Dear Editor: 

“Keep the government out of our private lives!” is the message of a current TV ad that’s being aired in an attempt to defeat Amendment 2 on the November ballot.

             Actually, Amendment 2 has nothing to do with government action. It has everything to do with the citizens preventing the government from redefining marriage.  Amendment 2 allows the people, and not activist judges, to decide how marriage will be defined in Florida.   

The language of Amendment 2 clearly states: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”    

            Opponents of Amendment 2 desire to expand the definition of marriage to include the stable union between two men or between two women, as well.  Such reasoning is analogous to a chemistry professor wishing to expand the definition of water to include HH and OO along with the traditional H2O.   

            In responding to such wishful thinking, I offer the simple observation that in attempting to extinguish a brush fire with the OO “water”, you’ll start a forest fire.  And if you try to cook your spaghetti in the HH “water”, you’ll be eating hard, crunchy noodles for supper.   

            Just as we cannot redefine water to suit our own whims, neither can we redefine marriage.  For marriage was instituted by God himself at the dawn of creation.  In Mark 10, Jesus repeats the teaching of Genesis: “At the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”   

            Marriage was instituted not by the government, not by the church, but by God.  The common good and the future of our society are best served through the natural order of the union of a man and a woman.  Moreover, history and research studies support the traditional family as the best environment to nurture and raise healthy children who thrive both physically and emotionally.   

            My support for this proposed constitutional amendment is not motivated by discrimination or animosity toward any group.  Amendment 2 does not affect benefits offered or contracted in the private sector.  Health care and government benefits currently being received by individuals—including seniors—will not be impacted.  For more information, check out www.yes2marriage.org.