Richard John Santorum

“ I believe the no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s changed the essence of marriage, which is about a man and a woman entering into a selfless relationship, a union on which they would further give of themselves in the creation of new human life and nurturing that life. It was a selfless act, giving of oneself, giving up things to each other. That is how successful marriages work, and that is how successful marriages nurture successful children. With no-fault divorce and with the culture that came along with it, we have marriage being about adults, not about children. ”

“ All it takes for this change in marriage in America is for well-meaning, good people to moderately, deliberately, simply do nothing—just sit back, claim their virtue, claim their belief in one man and one woman in marriage, and allow someone else to change it, and then come and say, well, it is too late, or we cannot take marriage away ”

“ Now, my colleagues can argue until the cows come home that they do not like this way of doing that, and that is fine, and that there are other alternatives to pursue, but if they really care about preserving one man and one woman in a union called marriage, there is one sure-fire way to do it, and that is to vote for a constitutional amendment that does it. Any other excuse is simply that—an excuse to let someone else do their dirty work. ”

“ We oppose gay marriage, not gay relationships.
They go on to say:
Most people assume that heterosexuality is a given of nature and thus not vulnerable to cultural change, that nothing will ever discourage straight people from getting together and starting families. But we argue— and this is important—that heterosexual bonding must indeed be deliberately fostered by a distinctive and supportive culture. Because heterosexual bonding is directly related to both reproduction and survival, and because it involves much more than copulation, all human societies have actively fostered it. ”

“ Remember, I talked earlier about how the breakdown of marriage has affected the poorest communities in our society and our culture, and in many of those cultures marriage is not accepted, and as a result the Government has to come in and bail out those communities because there are no unions, there are no families, there is no support network for these children? In middle-class and upper middle-class, socialistic, equality-driven Scandinavia, where there are no ghettos of poverty that we see in America, 60 percent of first-born children in these countries are born out of wedlock. ”

“ I looked through the Constitution many times and I never saw that four-judges-in-Massachusetts clause, but that is what goes on. We either do it that way or go through this complex process that is very hard. Why? Because constitutional rights are big deals. It is an important thing. We should not create new rights in our Constitution without a very deliberative, thoughtful process, and the American public should be engaged in that process. That is what we are about today. We are about engaging the American people in the thoughtful process of determining what marriage should be in America. ”

“ It is hard to come to the Senate floor and argue for any constitutional amendment. It is doubly hard to actually pass one because 67 votes are needed in the Senate, plus three-quarters of the States. If we could come up with a legislative solution that would solve the problem that I see of runaway courts, I would be very anxious to find it. We tried back in 1996 with the Defense of Marriage Act, but just about every legal scholar who has come around has said the Defense of Marriage Act will not stand, from the left to the right, and I will get into that in further discussion. ”

“ My colleagues cannot claim to be for something and then vote against it and let someone else do the exact opposite of what they say they want, and that is what the courts will do. So I plead with my colleagues, who I believe have every good intention, to search their souls and to think about the consequences for America. Because other speakers have arrived, I will yield the floor in a minute. I know people come with good intentions and I know people do not want to be seen as intolerant, and they do not want to be seen as hateful or mean spirited or being against anybody. ”

“ Much of what is accomplished in animals by nature (‘‘biology,’’ ‘‘genetics,’’ or ‘‘instinct’’) must be accomplished in humans by culture (all other aspects of human existence, including marriage) . If culture were removed, the result wouldn’t be a functioning organism whether human or nonhuman. ”

“ Will heterosexuals continue to copulate, have sexual relations? Sure. Will they build families. Nobody is suggesting that if we get rid of the definition of traditional marriage, there is going to be a explosion of nontraditional marriage. ”

“ To get to the bottom line of this debate, the bottom line is children need mothers and fathers, and society should be all about that. Society should be all about creating the best possible chance for children to have a mother and a father. ”

“ So you are hearing arguments from someone who you would think normally would agree that traditional marriage should be redefined; in fact, he argues in this paper, quite effectively and forcefully, that traditional marriage is important to be maintained—not because he thinks it discriminates against him, but because it is important for our culture and society. ”

“ The problem, if we look at communities in America where marriage has broken down, we see communities that are not functioning very well. We see children who are the most at risk in our society because moms and dads are not around the home to provide for them. ”

“ As a citizen, it is rather upsetting to look at the Constitution as a document and say, well, to create new rights under the Constitution we have to have two-thirds of the Senate, two-thirds of the House and three-quarters of the State legislatures, or four judges in Massachusetts. ”

“ I suggest that in those countries that have, in fact, adopted whether it is same-sex marriages or civil unions, they have not seen a traumatic growth in the number of same-sex unions or same-sex marriages. ”

“ I do not think in the grand scheme of things whether Members of the House and Senate can receive a pay raise during their term is one of the great pressing issues that face our culture and our country. ”

“ I want to read a few things from the summary of that report just to give people a sense of why this is such an important issue to be debated. In this country, we tend to take marriage for granted, thinking that somehow or another it will just happen, that people will get together and marry and will have children, whether we have an institution called marriage or whether that institution of marriage is redefined to include a whole host of other different relationships that really won’t affect the basic traditional marriage. ”

“ People will continue to hook up. In fact, that is what occurs more and more in cultures, even in this country, where marriage is not held up as something that is important. We see it around us. There are cultures and subcultures in America where marriage is seen to be an older, passe convention. ”

“ Apart from any other handicap would be the inability to reproduce successfully. Why? Because mating (sexual intercourse) , which really is largely governed by a biological drive, isn’t synonymous with the complex behaviors required by family life within a larger human society. ”