Opinion: Bachmann, Santorum only GOP hopefuls to sign controversial ‘marriage vow’

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Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum appear to be the only Republican presidential candidates willing to put their John Hancock on the controversial anti-gay marriage vow that claimed that African American children were better off during slavery.

The pledge [.pdf], written by Bob Vander Plaats, a man who ran for governor of Iowa in 2010 and lost in the Republican primary despite the benefit of an endorsement from action star Chuck Norris, has been snubbed by Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty.

‘The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMILY,’ oozes with anti-gay paranoia penned by Vander Plaats, the head of The Family Leader. Vander Plaats is a man who once said, ‘If we’re teaching the kids, ‘Don’t smoke, because that’s a risky health style,’ the same can be true of the homosexual lifestyle.’

But the strangest passage in the pact that Bachmann and Santorum signed was one that hearkens back to the good old days when slavery was legal; a time when black kids had the priceless benefit of having a traditional home, according to the vow.

‘Slavery had a disastrous impact on African American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African American president,’ the vow states in a bullet-point.

In a formal statement, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican, decried the pledge by saying the polarizing rhetoric is the type of thing that gives Republicans a bad name.

‘Government should not be involved in the bedrooms of consenting adults,’ he said. ‘I have always been a strong advocate of liberty and freedom from unnecessary government intervention into our lives. The freedoms that our forefathers fought for in this country are sacred and must be preserved. The Republican Party cannot be sidetracked into discussing these morally judgmental issues — such a discussion is simply wrongheaded.’

‘While the Family Leader pledge covers just about every other so-called virtue they can think of, the one that is conspicuously missing is tolerance. In one concise document, they manage to condemn gays, single parents, single individuals, divorcees, Muslims, gays in the military, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions, and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting,’ Johnson argued.

‘The Republican Party cannot afford to have a Presidential candidate who condones intolerance, bigotry and the denial of liberty to the citizens of this country,’ Johnson concluded in his statement. ‘If we nominate such a candidate, we will never capture the White House in 2012. If candidates who sign this pledge somehow think they are scoring some points with some core constituency of the Republican Party, they are doing so at the peril of writing off the vast majority of Americans who want no part of this ‘pledge’ and its offensive language.’

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-- Tony Pierce
Twitter.com/busblog

Andrew Malcolm is vacation through Tuesday