In the Summer of 2006 the U.S. Congress considered a Marriage Protection Amendment. In the months leading up to the debate and vote I wrote 3 letters to our Senators.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “on the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006.
Senator, my name is Jim Denison.
This is the second letter I have written urging you to thoughtfully consider supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment to our Constitution. It seems incongruous, to me, that something so obvious needs to be re-established as a value by our society. But it does. And I respectfully ask you to support this Amendment – “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” – since our Nation’s inception, an unwritten principle of our union. In so doing you will be emphatically affirming the exclusive place of an institution from which people who make up these United States derive their very lives.
In the previous letter I acknowledged my faith in Jesus of Nazareth and my unconditional loyalty to Him. Without question my concerns about marriage spring from my belief that they are His as well. He flatly stated, more than once , that “marriage” as “the union of a man and a woman,” is the Creator’s idea. He insisted that anything other than this is destructive. So, honestly, what I am addressing in this second letter, is rooted in the Judaeo Christian understanding that marriage began, “in the beginning.” That its nature and purpose in human society was defined, by our Creator.
The Creator’s mandate for marriage is found in the Creation story. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth … .” In the first letter I wrote that “marriage” consisting of the “union of a man and a woman” is the only relationship by which we, are “fruitful and increase in number.” This letter is about “filling the earth.” It’s about the duplication of ourselves until the earth is filled with quality people, like ourselves, God’s creative masterpiece. It’s about growing people capable of keeping the next mandate – “subdue the earth and rule over everything in it.” Despite Reconstructionist attempts to redefine Family, I insist that the “union of a man and woman,” is the only relationship in which our kind can be reproduced, and the best environment for the nurture and training of people capable of fulfilling our specie’s mandate.
The fifth of the 10 Commandments Yahweh gave to his people is, “honor your Father and your Mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” This is, as someone else observed long ago, the first Commandment with a “promise.” The promise is simple. Long and good life follows respect for parents, male and female. Given that this is the Creator's Commandment, and His original condition for "parenting" is the one flesh bond He established, I presume that the promise is contingent on the condition. Do we want to live well and long? Do we want our fellow Americans to live well and long? Then we must honor our "Father and Mother" and the "union" that made all of this possible. We must encourage them. We must protect their "union." We must give it all the exclusivity and privilege it has enjoyed and more. We must inspire our parents and all parents living in this "union," to remain loyal in their love. We must enable them to maintain and strengthen their bond in ways that will empower them to grow Children of high character, and inspire their Children to honor them by accepting their training and following their examples.
Senator, as I noted in the previous letter, this goes beyond faith and religion. We must see it as metaphysical. It is about our “reality as a whole.” And, because it is about “the real nature of things … it is (among) the most fundamental and most comprehensive of inquiries … .”
Realistically, the “traditional Family” is the best environment for the cultivation of love and life. We’ve learned this by trial and error. Like all “good” science, we’ve observed what works and doesn’t. Our laboratory has been real and sometimes very painful life. But we’ve discovered that some things work better than others. With each discovery we’ve improved our efforts to build loving and nurturing Families. To our credit, despite improvements, we’ve not given up on the continual quest for even better marriage and parenting practices. Also, to our credit, we’ve never lost sight of the fundamentals; “what 'brung' us here.” We’ve recognized what Steven Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, calls the “P/PC Balance – the balance between production and production capability.” We’ve not, at any time –‘til now – given even passing consideration to “killing the goose that lays these golden eggs.” (Covey’s metaphor) We’ve simply assumed that the relationship that’s “gotten us here,” is not to be compromised. Why would we, now, even think of lifting the special status and exclusive benefits we’ve always given to this relationship?
