Dear Marriage Supporter,

Gov. Mitt Romney spoke this week at the 103rd national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

A powerful majority of African-Americans are strong Democrats (and economic liberals), so, while I hardly think it is news, the headlines have focused on the fact that the crowd did not like it when Romney said he would repeal Obamacare.

Meanwhile, what was the biggest applause line for Gov. Romney? It was the strong stance he took for marriage, when he said:

A study by the Brookings Institution has shown that for those that graduate from high school, who get a full-time job, and wait until 21 before they marry and then have their first child, the probability of becoming poor is two percent. And if those factors are absent, the probability of being poor is 76%," said Gov. Romney, "Here at the NAACP you understand the deep and lasting difference that family makes. [...] Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country and that must be our goal. As President I will promote strong families and I will defend traditional marriage.

NAACP members in the audience then gave Gov. Romney more than polite applause in response to his pledge.

People try to claim Gov. Romney never speaks about his stand for marriage. Nonsense. Of course he speaks mostly on the economy—we're in real economic trouble—but he has always been a consistent fighter for marriage as one man and one woman, and he re-affirmed that this week in Houston.

While we are on the subject, Texas Gov. Rick Perry also reaffirmed his strong support for marriage this week in an interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution for the Uncommon Knowledge series over at National Review Online.

Texas is a model for economic issues, governor, but is it also a model for social issues?

Here is what Gov. Perry said in response:

If you are going to base your public service upon your values then you are going to get criticized by those who don't agree with those values. I don't back away from my positions on traditional marriage, on abortion. Those are values, and actually they are values from my perspective, they can't be equivocated. You are either for traditional marriage or you are not. You are either for protecting innocent life or you are not... The issue of traditional marriage is one that continues to bubble forward and I happen to believe that if you are going to have a society that is successful, economically or otherwise, you are going to have to have values that you attach that society to.

For 2000 years we have had marriage between a man and a woman....I suspect that issue is not going to go away, but just because you share a different view, or you are flexible on the issue does not mean that God has changed his mind about it.

The warm response by the crowd in the NAACP national convention, whose leadership just endorsed gay marriage, reminds us that it is not just Republicans who support marriage. In fact, Buzzfeed Politics reports that, "One third of House Democrats broke with their leaders today and kept their names off a brief urging a federal appeals court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits federal recognition of marriages to those between one man and one woman."

The media does not seem interested in this evidence of dissent within the Democratic party on this issue.

Marriage is an extraordinary issue, politically speaking. It is an issue that unites and ignites a new coalition across old lines of race, creed and color.

Witness another great event for marriage that took place at the NAACP convention just yesterday afternoon.

The Coalition of African American Pastors, headed by Rev. William Owens (who also serves as the NOM outreach coordinator for Black churches), organized a press conference with leading black pastors calling on the NAACP to rescind its endorsement of gay marriage.

Here's Rev. Owens own words on the subject (from a CAAP press release):

"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People needs to be recalled to its founding purpose," said Rev. William Owens, President of CAAP. "Black people face acute and urgent needs, from unemployment to education, family fragmentation, discrimination and crime.

"We are calling on the NAACP, a beloved organization in our eyes, to reclaim its mission. The Black church founded the NAACP, and it is not the organization for the advancement of gays and lesbians—whatever the merits of that movement. Return to your roots and stand with the Black Church on marriage. The Black Church in our eyes remains the conscience of America.

"To the board of NAACP we say, 'Do not worry about the money, God will provide.' Stand with the Church and the Bible and the natural law, as our brother with whom we marched, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., called on us to do."

Wow. And that's not all. After yesterday's press conference Rev. Owens sat down with Megyn Kelly of Fox News to talk about Obama's position on same-sex marriage and why it is putting his support among the African-American community in jeopardy:

Our own Thomas Peters put together a great summary of the explosive impact the Coalition of African-American Pastors has had in the last two months, ever since President Obama renounced his view that he supports marriage as one man and one woman "because God is in the mix."

This story which appeared in the Washington Examiner was picked up by the Drudge Report (as you can see at right):

A large coalition of African-American pastors, snubbed by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder in their demand for a meeting to discuss same-sex marriage, are calling on blacks to boycott the president and sign a petition demanding that the administration withdraw support for gay marriage.

"By embracing gay marriage, President Obama is leading the country down an immoral path," said Rev. William Owens, president of the 1,300-member Coalition of African-American Pastors. "Some things are bigger than the next election."

...His group also started a petition to encourage Obama to change his mind. It's called 100000signatures4marriage.com.

..."We were once proud of President Obama, but our pride has turned to shame," said Owens.

