Marriage Protection

MARRIAGE PROTECTION -- (House of Representatives - September 29, 2004)

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Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I stand tonight in strong support of the Marriage Protection Amendment, and I consider this debate among the most important of my tenure in this House. I also want to make clear up front that this amendment is about reaffirming a national definition for one of our Nation's, and the world's, most important institutions, namely, marriage. This amendment does not, and I repeat, does not interfere with the right of State legislatures to change laws for their States, nor does it deny individuals the right to make sexual choices. The right to marriage will remain the same for everyone, that is, the right to marry another individual of the opposite sex.

I find it unfortunate that we must act today on something as seemingly clear as the definition of marriage, but activist judges have forced our hand in this important matter. You see, poll after poll and vote after vote at the State level have indicated that the American public overwhelmingly supports the definition of marriage as consisting of the union of one man and one woman. Indeed, 44 States have enacted laws affirming this very definition.

Moreover, in 1996, an institution no less than this very Congress and then President Clinton enacted the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage for Federal Government purposes as the union of one man and one woman. Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, the notion that marriage is the union of a man and a woman is not controversial. However, activists in the judiciary, as evidenced by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court deciding that there is no rational reason for restricting the benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples, seem bent on redefining marriage for an entire Nation in direct opposition to the wishes of the vast majority of Americans and with a flagrant disregard for the millennia-old institution of marriage that has been responsible for the successful propagation of the human race.

Since ancient days in all corners of the globe, men and women have left their own families to join together and form new families for intimate companionship and, importantly, the rearing of children.

To those opponents of this amendment who contend that marriage in this country is broken already, citing statistics that half of marriages end in divorce, I must say that I agree with you. Admittedly, our debate today does not go to the heart of the problem, but rather addresses a symptom after years of degradation of the institution of marriage in America.

Certainly it is a great tragedy when men and women divorce and children are not raised by both a mother and a father. While there are millions of men and women in this country who bravely and lovingly raise children by themselves, social science and our everyday experiences teach us that children raised without a mother and a father experience more poverty, more welfare dependence, more substance abuse, more physical illness, higher infant mortality, more homicide, more premature and promiscuous sexuality, more early unwed pregnancy, more juvenile delinquency, more educational failure, more conduct disorders and more adult criminality.

It is also true that the future of marriage as a strong institution of America goes far beyond whether or not the Constitution is amended to reaffirm the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

That fact, however, does not mean that the Marriage Protection Amendment is unimportant. Rather, it is exceedingly important. For as a society, we will have no hope of strengthening the bonds of marriage without a unified national definition of marriage, a definition consistent with the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.