Last
weekend United Families International launched a Defend Marriage
and Family campaign that they hope to wage in all 50 states
and on a national level. The goal is to pass an amendment
to the Constitution defining marriage as the union of a man
and a woman and organize committees in each state to work
to defend marriage.
 |
Sean
Hannity |
Hundreds
of people came to the meeting held in Mesa, Arizona where
they heard Sean Hannity, syndicated radio talk show host and
Fox News television commentator, tell them that there are
two competing visions for America, and that the time had come
to determine who will win. In all of recorded history, every
society has been based on the foundation of marriage, and
now America is on the verge of a radical social experiment
that will undermine our stability and our children’s future.
The
timing for the conference could not have been better since
last week the movement to protect marriage received its Pearl
Harbor. The bomb, which had been anticipated for months,
was the ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
that homosexual couples have a constitutional right to marry
and the ordering of the legislature to comply within 180 days.
Like that explosion which pulled the United States into World
War II, this ruling is expected to finally galvanize family
advocates who have been asleep while they have let society’s
most bedrock institution—marriage—become endangered.
“This
is a crisis,” Sheldon Kinsel said, “but the symbol in Chinese
for crisis has two parts. One side is danger, the other opportunity.”
The
Massachusetts ruling not only affects the hundreds of laws
concerning marriage in that state, but potentially the marriage
laws of every state because of the Constitution’s Full Faith
and Credit Clause which says that a legal contract recognized
in one state must be recognized in all of the states. This
may apply to marriage laws and will undoubtedly initiate a
cascade of legal challenges to the existing marriage laws
in other states.
Adding
to the concern is that the Massachusetts justices relied on
the reasoning used in the recent Lawrence case which overturned
sodomy laws in all the states where the justices said that
the Constitution protected the litigant’s own concept of existence,
the meaning of life and the universe.
 |
Ann Coulter |
Ann
Coulter, known as a funny, conservative pundit, told the United
Families conference at a $100 a plate dinner attended by 600,
that the Supreme Court justices must be hallucinating when
they read the Constitution, since they see things that aren’t
there in the name of forwarding their “Hustler agenda.”
UFI
president Sharon Slater said that the group is launching a
marriage petition that they plan to circulate widely, seeking
hundreds of thousands of signatures, stating that marriage
is defined as the relationship between a man and a woman.
In
addition, United Families will be pushing their campaign for
marriage through public service announcements, email and direct
mail campaigns and through an aggressive public relations
campaign putting spokesmen on radio and television stations
and making them available for comment to newspapers and magazines.
“This
battle for marriage will be won or lost in the media,” said
Cherilyn Bacon, UFI’s director of development. “In order
to do this effectively, we will be raising $10 million dollars.”
Believing
that many people do not understand the implications of the
loss of marriage in our society or buy arguments based on
misinformation, UFI’s goal is to educate the public. Toward
this end, they have created an issues guide which looks at
myths about homosexuality often propagated in the media and
replaces them with the facts found in social and scientific
studies gleaned from more than 40 journals.
Is
homosexuality genetic? Is it discriminatory not to allow
homosexuals to marry? Do children fare as well when raised
in a homosexual environment? The Guide to Family Issues answers
these questions, giving family advocates a ready reference
for the facts they need to help spread public awareness about
the issue because many have been fed a series of false impressions
by the media.
|
UFI President Sharon
Slater |
UFI’s
target audience will be those who believe in family but have
not been engaged before in standing up for this issue. “We
want to reach the mothers and fathers who are busy at home
and have not engaged themselves on this issue. We hope to
reach the moderates and independents who believe that marriage
is essential but haven’t yet declared themselves and give
articulation to those who do care, but don’t know the way
to talk about it,” said Slater.
“We
will not be using a religious or moral argument,” she said
of UFI, which is non-denominational, but a social science
approach. We will not use emotion, but research. We have
gone to work not because we are against anyone, but because
we are for marriage,” she said.
UFI’s
purpose is summed up, “We call upon all families, responsible
citizens, and government, religious and community leaders,
to preserve and protect the family. As the family goes, so
goes the nation, so goes the world.”
Speakers
at the conference included notables in the family movement
including Richard Wilkins, Maggie Gallagher, and Allan Carlson.
Maggie
Gallagher, who wrote The Case for Marriage, said, “We
seem to live in a time which prompts us to ask questions that
people never thought to ask for hundreds of years. Why do
we have marriage? How deep is the obligation of adults to
conduct their lives in ways that are often difficult in order
to give their children stability within marriage?
“We
can say with a good deal of confidence and with scientific
certainty that every bad thing that can happen to children
happens more often if parents don’t get and stay married.
Children who are raised in different circumstances have more
suicide, more teen pregnancy, more early promiscuous sexual
activity, more drug abuse, are less likely to graduate from
high school.
“Yet
four judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in a breathtaking
judgment for its arrogance and indifference have ruled on
marriage. It is arrogant because what these four have done
could rewrite all of our marriage laws. It is ignorant because
it is a decision that reflects no understanding at all about
why we have marriage.
“The
reason that we burden marriage with regulations and surround
it with special attentions, is because it is the kind of union
we depend on to make the next generation happen. Every baby
deserves to start out with its own parents who love each other.
It’s hard to put sexual energies and attention into this one
narrow channel particularly in large complex societies, and
so we have supported marriage.
“Now
your government is saying that children do not need mothers
and fathers. I don’t think we know that and I don’t think
that it is true. If we have same-sex “marriage”, it is not
only going to affect those couples who do it. It is going
to affect our very capacity to talk about marriage as the
lifetime union between a man and a woman in the public square.
There will be no word for it, because marriage will have come
to mean something else. The next generation will be raised
with a very different definition of marriage. We will be
saying that marriage is whatever adults want it to be.”
Gallagher
added, “As with most traditional assumptions, people have
been inarticulate about marriage.”
United
Families clearly wants to give citizens not only the articulation
and understanding to stand up for marriage, but also the tools.
It will succeed with your help.
In
the following days and weeks, Meridian will be publishing
many talks from the conference held in Arizona. Please stay
tuned so that you may become better informed and know how
to articulate this critical issue. If you want to be a part
of this movement, contact us at feedback@meridianmagazine.com.
