regional Service Center, where he litigates as a member of the marriage litigation team. Before joining ADF in 2007, he spent nearly 10 years in private practice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nimocks earned his J.D. from the Baylor University School of Law in Waco, Texas. He is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S Courts of Appeal for the D.C., 1st, 4th, 5th, and 9th Circuits, and he has also appeared before various federal and state courts around the country.
Attorneys Austin Nimocks and Edward Whelan defend DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) against efforts to repeal the federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Edward Whelan is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and Departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Whelan also previously worked as Senior Vice President and Counselor to the General Counsel for Verizon Corp. and as a lawyer in private practice.
Education
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
by Peter Sprigg
Pro-homosexual activists have begun to demand that no debate on the issue of homosexuality be permitted. Yet there are legitimate grounds for debate on the origin, nature, and consequences of homosexuality. That debate should continue, with a respect for honest research and for freedom of thought, speech, and religion.
Click on question to see answer.
Absolutely, and people do that all the time. But we don’t call it marriage. There are lots of loving committed relationships that are not marriages. Friends are committed to each other, a parent is committed to a child, grandparents to their grandchildren, and some people are even committed to their pets. All of these are forms of love. All of them result in commitments, but none of them would be a real marriage.
By definition, marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Anyone can have a relationship with someone of the same gender, but that is simply not a marriage. Families headed up by partners of the same gender are not the norm for family life. That is what is at stake here, making "marriage" between two men or two women as normal as between one man and one woman. It is saying that neither arrangement is any better than the other.
This public meaning of marriage is not something that each new generation is free to redefine. Marriage is the way our culture promotes monogamy, provides a way for males and females to build a life together, and assures every child has a mother and father. A wise society will protect marriage as it has always been understood and reject this aggressive attempt to redefine "marriage".
This is the exception and not the rule. Many of these childless couples adopt, and their adoptive children receive the benefits of both father and mother this way. It is impossible for a homosexual couple to bestow that benefit—the presence of a father and a mother— on any child, even if that couple adopts or uses artificial insemination.
NO. A child needs a loving mother and father. A wealth of research over the past 30 years has shown us this. However, same-sex "marriage" and parenting intentionally deprive children of a mother or father. The most loving mother in the world cannot teach a little boy how to be a man. Likewise, the most loving man cannot teach a little girl how to be a woman. A gay man cannot teach his son how to love and care for a woman. A lesbian cannot teach her daughter how to love a man or know what to look for in a good husband. Is love enough to help two gay dads guide their daughter through her first menstrual cycle? Like a mom, they cannot comfort her by sharing their first experience. Little boys and girls need the loving daily influence of both male and female parents to become who they are meant to be.
That’s only because of the times in which we live. Our society prizes what seems fair, more than what is true. Children truly need both a mom and a dad. It is cruel to intentionally deny them this. The research supporting this is both substantial and unequivocal!
That's comparing the worst of one situation (abusive heterosexual parenting) with the best of another (loving same-sex parenting). This (common) question is based on a false premise using an apples and oranges comparison.
Homosexuals who demand the "right" to marry are not asking to take the children living in the worst or most difficult situations, so it is intellectually dishonest to preface the argument with that claim. So let's dispense with the idea that same-sex couples will serve some high social good by only taking children in the most difficult situations. That logic fails because they have never asked for this.
Actually, research reveals that child abuse is at its lowest when children live with both biological parents compared with higher rates for children who live with at least one nonbiological parent or caregiver.1 Same-sex parenting situations make it impossible for a child to live with both biological parents, thus increasing their risk of abuse.
Yes, of course older folks can marry. Having babies is not a requirement of marriage. The reasons for supporting the institution of marriage are not rooted only in childbearing. However, the State does have a compelling interest in supporting marriage because the biological reality is that the result normally expected from sexual intimacy between a man and a woman is the creation of a new life. Man and woman are the natural counterparts to one another, they were made for each other— with or without children. It is in society's best interest to maintain and encourage support for marriage as the institution which promotes a strong stable society.
They do! Everyone has the same right to marry within the parameters prescribed by the law. You cannot marry if you’re already married, you cannot marry a close relative, an adult cannot marry a child, and you cannot marry someone of the same sex. Let’s be clear, everyone has equal access to marriage as long as they observe the limitations society has set on what we recognize as a valid marriage. This is not about access to genuine marriage. It‘s about redefining marriage to be something it has never been.
Not at all! Being black or white, Hispanic or Asian is not like being homosexual. No scientific or academic institution in the world nor any U.S. court has ever established that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable, as are race, nationality or gender.
This assertion really implies that opponents to same-sex marriage are hateful bigots and that is not true. They simply acknowledge the reality that marriage has always been only the union of a man and a woman and that should not change.
