Marriage Overview

Marriage is about equality and diversity. It’s about joining the two equally important and diverse halves of humanity represented in men and women. And it’s about forming a lifelong bond—for the good of society and the foundation of the family.

The creative capacity of the union between a man and a woman links marriage to family. A man and a woman give themselves to one another, and from that, a child is conceived and born. This forms a family, and it’s where children first learn how to interact with others. Marriage and family, therefore, are the foundation of society. But when culture fails to respect and promote marriage, countless individuals, particularly women, children, and the underprivileged, suffer needless emotional and material hardships.

What foundation do you want to build the future on?

Marriage:

A culture interested in strengthening the future with a commitment to others.

In this society, marriage is defined as the lifelong union between a man and a woman, placing the needs of others, especially children, first.
Strong marriages produce strong families, which create a healthy, free, and stable society.

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The Desires of the Individual:

A culture where individual desires trump what is best for society.

In this society, marriage is defined as the emotional union of two or more consenting adults, and the well-being of children and the benefit to society are an afterthought.
Disagreement with this view is seen as a threat—some rights, such as sexual rights, are considered more important than rights such as religious freedom.

Marriage benefits society in ways no other relationship does. That’s why government is involved and why Alliance Defending Freedom defends marriage policies that give children the opportunity to have a married mother and father. But this isn’t just about children. It’s about your future.

Issue

Three Key Campaigns Regarding Marriage

Learn more about
Rebuilding
Marriage

Rebuilding Marriage

Marriage has always been a union between one man and one woman. Strong marriages create a future of progress, growth, stability, and freedom.

Learn more about
Redesigning
Society

Redesigning Society

Opponents of marriage will not stop at removing the foundation of civilization. They will redesign society at the cost of your religious freedom.

Learn more about
Marriage Is Our
Future

Marriage Is Our Future

Children do best when raised by their married mom and dad, and the best way to protect them is to promote marriage.

"The first bond of society is marriage."

-Cicero

"The issue of same sex marriage boils down to adults selfishly seeking to define a right to have children over and above the right of children to intact biological families."

-Doug Mainwaring, self-identified gay speaker and writer, American Thinker

"The history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family. . . . [T]he family is placed at the centre of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love."

-Pope John Paul II

"Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, a consortium for the whole of life involving the communication of divine and human rights."

-3rd Century Roman jurist, Modestinus

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Marriage Is Our Future

Marriage ensures that more children are raised in a loving, stable home by both their mother and father—something that every child instinctively needs and deserves. Marriage is our children’s best hope for the future. That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom remains committed to promoting the truth that marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman.