Is it acceptable to demand presidential candidates take a vow against marriage equality and women’s rights, and pledge to stay monogamous? The  conservative group The Family Leader, headed by Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats, has released “a declaration of dependence upon marriage and family,” titled, “The Marriage Vow,” which it is demanding presidential candidates, including President Barack Obama, sign. The Marriage Vow — all 3008 words — includes anti-gay rhetoric, language that subordinates women, denounces Islam, and scientifically-questionable “facts.” Claiming “the Institution of Marriage in America is in great crisis,” Vander Plaats claims, “The purpose of The Marriage Vow is to have on record the personal convictions of each presidential candidate as it relates to the issue of marriage,” while demanding that each candidate’s “personal convictions” — all 3008 words —  be written by Bob Vander Plaats.
Vander Plaats’ site also states, “The Marriage Vow also outlines support for the legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), humane efforts to protect women and children, rejection of anti-women Sharia Islam, safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. military personnel, and commitment to downsizing government and the burden upon American families.”
The “vow” contains language such as the phrase, “the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy,” and “faithful heterosexual monogamy.” Wow.
And once again, we have yet another affront to the concept of separation of church and state.
While the entire document is an affront to democracy, the right of self-determination, and the rule of law, there is one sentence perhaps we can all agree upon:
“We acknowledge and regret the widespread hypocrisy of many who defend marriage yet turn a blind eye toward the epidemic of infidelity and the anemic condition of marriages in their own communities.”
Sound like Vander Plaats is talking to Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown?
The sheer gall that a failed political candidate demand presidential candidates, of both parties, sign a 3008 word “vow” is staggering. The term “litmus test” doesn’t even come close to describe the pledge, which includes spurious and false statements, such as, “The taxpayer-borne social costs of family fragmentation exceeds $112 billion per year, especially when all costs to the justice system are recognized.”
Oh, and it also states that homosexuality is a choice. Of course, ashe has also said homosexuality is a “public health risk.”
Vander Plaats, who has strong ties to Mike Huckabee, is a failed Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate who has spent the past two years attempting to reverse marriage equality in Iowa, and is in part responsible for removing three Iowa Supreme Court justices from the bench for the unanimous vote by that body that ushered in same-sex marriage to Iowa.
Here’s the text of just the “vow,” not the supporting statements nor the twenty-two footnotes, which the numbers below represent.
I urge you to read the entire document, so you can see the depths of anti-American, anti-choice disdain Vander Plaats has for all Americans. That he believes he has the right to demand candidates, no to mention, the President, sign something as archaic and offensive as this is beyond measure. Any candidate who signs this document is a fool.
The Candidate Vow:
Therefore, in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow* to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman. I vow* to do so through my:
ï‚· Personal fidelity to my spouse.9 (footnote includes pledge to “resist the lure of pornography”)
ï‚· Respect for the marital bonds of others.10
ï‚· Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.11 (footnote includes, “certain federal jurists with lifetime appointments stand poised, even now, to “discover†a right of so-called same-sex marriage or polygamous marriage in the U.S. Constitution.”)
 Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.12
ï‚· Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy. 13
 Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended “second chance†or “cooling-off†periods for those seeking a “quickie divorce.†14
ï‚· Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.15
 Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States. 16
 Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy – our next generation of American children – from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.17
 Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.); plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.18
ï‚· Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.19
 Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security. 20
 Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA‟s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.21
 Fierce defense of the First Amendment‟s rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech22, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.