The marriage movement is not about politics … it’s about preserving the family
It has come to my attention that there are some serious misconceptions as to why I’m so passionate about defending traditional marriage.
This is not about politics. And it’s not about Left and Right and the various parties. Let them fight over their issues. I’m in this for one thing, and one thing only:
Our children.
Many of you know that I came up from the Civil Rights Movement and then dedicated myself to helping young African-American men and women get the education boost they needed to become successful. In doing that work, I became more aware of the social problems that hold back too many children. Chief among these is the disintegration of the family.
The statistics don’t lie:
- Only 54% of African-Americans graduate from high school–compared to more than 75% of white and Asian children.
- African-American boys, from Kindergarten all the way through high school, are two and a half times more likely to be suspended from school than their white peers.
- Only 14% of Black eight graders score “proficient” or better on the national eighth grade reading tests. By twelfth grade, there is a significant achievement gap between Black students and those of every other race and ethnicity.
- Young African-American men are a disproportionately high percentage of those incarcerated, facing addiction issues, or among the under-educated and under-employed.
And what is the single, biggest factor in upending those negative trends?
The family.
I could quote statistics for days. Children without an intact family are at greater risk for suicide, drug abuse, delinquency, educational problems … and more. This doesn’t mean that those who grow up in single-parent households are automatically doomed, but they will have a harder road:
- Teenagers living in single-parent households are more likely to abuse alcohol and at an earlier age compared to children reared in two-parent households.
- Children with fathers at home tend to do better in school, are less prone to depression and are more successful in relationships. Children from one-parent families achieve less and get into trouble more than children from two parent families.
- Nationally, 15.3 percent of children living with a never-married mother and 10.7 percent of children living with a divorced mother have been expelled or suspended from school, compared to only 4.4 percent of children living with both biological parents.
- Eighty percent of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from broken homes.
- Kids who live with both biological parents at age 14 are significantly more likely to graduate from high school than those kids who live with a single parent, a parent and step-parent, or neither parent.
Family and faith have always been the key to dismantling the racist and unjust barriers we face. They have been the cornerstone of our strength and the most fundamental building block of our culture.
And we cannot deny the fact that the gay agenda will ultimately dismantle marriage and the family. That may not be their stated goal–some of them probably don’t even realize that it is the inevitable effect of the push for same-sex marriage. But this isn’t about intentions. It’s about the effects.
And that effect–the destruction of marriage and the family; seeing faith and religion threatened in the name of ‘gay rights’–is not something I can stand by without fighting.
Our families, our faith, our culture, and our society demand that we stand up for marriage. Please join me in demanding a stop to the wholesale dismantling of the one social structure that stands as a defense against all the negative trends and indicators for our children.
