NOM BLOG

Ken Connelly on The Goodness of Marriage

 

Ken Connolly takes part in a TownHall series of columns related to National Marriage Week (that we recently promoted). You can find the second column in this series here.

G.K. Chesterton observed in The Superstition of Divorce that “reformers of marriage . . . do not know what it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its supporters suppose it to be . . . .” Marriage opponents, who today seek not to reform but rather redefine marriage, appear to suffer from the problem diagnosed by Chesterton almost a century ago.

In their heedless rush to establish the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, they ignore what marriage is and what marriage does.

Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored and relied upon throughout history. An organic phenomenon of human society without parallel, it has emerged spontaneously and instinctively, as if in answer to a deep and abiding human need for order and stability.

Rooted in biological and social reality, marriage has always been marked, for good reason, by its male-female nature and its undeniable link to procreation and responsible childrearing. Not every couple has a child, but every child has a mother and a father.

A healthy marriage culture helps the gold standard prevail, wherever possible, that children are raised by the parents who brought them into this world. The strong families which result from this arrangement produce a vibrant and self-sustaining society which serves as our best guarantee of limited government...

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