No. Anthropologists tell us that every human society is established by males and females joining in permanent unions to build a life together in which they bear and raise their children. The differences we see in family from culture to culture are primarily variations on this model: how long the male and female stay together, how many spouses either can have and how the labor is divided. Some cultures make greater use of extended family than others. Family diversity is largely confined to these differences. But there has never been a culture or society that made marriage by homosexuals its normal family model.
Homosexual activists often personalize this question by asking, "How does my (same-sex) "marriage" hurt or interfere with your marriage?" That emotional question is designed to misdirect the real issue. What the activists really want is a new national policy that says a mom and dad are no longer any different than two moms or two dads. That policy would turn some very important principles upside down:
Marriage would become merely an emotional relationship that is flexible enough to include any grouping of loving adults. If it is fair for two men or two women to marry, why not three, or five, or any number? The terms "husband" and "wife" would become merely obsolete empty words with no meaning.
Parenthood would consist of any number of emotionally attached people who care for kids. The words "Mother" and "father", if continued to be used, would become only labels devoid of their original meaning.
Gender would become nothing. The same-sex proposition cannot tolerate the idea that any real, deep and necessary differences exist between the sexes. It must rest on a "Mister Potato Head theory" of gender difference (same core, just interchangeable body parts). This foolish, politically correct mentality rejects the notion that men need women and women need men. Our children would learn that sexual differences are like mere personality types. Some public schools are already teaching children that gender is something you can choose.
No, just the opposite - more is not necessarily better. There is recent evidence from the Netherlands, arguably the most "gay-friendly" culture on earth, that homosexual men have a very difficult time honoring the ideal of marriage. Even though same-sex "marriage" is legal there, a British medical journal reports male homosexual relationships last, on average, 1.5 years, and gay men have an average of eight partners a year outside of their supposedly "committed" relationships.
Contrast that with the fact that 67 percent of first marriages in the United States last 10 years, and more than three-quarters of heterosexual married couples report being faithful to their vows.2
Corrupting the meaning of marriage by altering its definition will not help strengthen the institution of marriage.
Yes, that is true. Too many marriages do fail. So what should we do? Erase the marriage laws? Look at it this way. We have laws against murder, but people still commit murder. Does that mean we should erase or change the murder laws? Of course not. When laws aren’t working, legislators try to fix them. We need to explore ways to address the cause for these failures rather than use them as an excuse to abandon marriage as we've always known it.
We should focus on strengthening these troubled marriages, and many are beginning to do just that. As a matter of fact, the evidence favoring natural marriage is so overwhelming that the federal government has begun to encourage the inclusion of a marriage training component in state welfare plans.
New does not always mean better. "New" and "improved" have only become synonymous in our consumer age. The generally accepted mores of society have been arrived at by many generations of wisdom and experience. With very few exceptions, departure from well established societal norms inevitably causes far more harm than good.
Forty years ago, our nation entered a dramatic social experiment on the family called "no-fault divorce," thinking this would improve family life. The research that examined the next 40 years of experience, however, has judged this experiment a massive failure. Children and their parents have been hurt far more deeply—and for much longer— than we ever imagined.
The revolutionaries of the no-fault divorce movement claimed that the "til death do us part" portion of marriage wasn’t that important. They were wrong. The same-sex proposition claims the "husband" and "wife" portion doesn’t matter either. Here we go again. We should learn from the mistakes of our past, not repeat them.
If homosexuals are insecure about their chosen lifestyle, the solution is not to legislate acceptance of their relationships by compelling society to sanction them. Doing so will not guarantee acceptance by society of behaviors that many people find morally objectionable. What we are talking about here is self-esteem and it is not the place of government to bestow self-esteem on any individual or group.
Research consistently shows that married adults do better in virtually every measure of well-being. Married people live longer, happier lives. They enjoy higher levels of physical and mental health, they recover from illness quicker, earn and save more money, are more reliable employees, suffer less stress, and are less likely to become victims of any kind of violence. They find the job of parenting more successful and enjoyable and they have more satisfying and fulfilling sex lives. These benefits are largely equal for men and women.3
Compared with children in any other situation, children with married parents need to visit doctors less often for physical or emotional problems, and they do better in all measures of intellectual and academic development. They are more sympathetic toward others and much less likely to be in trouble at school, at home or with the police. They are much less likely to use drugs and be involved in violent behavior or premarital sexual activity and childbearing. It is uncommon for kids who live with married parents to live in poverty or be victims of physical or sexual abuse.4 Research is clear: marriage makes a substantial, positive difference in people’s lives.
Homosexual "marriage" is viewed by many as a civil right. If such a right is established, then on what basis can marriage be denied to any coupling or group? In a remarkably sobering article in The Weekly Standard writer Stanley Kurtz explains that polygamy is getting more widespread endorsement than ever before, with friendly commentary in several major newspapers recently. Kurtz predicts the ACLU will soon rise as its foremost defender.
