Issues – Family and Culture

The backbone of any society or culture is its controlling value set. The values that have guidedour own nation since its founding are rooted in a shared religious tradition that lies at the verycore of our American identity.

Now however, that tradition– and the values it has created– are under attack.

From the Supreme Court decision in 1963 that declared Bible reading in public schools unconstitutional, to the landmark decision in 1973 providing abortion on demand, to today’shealth care reform bill that allows taxpayer funding of abortion, Americans are reeling from an all-out cultural assault.

In an election where economic issues are sure to dominate, it is important that cultural and social issues maintain a prominent position in our political discourse. These issues, which define who we are, will ultimately inform the decisions we make as we tackle a broad range of difficult problems facing our nation today.

Abortion:

I categorically oppose abortion in all of its forms and as a United States Senator will fighttirelessly to protect unborn children.

Legalized abortion has taken a moral, psychological, economic, and social toll on our nation:
• By causing harm to the most vulnerable among us, abortion has tainted our value system unlike anything in history and reduced not only the value of life itself but also our moral leadership among other nations.
• Hundreds of thousands of women in America have suffered physical and psychological damage from abortion.
• Countless physicians who have taken an oath to “do no harm,” have been forced into conflicts of conscience, by abortion.
• The loss of over 40 million lives has created a vacuum in births that are necessary to sustain our national entitlement programs for future generations.

Marriage:

I believe in the sanctity of marriage and support its traditional, accepted definition as a sacred union between a man and a woman.

The steady deterioration of the institution of marriage by legislators and the courts has had aserious impact on our society:

• The weakening of laws governing marriage and efforts to redefine the institution itself, have torn at the very fabric of our society and created the social and economic problems that threaten our country today.
• The loosening of no-fault divorce laws at a state level in the 1960’s and 1970’s contributed greatly to the breakdown of families.
• Changing attitudes toward the permanence of the institution and the responsibility parents have to their children have created a cultural vacuum resulting in higher rates of co-habitation and more single-parent households.
• DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by Congress in 1996, provides an important cultural touchstone that disputes the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

Pornography:

I believe that prevalence and accessibility of pornography is a national crisis that must be addressed as aggressively as the Constitution will allow.

Pornography poses a moral, social, and criminal risk to our society:

• Pornography not only victimizes and exploits women and children, and debases men– it creates sexual addictions in society.
• Pornography creates harmful effects on children who view it whether on the internet or otherwise.
• Pornography has spawned sex industries that would not have been tolerated in a pre-internet society and have now become criminal enterprises generating literally billions of dollars in revenue annually.