Marriage (of one man to one woman) is the foundation upon which the first human institution, the family, is built. It binds men and women to one another based upon mutual commitment and provides the best environment for raising children. Marriage also allows for the healthy expression of human sexuality without which single motherhood, poverty, and rampant social ills would be the norm. The traditional understanding of marriage must be defended and reinvigorated in Western culture if the culture is to survive.

 

Family is the first and most fundamental of human institutions. It is the first society in which humans find themselves. It is the first economy, in which the productive use of time, resources and talent are taught. It is where future generations are raised to maturity and taught how to love, trust, and live in community with others. Without the institution of the family, civilization cannot exist. For the sake of civilization, we must ensure the survival of the family and resist all efforts to redefine or marginalize it.

 

Personal responsibility is the duty of individuals to take control of those things that are within their ability to control – most notably themselves – and to accept the consequences of their choices and behavior. It encourages each individual to steward the resources they have and to care for those closest to them. An important aspect of personal responsibility is the right to fail, which allows us the best and only opportunity to learn from our mistakes and correct course. We must ensure that society provides a safety net to those in critical need, but we must also ensure that personal responsibility retains a robust meaning, including the right to fail.

 

Faith in God gives meaning to human endeavors beyond the temporal ends to which they are focused. It emphasizes the value of each human being and motivates acts of compassion on behalf of others. Faith also provides us a basis for human law that is enduring and resists arbitrary application based upon the whims of men and, because of this, faith acts as a restraint on those who would abuse the power and authority entrusted to them.

 

The ability of all children to acquire the basic knowledge and skills necessary to become productive members of society is one of the distinguishing features of American society. While the means of providing educational opportunities are debated, few would deny that it is an obligation the current generation has to the next. Since they are positioned naturally to have the most concern for their offspring, parents should have primary authority to direct their children’s education. And, since competition and market forces – restrained by reasonable regulation – produce the most high quality options for customers, monopolies in the delivery of education services should be discouraged in favor of broad-based education choice.

 

Genuine acts of charity connect us to those in our community and allow us to fulfill our duty to care for others in ways they cannot care for themselves. Real charity also means providing the recipient a path toward self-sufficiency by addressing those conditions that have led to the need for help in the first place. We must encourage the original form of charity that is both local and personal because it alone retains power to heal and change the recipient. True charity is motivated by compassion, or “suffering with,” a motivation that cannot animate the impersonal assistance provided by government. We must not ask or allow government to become the primary source of charitable action because, in doing so, it is very likely to stifle effective charity that is nearly always personal in nature.

 

Institutions that naturally develop in a free civil society – including families, churches, civic organizations, charitable nonprofits, and businesses -- each have their proper roles and spheres of influence in society (a concept also known as subsidiarity). Most often, these institutions are closest to and most capable of addressing social problems. They are also best positioned to hold the recipient of help accountable for improving his or her own conditions. Our work should help insure the right relationship between voluntary societal institutions and government.

 

Government is essential to human thriving because it provides stability and the basic protections of law necessary for societies to exist. However, it is just one of the many critical institutions in any society. When government grows beyond its natural and constitutional limitations, it wrongly assumes responsibilities belonging to individuals, families, and communities. It is also true that as government grows so does its demands on taxpayers so that these other institutions have fewer resources to perform their duties, which includes caring for those closest to them. The result is that private charity is stifled as government takes both the necessary resources and incentives that make private charity possible. Additionally, government has a tendency to secularize what it controls, driving out the religious motivation and transformative message that provides private charity much of its effectiveness.

 

Private property allows each person the ability to enjoy the fruit of their labor and to provide for themselves, their families, and their broader communities through charitable giving. Real charity requires that the person giving truly own the thing given. In this way, private property is integrally connected to human dignity and freedom, as it allows individuals to achieve self-sufficiency and independence from charity and government welfare. To this end, we must work to maximize each individual’s ability to enjoy the work of their hands and seek to protect private property from encroachment by government either through taking or taxation.

 

Free markets within the rule of law offer the greatest amount of opportunity for individuals to provide for themselves and their families, while encouraging each person to be as productive as possible. Free markets encourage investment, creativity, innovation and service by rewarding those who seek to provide for the needs of those around them. Free markets governed primarily by a right sense of personal responsibility and the rule of law to protect health, limit undo advantage, and prevent fraud and monopolies, should be our goal.