Protesters: 'Every Child Deserves a Mom and Dad'

WASHINGTON - Supporters of traditional marriage converged below the U.S. Capitol building Thursday morning for the second National March for Marriage.
 
Many carried signs declaring "Every Child Deserves a Mom & a Dad."
 
Their main reason for the gathering wasn't to concentrate on opposing homosexuality or gay marriage. Their focus is about what will be lost if traditional marriage becomes rarer. 
 
For instance, part of the traditional marriage model is every child having a mother and a father -- which has been shown by many research studies to be the strongest model for forming well-balanced human beings.
 
"Marriage is the best for men, for women, for children and for our country - it's going to take strong families to create a strong economy, therefore a strong country," Alison Howard,  communications director for Concerned Women for America, said.
 
Before the march, attendees listened to speakers ranging from former presidential candidates, like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, to prominent Protestant and Catholic spiritual leaders.
 
Santorum told CBN News those who want to preserve traditional marriage need to fight for it.  
 
"We've become complacent, and the reason they're winning and we're not is because they are fighting and we're not," he said.
  
Santorum said Americans need to stand up to opponents of traditional marriage and traditional values.
 
"If you see a business that is trying to influence your values, fight back," he admonished. "They do. If you see a school trying to inculcate your children, push back. They do."
               
Not all the VIPs were just on the stage addressing the crowd. CBN News spoke with with Morality in Media's Patrick Trueman, one of the strongest fighters against pornography in America.  
 
"Marriage has always been a moral matter because it's God's plan," Trueman explained. "God is the one who instituted marriage."
 
At 1 p.m., thousands began marching from the bottom of Capitol Hill to the front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
 
They hope to shape public opinion, legislation, and court rulings by parading in vast numbers before such crucial institutions as Congress and the Supreme Court.
 
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, is one of the event's main organizers.
 
"We're here gathering for something so simple: that mothers and fathers are in themselves different from one another and both are important," Brown told the crowd.