Numerous other news sites are picking up on this story, including OneNewsNow, USNews & World Report, and the Kansas City Star, which includes this interesting tidbit:

"...Obama rejects the suggestion of specific programs aimed at African-Americans, and the contrast with his recently announced support of same-sex marriage and his executive order halting the deportation of hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants strikes some African-Americans as taking them for granted."He can have the gay pride celebration in the White House, he can have Lady Gaga in the White House, and he's in the White House today because of the civil rights movement and the price that was paid for civil rights," said the Rev. William Owens, the president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, a group that opposes Obama's gay marriage stance. "He has met with the Latinos; he meets with everything except for the people who put him where he is."

These questions will surface again this week, as Obama skips the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People annual convention in Houston."

All this news and coverage prompted Crystal Wright (the "Conservative Black Chick") to write in the Washington Post:

With nothing left in his arsenal and desperate to save his job, Obama has resorted to pandering to black voters, whom he largely has ignored during his presidency Obama is losing ground with black voters among the 95 percent of blacks who voted for him in 2008. Outraged over Obama's support of gay marriage, the Coalition of African American Pastors said they would not support him in 2012. A new poll found Romney would get 20 percent of the black vote in North Carolina if the election was held today.

Meanwhile, Edward Klein, the former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine writes:

"...Many socially conservative church-going blacks are deeply upset with Obama's endorsement of gay marriage. Recently, the president refused to meet with a group representing the 1,300-member Coalition of African-American Pastors to discuss the group's opposition to same-sex marriage. "By embracing gay marriage, President Obama is leading the country down an immoral path," said the Reverend William Owens, president of the coalition.

...It is Romney, the lily-white presumptive Republican nominee, who is traveling to Houston to make a major speech to this important black audience, while the country's first African-American president is skipping this year's NAACP confab in order to avoid having to confront some uncomfortable questions about the worsening state of black America under his administration."

While the majority of African-American voters will probably overlook his betrayal of marriage and vote for him for other understandable reasons (including pride in his historic achievement of winning the office of President in a country that within living memory shamefully segregated Black people), it is very clear the Black Church is going to push President Obama hard to change his mind on the issue.

African-Americans have been the one constituency in the last few months which President Obama appears to take for granted. Women, gays, and Latinos have all had concrete "gifts" from this administration in the last few months: ending deportations, free contraceptives, switching sides on gay marriage. I pray these leaders, Democrats almost all, will be able to reach the White House and sway the President's heart.

Let me close with some good news.

First, here's the latest video from the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance, and you will want to see it!

Actor Kirk Cameron, when asked about gay marriage on national TV, answered truthfully and was hit with the full, "What??! How can you say that horrible stuff?!" routine in the media.

Yet he really wants to talk about marriage and faith: "If we want a great future in this world, we have to take God at his Word, and God makes it really clear that society and civilization is really held together by the glue of families—this is where the next generation of human beings are incubated and nurtured and matured.....when a man and a woman come together and they say "I do" they are committing for a lifetime to love each other and to model what love is and what forgiveness is and what joy is to their kids."

As Kirk Cameron said in another venue on where he gets his ideas about marriage. "He speaks with authority on every subject including marriage and His advice trumps Oprah's every time."

Amen to that! (And no offense to Oprah!)

CNBC just released a list of the top ten states for growing businesses. It's yet another nail in the coffin for the absurd argument gay marriage advocates keep promoting that protecting marriage is somehow bad for business.

Top of the list? Texas, followed by Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado, Georgia, and Wyoming.

None of these states recognize gay marriage. And 9 out 10 have passed marriage amendments. But truth does not seem to be a high priority for a lot of these pro-SSM advocates—if it sounds good, they say it and seem to believe they can make you and I believe it.

But truth does have a way of winning out. The Presbyterians met this week and the media announced they were likely to vote to endorse gay marriage. Instead, just as the Methodists did a month ago, this historic mainline Protestant denomination refused to do so.

A final bit of happy truth for you this week:

Arthur Brooks, a scholar and president of the American Enterprise Institute, crunched the numbers. And when it comes to happiness, here's what he found (from a New York Times Op Ed):

...Whether religion and marriage should make people happy is a question you have to answer for yourself. But consider this: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people (with kids) are very happy—versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids.

People are happy when they feel connected to something larger than themselves: marriage, family, country and faith.

We were made that way by One who knew what He was doing, as Kirk Cameron says.

God Bless you, and thank you for all that you have made possible. You are the glue that holds our work together, that unites and ignites the fire of love and truth now blazing across this great land.

Together we will keep up this great and good fight!