 |
| Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson talks with Princeton University professor Robert P. George, co-editor of The Meaning of Marriage, a book excerpted in this month's issue of Columbia, and an important leader in the establishing the intellectual case for opposite-sex marriage. They attended a June 5 White House briefing on the Marriage Protection Act. |
Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said June 7 that the Senate’s failure to approve the Marriage Protection Amendment is “deeply disappointing,” and noted the irony of the fact that the 49-48 vote “comes one day after Alabama became the 20th state to adopt a state constitutional amendment protecting marriage.”
Voters in Alabama approved their amendment at the polls yesterday by an overwhelming 81 percent to 19 percent margin.
“Too many senators underestimated both the urgent need for this amendment and the depth of feeling of many millions of Americans who want their elected officials to act decisively to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” Anderson said.
“The extraordinary range of religious groups who have banded together to support the amendment is unprecedented: Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Lutherans, Orthodox, Jews and Evangelical Christians. With yesterday’s overwhelming approval in Alabama, voters in 20 states have now adopted state constitutional amendments to protect marriage, with an average of more than 70 percent of voters in favor. Voters in six more states will vote on state constitutional amendments this fall.”
“But lawsuits are threatening traditional marriage laws in nine states, and in four of those states trial courts have already discovered a ‘right’ to same-sex marriage using the same foolish reasoning that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court used two years ago,” Anderson continued.
“And most ominously, a federal court has found Nebraska’s state constitutional amendment protecting marriage to be a violation of the federal constitution. Clearly, the only thing that will stop out-of-control judges from destroying marriage is a federal constitutional amendment.
“Next month, the U.S. House of Representatives will also vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment, and we will once again join with the Catholic Bishops of the United States in urging them to vote to approve it,” Anderson said.
“We will support the efforts to adopt state constitutional amendments protecting marriage at the polls this fall. And we will redouble our efforts to build momentum for adoption of the Marriage Protection Amendment.
“It is absolutely essential that elected officials and citizens everywhere recognize the urgent need to act before the courts destroy society’s most valuable building block,” Anderson concluded.
|
