Joe Pitts, November 19, 2004

John Adams once said, "Statesmen... may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." Mr. Adams understood, as did many of his colleagues that liberty when left to grow unchecked by morality and faith cannot stand. This forms the basis of our democracy: freedom governed by the rule of law supported by a firm foundation of values.

I cannot help but think that the "moral values" identified by voters as the top issue facing our nation on Election Day are very similar to the ones that inspired John Adams so many years ago.

One such value that motivated these voters was the value of marriage to our culture.

In February, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court changed an age-old definition of marriage by ruling that Vermont-style civil unions, despite conferring the same legal benefits of marriage, would not satisfy the request of homosexual couples to marry. The ruling flew in the face of popular opinion, centuries of experience with marriage, and was a perfect example of judicial activism run amok.

On election-week Friday, David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, offered in a tongue-in-cheek thank you letter to Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of Massachusetts his "heartiest congratulations and thanks for almost single-handedly making possible" President Bush’s re-election.

Mr. Keene wrote that had it not been for Justice Marshall’s rulings in favor of gay marriage and her decision to "unilaterally impose...progressive personal opinions on the law, marriage might never have become the defining issue of the 2004 presidential election."

I agree with him. In response to the Massachusetts ruling, citizens or their elected representatives in thirteen states placed initiatives on the ballot dealing with the definition of marriage.

Voters in each state overwhelmingly approved the initiatives. More than 70 percent of voters in eight of these states cast votes in favor of these initiatives. In only two of the remaining five states did the percentage fall below 60 percent (59 percent in Michigan and 57 percent in Oregon ).

The issue for voters wasn’t whether adults should have the ability to live as they choose. The backlash against the court’s ruling was motivated primarily by a desire to protect marriage and prevent courts from deciding a question that should be left to the American people.

Candidates who voiced support for similar legislation on the federal level enjoyed similar success. At the top of the ticket President George W. Bush, a vocal supporter of the Marriage Protection Amendment, became the first President since his father in 1988 to secure a majority of the popular vote (President Clinton secured a plurality in both 1992 and 1996).

Five Senate candidates who support the Marriage Protection Amendment won. Of these five, four replaced retiring Senators. The fourth, John Thune, defeated a leading Senate opponent of the Amendment, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Three Senators who support the Amendment were replaced by candidates who share their view. Only one Senator who supports the amendment, retiring Illinois Republican Peter Fitzgerald, was replaced by an opponent to the amendment.

In the House, the numbers are similar. On September 30, 2004 the House of Representatives voted on the Marriage Protection Amendment. The proposal did not secure the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments, but it did garner a majority. The vote put representatives on the record regarding an issue that has become a motivating force for values voters.

These results translate into a mandate for marriage. Voters have made clear that when given the choice they support marriage. Sadly, activists intent on using the courts to redefine marriage believe that this view is bigoted. They could not be more gravely mistaken.

In the next two years we will vote on this again, in both chambers of Congress. It has become and will continue to be a conflict between opposing sides of the cultural divide. The value of marriage and in family is based on the very idea that they are sacred, they hold a value set apart from anything else in our culture.

Even apart from religious faith, philosophers and sociologists identify the family, and more specifically marriage, as the foundational element of any culture. Volumes of research demonstrate that a great number of the social ills besetting our country are rooted in the decline we have already seen in the traditional, nuclear family. To allow this decline to continue would irreversibly break apart the foundation of our culture.

The majority of Americans support marriage and want to preserve it. The question is whether Washington and activist judges will listen.

Congressman Joe Pitts, a Republican, represents Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District, which includes Lancaster County and parts of Chester County and Berks County.