I view with curiosity and bewilderment an amendment to “protect the institution of marriage” in the Commonwealth. As a former pastor of 26 years, a current professor of marriage and family life at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, as a board member of the national Marriage Builders Coalition (an organization whose members hold a covenant to preside at weddings only after pre-marital counseling has taken place) and as a Baptist who is usually speaking twice a week in some Baptist church, I am aware that: (a) most Baptist pastors offer no premarital care or counseling to their parishioners; (b) very few Baptist churches require any kind of pre-marital counseling; and (c) most parishioners with whom I am acquainted have no interest in receiving pre-marital counseling (I wrote a book on the subject for pastors).
If we are serious about “protecting marriage” as God intended, why doesn't someone offer an amendment that would prohibit divorce? That would scare a few more people from taking marriage lightly.
Or, perhaps, offer an amendment that prohibits remarriage? Since both of these are “God's intention,” why are we not espousing them as state laws to be enforced in Virginia?
Daniel G. Bagby, Richmond