The evidence is extensive that the “traditional Family” is the best environment for the growing of healthy human beings. You, Senator, may be familiar with the “TESTIMONY OF BARBARA DAFOE WHITEHEAD, PH.D, CO-DIRECTOR, NATIONAL MARRIAGE PROJECT RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: U.S. SENATE.” Ms. Whitehead, referencing fragments of this “extensive evidence,” testified:
“Today, thanks to resurgent scholarly interest in family structure, we have a large body of social science research on marriage and its effects. Overall, the available research evidence persuasively demonstrates the advantages of marriage for children, adults and the society. Though it is impossible to cover the entire scope of the research in this limited space, let me summarize key findings.”
Summarizing Ms. Whitehead’s testimony even further, for my purposes in this letter, I note her citation of these “benefits to children.”
“Marriage -- especially if it is low-conflict and long-lasting -- is a source of economic, educational and social advantage for most children. Researchers now agree that, except in cases of high and unremitting parental conflict, children who grow up in households with their married mother and father do better on a wide range of economic, social, educational, and emotional measures than do children in other kinds of family arrangements.
According to some researchers, growing up with both married parents in a low-conflict marriage is so important to child wellbeing that it is replacing race, class, and neighborhood as the greatest source of difference in child outcomes.
Children from intact families are …
--far less likely to be poor or to experience persistent economic insecurity. In fact, if it were not for the demographic shift from married parent families to other kinds of family structures in recent decades, the child poverty rate would be significantly lower. For example, according to one study, if family structure had not changed between 1960 and 98, the black child poverty rate in 1998 would have been 28.4 percent rather than 45.6 percent, and the white child poverty rate would have been 11.4 percent rather than 15.4 percent.
Children who grow up in married parent families are …
-- shielded from the economic effects of parental divorce. Estimates suggest that children experience a 70 percent drop in their household income in the immediate aftermath of divorce and, unless there is a remarriage, the income is still 40 to 45 percent lower six years later than for children in intact families.
Children from intact married parent families are …
--more likely to stay in school. According to a 1994 research review by Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, the risk of high school dropout for children from two-parent biological families is substantially less than that for those from single parent or stepfamilies.
Children from married parent families …
--have fewer behavioral or school attendance problems and higher levels of educational attainment.
--They are better able to withstand pressures to engage in early sexual activity and to avoid unwed teen parenthood, behaviors that can derail educational achievement and attainment. They are significantly more likely to earn four-year college degrees or better and to do better occupationally than children from divorced or single parent families.
--Warm, responsive, firm and fair parenting helps to promote healthy emotional development and to foster emotional resilience in children.
Parents, stepparents and grandparents in all kinds of family arrangements can, and do, manage to establish emotionally warm and secure environments, often against daunting odds. However, parents in long-lasting, low-conflict marriages are …
--more likely to have the time, resources, relational and residential stability to co-parent effectively.
On average, children reared in married parent families are …
--less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide than children in non-intact families.
Further, because parental divorce is such a commonplace childhood experience, with close to four out of ten American children going through a parental divorce, it is an advantage to grow up in a low-conflict married parent household undisrupted by divorce. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, the effect of divorce on children is more than a set of discrete symptoms. It can be a “long searing experience.”
Finally, in their own future dating and marriage relationships, children benefit from the models set by their married parents. Children from married parent families …
--have more satisfying dating relationships, more positive attitudes toward future marriage and greater success in forming lasting marriages. According to a nationally representative survey of young men, ages 25-34, commissioned by Rutgers’ National Marriage Project in 2004, young men from married parent families are less likely to be divorced and more likely to be married. Among the never-married young men surveyed, those from married parent families were more likely to express readiness to be married than young men from other kinds of family backgrounds. In addition, young men from married parent households have more positive attitudes toward women, children and family life than men who grew up in nonintact families.”
As I previously noted, Senator, you are, quite likely, familiar with this testimony. Unfortunately many Americans are not.
Once again I urge you to accept the responsibility given you and your Colleagues by the Founders. Be the voice of reason in the conversations of government. Tell the people the truth. Give them the opportunity to debate this issue authoritatively. Set in motion the process by which our United States can do their part in the ratification of this necessary Amendment.
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