Dear Marriage Supporters,

I am so very proud to be an American, yes.

Why then this Thanksgiving week (that quintessential American holiday) do I want to say: 'Viva la France!'?

Look at this photo:

Literally hundreds of thousands of French men and women, old and young, took to the streets last week in defense of a principle deeper than politics, older than any constitution, embedded in human nature:

Every child comes from a man and a woman. Every child has the right to the love and care of the man and woman who made him or her. In one family. Protected by a marriage, recognized (not created) by a government that understands the limits of its power.

The mass outpouring of love on behalf of this ancient truth—all the while witnessing the sad, degraded and angry attempts to denigrate it as hatred and bigotry—are a profound reminder of why you, and I, and millions of Americans will not give up this fight.

We cannot surrender the vision that sees the human family, created by God, rooted in nature, deeply oriented towards the good of calling together man and woman to give themselves to each other, and to the future. A baby incarnates God's wish that the world will go on.

Marriage is a cross-cultural social institution which reflects the deepest yearnings of the human heart—let me speak here as a man who is a husband and father—a yearning not only to be a husband, but a father, and not only a father, but a father who loves the mother of his child.

What God has joined, let no man fragment.

I wish you every happiness this Thanksgiving, every opportunity to know the joy of gratitude.

Gratitude for this country we share that still gives us the right to fight for what we think is right.

Gratitude for each other, for the knowledge we do not fight this great battle alone. So many millions of loving, decent law-abiding Americans have come together in this fight for marriage, across every line of creed and color.

I'm so thankful that you and I know (unlike so many people out there who struggle without this knowledge) this light of the soul: there is a Providence in the world larger than this week's headline, a deep Reason embedded into the structure of nature, of the universe itself, of the human heart—that loves us infinitely and beyond all measure.

Thank you for all you have done to help me and others fight this fight. Thank you above all for caring so deeply and so generously about marriage as God designed it.

Enjoy Turkey Day!

May you and your family have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!