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friends Marriage Today I had wanted to make a normal entry, but I received something in the mail that changed my mind. It has to do with the Federal Marriage Amendment. Before the Senate voted on it, I called my Senator and urged him to support the amendment. Today I received a letter from him, thanking me for contacting him, and assuring me that he has and always will support the Marriage Amendment. He enclosed a copy of the speech he gave "on the Senate floor in support of the Federal Marriage Amdnment." I would like to share it with you, because it's powerful, and it is TRUE.
Our nation faces a potential disaster. I hope my colleagues in the Senate realize we have a responsibility to affirm the ideal of marriage and protect one of the most basic building blocks of our society: the family. The first thing we have to understad is that Government did not create marriage or the union between man and woman. It is something much more fundamental than legislation or laws. Marriage is older than the Constitution of the united States. It is older than America. Marriage exists in every known human society, bringing men and women together to create and to provide for the next generation of society, and it is not the right of any government anywhere to undermine or destroy it. It is a shame that some of my colleagues in the Senate do not recognize the pressing need before us to safeguard a cultural institution that has served human beings so well for thousands of generations. We must act before it is too late. In Amierca today, we are facing a depressing situation, where unelected officials are attempting, because of their own arrogance, to redefine marriage. I do not know the reason why these judges believe they are so wise and how they cannot see the dangerous consequences of their actions. But they now threaten our way of life. It is up to us to act to ensure that the American people have the opportunity to decide what is right for the society in which they live. Marriage matters to our society. Mothers and fathers both matter to children. Only a man and a woman have the ability to create children. It is the law of nature. No matter how much some might not like it or want to change it or push for technology to replace it, this law is irrefutable. It is upon this law that so much of our society and our cultural institutions are based-families, communities, work, schools. When the families suffer, when they are undermined, we all suffer. We know that weak families lead to more poverty, welfare dependence, child abuse, substance abuse, illness, educational failure, and even criminal behavior. Failing to protect marriage will send the message to the next generation that we do not care about them and that we have thrown away a cultural institution that has served human beings throughout recorded history. Traditional marriage has been central to the understanding of family in Western culture from the very beginning, and the central reason for marriage has been for the rearing of children. Children have the best chance to succeed when they are reared in stable, traditional families. A loving family provides the foundation children need to succeed, and strong families with a man and a woman bonded together for life always have been and always will be the key to such families. Eight years ago, Congress tried to protect marriage by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. As a member at that time of the U.S. House of Representatives, I was proud to support that legislation. But since then, activist judges and some local officials have aggressively tried to circumvent the law and the will of the people in redefining marriage. These extremists have devised a clever strategy to override public opinion and force a redefinition of marriage on the Nation through the court system. Because they knew they could not make their case through elected legislatures, they decided to work through unaccountable officials in hand-picked areas of this country. The liberals' effort started in Vermont when the State supreme court ordered the State legislature to legalize same-sex marriages or create same-sex civil unions. Then they moved to Massachusetts, where the supreme court forced the State to give full marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This happened even though the citizens of Massachusetts opposed the effort and no law had been passed to authorize it. Nevertheless, in Massachusetts, same-sex marriages became a reality. The activists will not stop trying to impose their extreme views on all of the rest of us, and they have now plotted a State-by-State strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without-I say without-the voice of the people being heard. Under our Constitution, States are required to give full faith and credit to the laws of other States. While the Federal Defense of Marriage Act was once thought to be enough protection for States that did not want to allow same-sex marriages, it now is very clear that the liberals who have no respect for the law are pushing a strategy to completely undermind the Defense of Marriage Act. Now the only recourse left to those of us who want to follow the law and to defend our cultural institutions is to amend the U.S. Constitution. I wish this were not the case. But States are profoundly threatened by these activist court decisions, and we have been backed into a corner. In the meantime, couples from all over the country have traveled to those States with same-sex marriages to receive their licenses and plan to return to thier home States. At least 42 States have statutes that define marriage as a union of a man and a woman, but because of the acts of a few extremists, all of these laws are threatened. In fact, at least 10 States currently face court challenges to their marriage laws, and 9 States, including my own, Kentucky, expect to have a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall in efforts to protect traditional marriage. So we are facing a situation where our Constitution and our laws are going to be amended one way or the other-by the people's representatives or by unelected judges. Those of us who defend traditional marriage were not looking for this struggle, but it has been forced upon us, and I feel we must do what we can to previal. We believe there is little else left more important to our Nation and to our future. When a small handful of unelectred activists take it upon themselves to rewrite laws and to try to overturn cultural institutions we have alwas relied upon, then we must use every tool at our disposal to defend what we believe is right. I do not take amending the Constitution of the United States lightly. None of us in this body does. However, the only way to prevent this social misjudgment from being made by the courts is to allow the people to speak on the issue through a constitutional amendment process. It is the most democratic, grassroots, political mechanism available left to let the people speak. The people are the ones who live under the law. They should be able to decide if they want to make such a fundamental and drastic change. I hear from constituents of the Commonwealth of Kentucky every day asking me, begging me, to support the Federal marriage amendment so they can be heard. In fact, I hear more about this than probably any other issue since I was elected to office. It is that important to that many people. And because it is such a critical issue-traditional marriage-any attempt to change something so fundamental should be ultimately left to all of the people and not a select few to decide. ... My Last 5 Updates |
