AH, BUT I'M SURE THIS WASN'T WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING
(updated)

So you may have head about this:

The Brody File has learned that The Family Leader, an influential pro-family group in Iowa will ask each of the 2012 presidential candidates to sign a marriage pledge that professes everything from marital fidelity to embracing a federal marriage amendment. The document, which has a total of fourteen points is called, "The Marriage Vow-A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family"

...Some of the fourteen points within the document are as follows:

Personal fidelity to his/her spouse
Appointing faithful constitutionalists as judges
Opposition to any redefinition of marriage
Support for the legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
Humane efforts to protect women and children, (sex trafficking, pornography, etc)
Rejection of anti-women Sharia Islam
Commitment to downsizing government because of the burden to the American family...

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that this worthy organization, formerly known as Iowa Family Policy Center Action, received $3 million of your federal tax dollars during the Bush years:

Between 2004 and 2009 the politically influential Christian organization Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC) received more than $3 million in federal grants through two subsidiaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2004 and 2005 the IFPC received a total of $850,000 from the Administration for Children and Families' Compassion Capital Fund. From 2006 to 2009 they received $2.2 million through the U.S. Healthy Marriage Demonstration Fund, which is doled out in yearly increments of $550,000 and will be awarded to IFPC through 2011.

...The money IFPC receives apparently goes to a marriage-counseling program called Marriage Matters, which offers couples weekends along with marriage and pre-marital mentoring....

The group is known for informative campaigns like this:

The head of the group, Bob Vander Plaats, led the campaign to oust three Iowa judges who voted for marriage equality in the state; he subsequently ran for governor and, while defeated in the Republican primary, received 40% of the vote. He's tried to have the entire Iowa Supreme Court impeached; he and his group have also courted and been courted by a number of GOP presidential wannabes.

Ah, but don't worry: presumably his group didn't provide any gynecological or voter-registration services to poor people, so that federal funding in the Bush years obviously didn't help fund any political advocacy or partisanship, right?

****

UPDATE: Oh, there's a lot more to the pledge.

Included in the sweeping pledge, and in a supporting document that offers rationales for it, are provisions that:

• Ask candidates to oppose the placement of female soldiers in combat situations;
• Contend that, by one metric, African-American families are worse off than during slavery, and
• Dispute that genetics determine sexuality.

That bit about African-American families?

In arguing that the institution of marriage is under assault, Family Leader contends that by one measure African-American families were in better shape during slavery than now: African-American children were more likely to be raised in a two-parent household in 1860 than if they were born today, as the group put it, "after the election of USA's first African-American president."

Wow.

I bet Cain, Bachmann, Perry, and Santorum all sign this.