Jim Bunning: “I rise to discuss probably the most important issue this body or I have ever debated on the floor of the Senate since I…”

“I rise to discuss probably the most important issue this body or I have ever debated on the floor of the Senate since I have been a member, 6 years. Our Nation faces a potential disaster. I hope my colleagues in the Senate realize we have a responsibility to affirm the ideal of marriage and protect one of the most basic building blocks of our society: the family. The first thing we have to understand is that Government did not create marriage or the union between man and woman. It is something much more fundamental than legislation or laws. Marriage is older than the Constitution of the United States. It is older than America. Marriage exists in every known human society, bringing men and women together to create and to provide for the next generation of society, and it is not the right of any government anywhere to undermine or destroy it. It is a shame that some of my colleagues in the Senate do not recognize the pressing need before us to safeguard a cultural institution that has served human beings so well for thousands of generations. We must act before it is too late. In America today, we are facing a depressing situation, where unelected officials are attempting, because of their own arrogance, to redefine marriage.”