Gary Bauer tells Focus on the Family:
Marriage has been, for thousands of years of Judeo-Christian civilization, the uniting of one man and one woman. Once you say it’s two men, as Sen. Santorum warned, then why not make it one man and several women, or one woman and several men? The whole idea of monogamy breaks down.
Actually, for better or worse, polygamy has always been legal; such relationships simply are not recognized by federal and state governments. They become illegal only when an individual seeks a marriage certificate for multiple simultaneous marriages.
The Old Testament of the Bible not only permits but admires the polygamy and serial relationships of leading men such as David.
That is not to say that I favor polygamy; I do not.
It means simply that Bauer tolerates informal polygamy even as he favors laws calling for the arrest of all sexually active homosexual persons.
Bauer voices a tone of resignation:
Quite frankly, if a conservative Republican president is hesitant to go on the record as saying he will defend marriage as remaining between a man and a woman, then we really have lost the culture war.
However, Bauer fails to see why the religious right and its support base are losing political support for their war against U.S. culture:
Politicians are sometimes cowed by the popular culture. They are afraid of being called intolerant. They are afraid of all sorts of things. But that is not an excuse for the silence of any politician who has been elected with the votes of millions of pro-family traditional voters.
Political fear is a valid “excuse” when the public perceives anti-family and un-American values and consequences underlying religious-right policies.
The decision the Federal Govermnemt and each state makes on this issue will be no less than an outward symbol of how the United States views human rights within its own nation.
I am sure you are well aware of what is legally required to validate a marriage: two people who meet the age requirement in the statute, a marriage license issued by the county in which the said two people reside, and a third party with signing authority to validate the marriage license (as granted to certain officials by each state’s statute).
There is not one item validating a legal marriage that requires biblical beliefs, religion or denominational affiliation in any form. Two athiests may be married on the spot, as soon as they are issued a marriage license, without any degree of suspect that they in fact denounce every word in any religious text, including that of any translation of the old or new testament in the gentilian based bible. Ditto for Satan worshippers, Wiccans, agnostics, darwinians, buddhists, muslims, and any one of any other faith (or lack thereof) that may be in opposition to the gentilian based bible. Do the people of America want to gift Satan worshippers with, for all intents and purposes, legal rights that are being touted here as a matter of gentilian biblical base…in the name of God?? As a matter of course, it is also entirely possible for believers in the gentilian based bible to go through a religious ceremony of matrimonial intent — yet without a valid marriage license, it is not a legally recognized marriage for any purposes.
What we all need to believe in, and what I believe in, is marriage. Even with the divorce rate sky high in America today, people still get married every single day — because people still believe in marriage. I also believe that the United States still stands for truth, justice and liberty for all who call it home. So do the people who legally and illegally emigrate here in droves — every single day — because of what it means to live in and be a citizen of the United States of America. It means all citizens have the same rights, liberties, and protections under the law — all citizens. The citizens of this great nation still believe in marriage and it is the responsibility of the lawmakers to ensure all citizens have the legal access to that belief in their lives.