CWA Testifies in Support of Marriage Before Maryland Senate

Concerned Women for America (CWA) is the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization with half-a-million members across the country, thousands of those in Maryland. We seek to protect and promote Biblical values in public policy and, thus, we value the traditional definition of marriage as an indispensable component of a free, productive and just society.

Contrary to popular belief, SB 116 proposes a regression to the mistakes of the past. Most deviations from the original concept of marriage, that “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,” have been tried throughout history and have proven unfruitful beyond any reasonable doubt.

Our human experiences moved us out of practices like polygamy, homosexual “marriages,” and restrictions on interracial marriages, confirming every time that God’s model for marriage is best.

These perceived “discriminations” or restrictions defining marriage preserve the necessary ingredients for us to continue to progress and flourish as a free society.

SB 116 acknowledges this truth, if only selectively. It openly discriminates, for example, against a “bisexual” person who believes he or she is “in love” with both a man and a woman, as it re-defines marriage to disregard gender, while still limiting it to “two individuals.”

But why would this body be comfortable discriminating against persons who contend, as many homosexuals do, that they were “born that way?” If we open the door to homosexual “marriage,” what reason do we retain for restricting the happiness of the “bisexual” person?

I submit to you, the reason you are comfortable with it is that the “two-person” requirement for marriage, just as the “man-woman” requirement, is not an arbitrary restriction born out of bigotry, but the result of a painful cultural process that has proven time and again that the traditional definition of marriage is best.

It is best for the persons involved, best for children, and best for society.

That is the reason these restrictions are in place. We have learned, through much trial, that it is not in our best interest to merely follow our every desire. In fact, most men can attest to the fact that they are not “naturally” inclined to monogamy. But the errors of the past have shown us that the type of intimacy required to sustain a relationship, and therefore a family, through better and worse, for richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health, is best pursued through the loving interaction of one man and one woman.

The half-a-million members of CWA pray that you will reject SB 116 and preserve that intimacy found only in the traditional definition of marriage. This will help Maryland move forward, instead of sending us back in history to stumble over the same stones which tripped up our ancestors.