Have you ever bought a product based solely on an advertiser’s claims? Have you ever been drawn in by a product’s packaging, only to find out later that the product didn’t work as promised? Most of us have. It’s irritating, but most often fixable. You simply take it back to the store, show them your receipt and get a refund. No harm, no foul.

But some of life’s poor decisions are not so easily remedied. Consider, for example, the decision facing Minnesota’s voters on the marriage amendment. The amendment would establish once and for all that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Nothing new here. It’s the same definition of marriage we’ve always had. The amendment would simply take that age-old definition and secure it in a safe place for future generations.

But the opponents of the amendment tell us they have something better. They tell us they have a new and improved version of marriage. What they are really selling, however, is not a concrete improvement on marriage, but an idea, a vision, a dream. It’s the dream that we all have — the dream of everyone getting along, of everyone being accepted, everyone being happy, all the children living in happy homes. They have taken that dream and attached it to the package that they call same-sex marriage. They have promised us that if we set aside the old definition of marriage and buy theirs, we will open their sparkling new package and find all of these wonderful things inside.

Who wouldn’t find that sales pitch attractive? Who wouldn’t long for that kind of society? But let the voter beware! If our state decides to buy what homosexuals are selling, what are we going to do when we open the package and find that it does none of the things they said it would? What are we going to do when we find that we have opened a Pandora’s box of domestic and economic problems?

Ours is not the first society to be faced with this decision. Other societies before us have chosen to give in to their baser elements and grant homosexual unions their blessing. Every one of those societies experienced economic and moral decline. Every one of them saw a gradual-but-inexorable weakening of the family structure. Every one of them saw the loosening of the ties that bind a society together as one. A strong and prosperous society cannot be built upon empty and deceptive dreams. A strong and prosperous society can only come from building upon a foundation that has stood the test of time. Don’t be too hasty to set aside traditional marriage and buy into empty promises. Vote yes for the amendment.

 

Michael A. Thom

New Ulm