M.J. "Mike" Foster, Jr. Governor

Proclamation

WHEREAS, We come together this day to reaffirm the special status of marriage in America.  Marriage is not just another lifestyle choice but the foundation of healthy families and a healthy future for America; and

WHEREAS, Marriage, in every known human society, creates new families, binds men and women together in a network of affection, mutual aid, and mutual obligation, commits fathers to their children, and connects children to a wider network of welcoming kin. Marriage is the outward, visible sign of a man and a woman's desire to create a lasting love, forge a tie so strong that a child's heart can rely upon it; and

WHEREAS, Mounting scientific evidence confirms that when the marriage tie frays, our children suffer: Children raised outside of marriage are more likely to commit crime, to fail at school and on the job, to abuse drugs, to lapse into physical and mental illness, to become teen parents, to suffer material deprivation, and saddest of all, to become the victims of child abuse; and

WHEREAS,  Children suffer as well from painful anxieties, persistent fears of abandonment, arising from one or both parents inability to make or keep the marriage commitment. Marriage as an institution deserves our special respect and concern because it is irreplaceable: marriage creates the safest space for children to flourish, the only practical way for children to enjoy the full emotional, moral and financial protection of both parents; and

WHEREAS, Marriage protects adults as well as children, mothers as well as fathers, offering the way of life to adults that promotes the core values Americans hold dear: work, responsibility, commitment, sobriety, relationship.  This may be one reason why, research shows, men and women who get and stay married live longer, healthier, wealthier more satisfying lives; and

WHEREAS, Because we recognize the special place of marriage in American society and in American hearts; and

WHEREAS, Because we honor marriage as the extraordinary vow that ordinary people make - and guide their lives by-- every day; and

WHEREAS, Because we acknowledge the irreplaceable importance of lasting, healthy marriage to the well-being of children and therefore, to the future of our nation; and

WHEREAS, Because we wish to applaud and encourage efforts by states and local government and by leaders of civil society to strengthen marriages in a variety of new ways, such as marriage education programs, community marriage policies and new covenant marriage laws,

NOW, THEREFORE, I
M.J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., Governor of the state of Louisiana,
do hereby proclaim February 14, 1999, as

NATIONAL MARRIAGE DAY in the state of Louisiana.

signed by
Governor, M.J. "Mike" Foster, Jr.
 

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