Legion Adopts Natural Family? Not So Fast

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) The American Legion takes a conservative stance on family and marriage and even passed a resolution two years ago that supported the quote "natural family" as marriage between a man and a woman. Conservative think-tank The Sutherland Institute is touting that stance, comparing it to a controversial resolution passed in Kanab, Utah. But American Legion spokesman Bill Pease says "not so fast":

"The Legion recognizes the family is the fundamental unit, period," says Pease. "And the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman should be protected."

The American Legion resolution urges the quote "voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage for the purposes of" love and raising children. But it makes no mention of the "full quiver of children" and the role of women as "homemakers" and men as "home-builders" found in the Kanab document. Sutherland Institute Director Paul Mero says the distinction is minor:

"They can split hairs, but if Kanab City would have passed the American Legion resolution, it would have meant the exact same thing, I think, to a rational person," says Mero.

American Legion representatives were surprised and dismayed to receive a press release from the Sutherland Institute Friday drawing a parallel between their own 2004 resolution and Sutherland's Natural Family Manifesto. Mero says regardless of the details, both documents are rooted in the World Congress of Families Resolution, which he helped to create.

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