The Marriage Amendment -- Sifting out the lies

One of the issues raised by those opposing Proposition 102 is the the government should not be in the marriage business. For a blatant example of how this issue has been distorted, I suggest a search in Wikipedia on the words: "marriage license." To quote:

"The concept of a Marriage License was introduced in the 1920s, when 38 states prohibited whites from marrying Blacks,Mulattos, Japanese, Chinese,Indians, Mongolians, Malays,or Filipinos without a state approved license.Thus the institution of marriage was fundamentally changed."

This is a complete fabrication and is obvious to anyone familiar with public records. In the United States, marriage license application records are generally available beginning after the American Civil War in the mid-1800s. Marriage records, themselves are found as early as the 1600s in Colonial town records. See for example:

Szucs, Loretto Dennis, and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking. The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy. Provo, UT: Ancestry, 2006. Pages 87 to 103. [Note: This book is available in digitized format through Google Books.]

[As a side note, by the way, don't believe everything you read in Wikipedia.]

Why would someone want you to believe that the concept of a marriage license was "invented" for the purpose of discrimination? It is obvious, given the arguments of those opposing marriage, that they wish us to believe that the very concept of marriage discriminates. As it states in The Divine Institution of Marriage (See link in side bar):

"In recent years in the United States and other countries, a movement has emerged to promote same-sex marriage as an inherent or constitutional right. This is not a small step, but a radical change: instead of society tolerating or accepting private, consensual sexual behavior between adults, advocates of same-sex marriage seek its official endorsement and recognition."

If they can make you believe that the institution of marriage should not be a subject of concern for the government, they may also get you to believe that the Marriage Amendment is a governmental intrusion into an area previously outside of the government's interest and control. The fact is, governments have been in the marriage business for hundreds of years, due to the fundamental nature of the family unit and pervasiveness of family and marriage laws in our society. Those who advocate same-sex marriage and not just concerned with labels, they are attempting fundamentally alter the way our society considers the institution of marriage.

Again to quote from The Divine Institution of Marriage:

"Finally, throughout history the family has served as an essential bulwark of individual liberty. The walls of a home provide a defense against detrimental social influences and the sometimes overreaching powers of government. In the absence of abuse or neglect, government does not have the right to intervene in the rearing and moral education of children in the home. Strong families are thus vital for political freedom. But when governments presume to redefine the nature of marriage, issuing regulations to ensure public acceptance of non-traditional unions, they have moved a step closer to intervening in the sacred sphere of domestic life. The consequences of crossing this line are many and unpredictable, but likely would include an increase in the power and reach of the state toward whatever ends it seeks to pursue."