Alliance for Marriage Foundation Calls on National Parties to Include Marriage Protection Amendment Language in 2008 Party Platforms

MERRIFIELD, Va., March 19 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Alliance for Marriage Foundation (AFMF) today called on both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions to include language supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment in their 2008 platforms. The parties will write and approve party platforms at the national conventions this summer. AFMF sent letters (available online) to Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean and Congressman John Boehner (R-OH), who will oversee platform committee deliberations at their respective party conventions.

"Today, on behalf of the strong and consistent majority of Americans who believe in defending marriage's legal status, and especially for the sake of our children, we are requesting that both national party platforms include language defining marriage as between a man and a woman," wrote Sam Rodriguez and Niger Innis, who are both co-chairing AFMF's Many Voices, One Mission Campaign. Rodriguez is President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Innis is National Spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality.

"At least 25 million American children -- more than one of every three -- are currently being raised in a broken home. This is not only a disaster for these children; it's a disaster for our society. Our most serious social problems -- from youth crime to dropout rates -- track far more closely with family breakdown than they do with other social variables like race or poverty. If we are to rebuild a culture of intact families in America, we also must defend the legal status of marriage as the union of a man and a woman," said Rodriguez and Innis in the joint letter.

The full text of the letters is available online.

The Alliance for Marriage Foundation is a multicultural coalition whose Board of Advisors includes Rev. Walter Fauntroy -- the D.C. Coordinator of the March on Washington for Martin Luther King Jr. -- as well as other civil rights and religious leaders, and national legal experts.

Christian Newswire