And it won’t stop there. Kurtz reports further on the coming popularity of something called polyamory, which is a $10 word for group marriage. Already polyamory is on the cutting edge in family law, and is promoted by professors at some of our nation’s leading universities. Kurtz explains that this "group marriage" movement is marching down the same trail blazed by the same-sex proponents.5
For all the other problems this will cause, government and industry would be forced to provide health and legal benefits for any grouping of people who declare themselves to be "married" under these laws, or more likely, court decisions. Could your business afford health-care benefits for 3 or 5 people in a group marriage? In fact, in this brave new world, what would keep two heterosexual single moms—or even six of them—from "marrying" simply so they can receive family health, tax and social security benefits together? The increased cost to business and government would be crippling.
Marriage is not just a private affair. Every marriage is a public virtue in that it responsibly regulates human sexuality, brings the two parts of humanity together in a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship that delivers mothers and fathers to children. Society benefits from the well-being of marriage; nearly every dollar spent by our government on social welfare is in reaction to a marriage breaking down or failing to form. Good things happen when we honor what marriage is. Bad things happen when we try to change it.
Ultimately and inevitably, the future and the health of humanity rests upon the health and future of marriage.
By: Glenn T. Stanton; Also by Pete Winn, associate editor of CitizenLink at Focus on the Family.
Glenn T. Stanton is Director of Social Research and Cultural Affairs and Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family. He is also author of Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society (Pinon Press).
1 Catherine Malkin and Michael Lamb, "Child Maltreatment: A Test of the Sociobiological Theory," Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 25 (1994): 121-133; David Popenoe, Life Without Father, (New York: The Free Press, 1996).
2 Maria Xiridou, et al., "The Contributions of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection Among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam," AIDS, 17 (2003): 1029.38.
3 Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society, (Colorado Springs, Pinon Press, 1997); Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially, (New York: Doubleday, 2000); Robert Coombs, "Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review," Family Relations 40 (1991) 97-102; Lois Verbrugge and Donald Balaban, "Patterns of Change, Disability and Well-Being," Medical Care 27 (1989): S128- S147; I.M. Joung, et al., "Differences in Self-Reported Morbidity by Marital Status and by Living Arrangement," International Journal of Epidemiology 23 (1994): 91-97; Linda Waite, "Does Marriage Matter?" Demography 32 (1995): 483-507; Harold Morowitz, "Hiding in the Hammond Report," Hospital Practice (August 1975), p. 39; James Goodwin, et al., "The Effect of Marital Status on Stage, Treatment, and Survival of Cancer Patients," Journal of the American Medical Association, 258 (1987): 3152-3130; Benjamin Malzberg, "Marital Status in Relation to the Prevalence of Mental Disease," Psychiatric Quarterly 10 (1936): 245-261; David Williams, et al., "Marital Status and Psychiatric Disorders Among Blacks and Whites," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 33 (1992): 140-157; Steven Stack and J. Ross Eshleman, "Marital Status and Happiness: A 17-Nation Study," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60 (1998): 527-536; Robert T. Michael, et al., Sex in America: A Definitive Survey, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1994), p. 124-129; Randy Page and Galen Cole, "Demographic Predictors of Self-Reported Loneliness in Adults," Psychological Reports 68 (1991): 939-945; Jan Stets, "Cohabiting and Marital Aggression: The Role of Social Isolation," Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 669-680; "Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1992," U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, (March 1994), p. 31, NCJ-145125; Ronald Angel and Jacqueline Angel, Painful Inheritance: Health and the New Generation of Fatherless Families, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 139, 148; Richard Rogers, "Marriage, Sex, and Mortality," Journal of Marriage and the Family 57 (1995): 515-526.
4 David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children, (New York, The Free Press, 1997); Glenn T. Stanton Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society, (Colorado Springs, Pinon Press, 1997); Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Deborah Dawson, "Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 573-584; Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 103; Richard Koestner, et al., "The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717; E. Mavis Hetherington, "Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters," Developmental Psychology 7 (1972): 313 –326; Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 30-31; David Ellwood, Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 46; Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, "Single Motherhood and Children’s Health," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988): 38-52; L. Remez, "Children Who Don’t Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems," Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992; Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men and Women a Decade After Divorce, (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990); Judith Wallerstein, et al., The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, (New York: Hyperion, 2000); Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, "Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood," Journal of Family Psychology, 7 (1993): 91-103.
5 Stanley Kurtz, "Beyond Gay Marriage," The Weekly Standard, August 4-11, 2003, p. 26-33.
People can only support causes they know about. Please help spread the word about this petition and the legislation to restore genuine marriage.
Homosexuals spent over $43 million dollars trying to defeat Prop 8 in California.
In Maine, they outspent supporters of Traditional Marriage by over 2 to 1 attempting to stop the People's Veto.
Homosexuals spare no cost trying to force states to conform to their demands.
These efforts to thwart the will of citizens can only be countered by donations from those who believe returning to the real meaning of marriage is in the best interest of our society.
HB 437 is a bill currently under consideration in the New Hampshire legislature.
When passed, it will restore the language in our state laws that defined marriage as "the union of one man and one woman".