Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum, left, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and former House speaker Newt Gingrich prepare for their candidates debate June 13 at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.
(DARREN MCCOLLESTER/GETTY IMAGES)
So just what is in “The Marriage Vow,” a socially conservative pledge drafted by an Iowa organization called the Family Leader, and signed by Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum?
While many of the beliefs stated in the pledge are common talking points among conservative politicians, others elements inflamed activists Friday, such as the view that homosexuality is not an “innate” trait and the implication that family life was potentially better for black children during the era of slavery.
Read the document, embedded below:
THE MARRIAGE VOW documentThe pledge opens with a declaration connecting the sanctity of family life to what the author see as America’s Judeo-Christian heritage: “Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order — as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture, by Classical Philosophers, by Natural Law, and by the American Founders – upon which our concepts of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend,” reads the document’s opening lines.
Divorce, abortion, homosexuality, Sharia law, pornography and polygamy are all condemned; reproduction is praised as “beneficial to the U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.”
In an election that many analysts expect to be all about the economy, clashes over social issues are making headlines. As Sandhya Somashekhar writes in her article on the pledge, even Bachmann had recently been working to distance herself from divisive culture war battlegrounds such as homosexuality.
Want More On Faith and 2012?
Check out On Faith’s Panel Debate over social issues in the 2012 campaign
Read Sandhya Somashekhar’s report on the political implications of The Marriage Vow pledge
Under God: Santorum, GOP continue anti-sharia campaign
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