Dear Colleague:

Few readers of this e-mail will need to be convinced that marriage-a
sacramental, lifetime bond between one man and one woman-is under assault.
 I write to urge you to action:  Call the two senators who represent your
state today, and urge them to vote tomorrow for the Federal Marriage
Amendment.
 
We must amend the U.S. Constitution, and put the bedrock institution of
marriage forever beyond the reach of activist judges.  Otherwise these
black-robed tyrants will force us not only to recognize, but to subsidize,
homosexual liaisons.  And our children will be vulnerable.

Steven W. Mosher
President

PRI Weekly Briefing
13 July 2004
Vol. 6 / No. 25

The End of Marriage

I was once an anthropologist, that strange and dying subdiscipline of
sociology that studies the social arrangements of various primitive
tribes.  There is a vast array of social arrangements and cultural exotica
to be found among these often-marginal groups, and the hundreds of
ethnographies that have been written often make for fascinating reading.
 
At the same time, there are some striking underlying commonalities across
cultures and across time.  One of these is marriage, as an exclusively
heterosexual institution.  While there are many different family types,
from nuclear families to extended families including several generations
and several degrees of kinship, these are all built around the one
relationship that can provide for the continuation of the family, the
fruitful bond of man and woman.
 
If any human group ever adopted homosexuality as the chief principal
around which to organize society, it died out.  No such society can long
exist, except in the imagination of homosexual activists, since it would
fail to provide for the future in the most fundamental way: by reproducing
itself.
 
Homosexual subcultures are therefore necessarily predatory, perpetuating
themselves by poaching off the larger heterosexual society.  The demand by
homosexual activists that their liaisons be not only recognized, but also
validated, by the state must be viewed in part as a recruiting ploy.  If
marriage between homosexuals is allowed, then this will expose children of
normal sexual inclinations to a wide variety of homosexual ideas and
advances.
 
The decay of the family already means that half the children born in the
1990s will spend at least part of their childhood in single-parent homes.1
Such children, lacking in many cases a male role model, are quite
vulnerable to advances by older homosexuals.
 
If "same sex marriage" is legalized nationwide, public school readers will
soon be filled with stories like "Heather has two mommies."  It will be
taught in social science courses that the traditional definition of
marriage as a bond a man and a women is outdated, obsolete and intolerant.
 Man/man and woman/woman liaisons will be hailed as the model for the
future, equal to or better than traditional marriage.  Teenagers confused
about their sexuality-and there are many-will be particularly vulnerable.
 
A world of shattered families peopled with millions of isolated and
miseducated teenagers would be a paradise for homosexual predators.  But
it would be Hell to live in.
 
The majority of the American people would never approve same-sex marriage
at the ballot box, but we are perilously close to having it imposed on us
by the courts.
 
As President Bush, who strongly supports the Federal Marriage Amendment,
has written, "When judges insist on imposing their arbitrary will on the
people, the only alternative left to the people is an amendment to the
Constitution-the only law a court cannot overturn. A constitutional
amendment should never be undertaken lightly-yet to defend marriage, our
nation has no other choice.

A great deal is at stake in this matter. The union of a man and woman in
marriage is the most enduring and important human institution, and the law
can teach respect or disrespect for that institution. If our laws teach
that marriage is the sacred commitment of a man and a woman, the basis of
an orderly society, and the defining promise of a life, that strengthens
the institution of marriage. If courts create their own arbitrary
definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from
its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is
lost, and the institution is weakened. The Massachusetts court, for
example, has called marriage "an evolving paradigm." That sends a message
to the next generation that marriage has no enduring meaning, and that
ages of moral teaching and human experience have nothing to teach us about
this institution.

For ages, in every culture, human beings have understood that traditional
marriage is critical to the well being of families. And because families
pass along values and shape character, traditional marriage is also
critical to the health of society. Our policies should aim to strengthen
families, not undermine them. Changing the definition of traditional
marriage will undermine the family structure." 2

That, of course, is precisely what homosexual activists have in mind.

Please call the two senators who represent your state today, and urge them
to vote tomorrow for the Federal Marriage Amendment.  Here's the number: 1
(202) 224-3121.

1 Robert Rector, Melissa G. Pardue, Lauren R. Noyes, "Marriage Plus:
Sabotaging the President's Efforts to Promote Healthy Marriages," The
Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 1677, 22 August 2003.
 
2 President's Radio Address on Marriage, 10 July 2004.
 
© 2004 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint granted.
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