Turning back same-sex marriage in New York

The Heritage Foundation's Jennifer Marshall on New York's legalization of same-sex marriage and what it means for the rest of us.


Is same-sex marriage inevitable?

Absolutely not.

Certainly the media would like to portray the New York vote...as the watershed across America.

The institution of marriage precedes the state. We recognize it through our laws.

Politically speaking we see that the momentum is by now means with the advocates of redefining marriage.

It's interesting to watch the political maneuvering....they avoid putting this to the popular vote.

Were the NY lawmakers just scared to let the people decide?

The National Organization for Marriage is going to invest in an effort to bring this up as a referendum in New York.

It's possible that a future legislature in New York could change the law?

This is by no means permanent. A new legislature with new members after the election...there will be a different face to this legislature in the future.

So it could be done by a legislature. It could be done by a referendum process in New York.

Which states are thinking about legalizing same-sex marriage next?

We need to keep our eye on Maryland first of all.

After New York there will certainly be an effort in Maryland.

New Hampshire...Iowa...West Virginia, Indiana - these are the ones to watch.

Who is winning the debate?

This is why I'm so glad we're talking about this as we're going into the Independence day weekend.

If we don't understand that the family forms around marriage - the marriage of one man and one woman....we are missing a big part of what marriage is.

That is the baseline of the important work that needs to be done.

The founders understood that the family and religious freedom is very important to society.

Four out of ten children today are born out of wedlock.

We see that a child born outside of marriage is six more times likely to experience poverty.

If we want to restore the outlook and optimism for this nation, we need to focus on the meaning of marriage and restoring its strength.

Why aren't there more presidential candidates talking about the importance of marriage?

There's so much focus on the economics of this nation.

That's a moral problem; we should be talking about it that way.

One of the things we should understand is that we're not going to solve those economic problems, until we fix our families.

We will not have a citizenry of that kind of economic dynamism if we're not prepared to fix it in our homes.

Brain Trust - Jennifer Marshall

The Heritage Foundation's Jennifer Marshall believes that budgets are moral documents...just not in the same way as religious leaders on the left do.

 

Budgets are moral documents. What do you mean by that? 

This is something we're hearing quite a bit, particularly from religious leaders on the left.

 

What they're trying to do with those four words is...as a measure of our nation how much we give to the poor.

 

We can't have a thriving free society without strong families.

 

It does an injustice to human dignity to measure our compassion by how much government gives to the poor.

 

The poverty rate has hung at about the same rate for the last four decades.

 

On the other hand we've seen massive family breakdown. The rate of unwed births has soared to over 40%...When the war on poverty started, that was a single digit number.

Shouldn't we start talking about effectiveness? 

Absolutely. I'm so glad you brought this up.

 

We have delegated our responsibility, our personal responsibility to care for the poor, to the government.

 

Instead, the way we should be measuring success is how effective it is.

 

Compassion must be effective - not just what we put in to a program, what comes out

If government can't do something, should we allow them to keep on doing it with more money? 

Government can provide a safety net for people with great material need.

 

Instead of trying to redistribute wealth...let's start targeting that ladder.

 

Let's find out what the needs are...rather than developing a welfare state that is cyclical.

 

That is antithetical to the American dream and the freedom we enjoy.

Why is it easy to be tempted with more money is better for the poor? 

It sounds right...but we have to be more careful.

 

What's fundamentally happening here - it's a misdiagnosis of the problem. It diagnoses poverty as a lack of material possession.

 

So it's not so much the material living conditions, but it's the other aspects.

 

It's the absence of fathers.

We've spent $16.5 trillion in our war on poverty. Do you have hope that we can fix this? 

There are several things we need to do to fix this. I do have hope.

 

One thing is the moral responsibility of not handing down a load of crushing debt to future generations.