Marriage is the union of one woman and one man, on whom a family is built. To emphasize this fundamental and constantly attacked truth, the first March in Defense of Marriage took place in the streets of Washington on the 19th of June. Its motto was “Every child has a right to have a mother and a father.”
It was the inauguration of a new march tradition to be continued in future years at the same date. We must remember that the Corpus Christi feast is celebrated on Sunday in the American Church.
Over 8 thousand marched along the Constitution Avenue to the seat of the Supreme Court. They stopped for a while at the entrance to the court, kneeled, prayed and sang. They were young and elderly, and families with small children. The crowd was exceptionally diverse as regards race and age.
The march was remarkably peaceful. Representatives and leaders of the big pro-life and pro-family organizations (also Human Life International) attended. In the crowd there also appeared Doug Mainwaring, a declared homosexual, one of the Tea Party founders, who speaks against the so called “same-sex marriages”. France was represented by Lodovine de la Rochere, who organized multimillion marches in defense of family in French cities last year. The President of the Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, Paweł Wosicki, came from Poland.
The march was attended by representatives of the Catholic Church with the Papal Nuncio archbishop Carlo Vigano and archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, the metropolitan of San Francisco, who is the Chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage in the American Episcopate.
According to the Vatican Radio the opponents of the march had done their best to make sure that no official representative of the Catholic Church was present in the march. Particularly archbishop Cordileone was pressed not to attend. Over 80 personalities of the political and religious circles had written an open letter to him, and begged him not to take part in the March in Defense of Marriage, referring to the standpoint of Pope Francis who had allegedly rejected any judgment on homosexuals.
Archbishop Cordileone did not bend to pressure. He reminded everyone that it is his duty to preach the truth about family. He said the Catholic Church condemns all acts of violence against homosexual people. He stressed however that today violence is experienced mostly by those who dare to defend marriage and family.
A few thousand people in a peaceful march were stopped by a shouting group of about 150 opponents who blocked the passage. The police calmly asked them to move and stop blocking the legal demonstration. They gave way when they understood that their resistance is not effective and when they saw the big number of marriage defenders.
It made a big impression to see the big crowd of different groups of marriage defenders, surrounding and passing this small group of their opponents, and showing no disregard to them, nor offending their dignity. There were absolutely no violent acts or hatred, just a few shouts.
There couldn`t have been more different two groups. The opponents of the traditional marriage were dominated by white men from the city centre, who were holding banners and shouting slogans. It was difficult even to hear them as the marriage defenders were singing religious songs. Nowhere else is it possible to see such a crowd of Afro-Americans, Asians and typical American families with children, as well as Latino grandmothers, who protest together about one important issue.
Liberal media took effort to report in the news a false image of marriage defenders as aggressive bigots. However, even the Catholic media did not report the main motto of the march which was about the rights of children, saying in the headlines that it was a march against gay unions. In truth the demonstration defended the right to traditional marriage, fundamental in any society, without any confrontation whatsoever with the opponents. The commentaries that it was, allegedly, a hatred march, are really embarrassing. The protection of marriage, family and children`s rights, which are the foundation of society and the civilization of life, is the natural activity of pro-family groups.