Marriage Protection Week 2003

My dearest American friends this is the time for you to excercise your rights to freedom of speech and assembly.

Marriage Protection Week, 2003
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation



Marriage is a sacred institution, and its protection is essential to the continued strength of our society. Marriage Protection Week provides an opportunity to focus our efforts on preserving the sanctity of marriage and on building strong and healthy marriages in America.

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and my Administration is working to support the institution of marriage by helping couples build successful marriages and be good parents.

To encourage marriage and promote the well-being of children, I have proposed a healthy marriage initiative to help couples develop the skills and knowledge to form and sustain healthy marriages. Research has shown that, on average, children raised in households headed by married parents fare better than children who grow up in other family structures. Through education and counseling programs, faith-based, community, and government organizations promote healthy marriages and a better quality of life for children. By supporting responsible child-rearing and strong families, my Administration is seeking to ensure that every child can grow up in a safe and loving home.

We are also working to make sure that the Federal Government does not penalize marriage. My tax relief package eliminated the marriage penalty. And as part of the welfare reform package I have proposed, we will do away with the rules that have made it more difficult for married couples to move out of poverty.

We must support the institution of marriage and help parents build stronger families. And we must continue our work to create a compassionate, welcoming society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect.

During Marriage Protection Week, I call on all Americans to join me in expressing support for the institution of marriage with all its benefits to our people, our culture, and our society.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim the week of October 12 through October 18, 2003, as Marriage Protection Week. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-eighth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

This government continues to make it completely obvious that they intend to be a threat to the human rights of all Americans. What comes after protecting marriage? Extensibly single or unmarried parents could become targets that children need to be "protected" from. How soon before all Christian beliefs become government policy? How soon before America becomes a total Christian theocracy?

This dogma is so unabashedly partisan to the fundamental Christian right it's outrageous.

Private Industry/Public Sympathy

Welp, I start my first shift tomorrow. Should be interesting to see how I deal with it. I've been living in my computer toad hole so long that sometimes I wonder if I can still deal with people without feeling like a socially inept alien.

Culloden Wood

One thing I understand about myself is how mutable my personality is. That is to say I can be ultra outgoing, bags of confidence.. totally extroverted/type-A/in your face elastic firecracker. Almost to the point of being so good at it that I can entertain yet be totally detached at the same time. But the isolation of recent years has worn me down and left me on the outside. It's when those feelings set in that I know my black dog has come again. I feel the world has gone mad most times and sometimes I think it's me who's mad.

Anyhow, I bought a copy of Foucault's "Madness and Civilization" and intend to dive in before bed. I'm hoping it will help me to understand how I fit into the world as a queer and perhaps slightly bipolar human being.