Family Leader nixes 'marriage oath' for 2016 candidates

The Family Leader, a Christian conservative advocacy group, is not planning to ask Republican presidential candidates to sign a far-reaching, pro-marriage oath as they campaign in the run-up to the 2016 Iowa caucuses.

The group's 14-point pledge generated both praise and controversy prior to the 2012 caucuses. It required candidates to swear personal fidelity to their spouse, endorse traditional marriage between one man and one woman, reject forms of Islamic law, oppose abortion, and support "robust childbearing and reproduction" as beneficial to the United States.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's eventual nominee, refused to sign the 2012 pledge, citing references and provisions in the document that a spokeswoman described at the time as "undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign." However, former senator Rick Santorum, who won the 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses, signed the oath, along with Michele Bachmann and former Rick Perry.

Bob Vander Plaats, chief executive officer of The Family Leader, told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday that his organization has no plans at this time to ask candidates to sign the pledge as they campaign in the 2016 race, although he isn't totally closing the door on that possibility.

"One of the reasons why we are not doing it this time is that we saw it as more of a distraction" than as a benefit, Vander Plaats said. "We thought that there were other ways to do this. You know, our opponents want to pick apart things that we do. We want to make sure that the candidates are full-spectrum, pro-family conservatives."

As an alternative, The Family Leader is sponsoring a series of meetings with presidential candidates, Vander Plaats said. Included are four regional leadership forums, a family leadership summit in Ames in July, and a presidential forum in Des Moines in November.

"So we have six very formal opportunities to get the questions answered that we want answered," Vander Plaats said.

Republican state Sen. Dennis Guth, a strong supporter of traditional marriage, said Tuesday he didn't view The Family Leader's plans as a retreat on the issue of same-sex marriage. He said he has no doubt that social conservatives who will attend the organization's upcoming meetings will ask questions about issues similar to those in the marriage pledge.

"They are just reconsidering what they are doing and they are trying to do it in an effective way," Guth said.

Donna Red Wing, executive director of One Iowa, the state's largest gay rights organization, had a different view.

"I think the world is changing, and I think folks like Bob Vander Plaats and The Family Leader, while they are not abandoning their very deep convictions around family and marriage, they have made a decision not to make it a litmus test for candidates they support. ... I don't say this very often, but I have to applaud Bob Vander Plaats and The Family Leader for this small, but significant step," Red Wing said.

The Family Leader did not endorse a presidential candidate in 2012, although Vander Plaats personally endorsed Santorum after having served as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's Iowa presidential campaign chairman in 2008. He said Tuesday he anticipates making a personal endorsement again prior to the 2016 Iowa caucuses, but it will be up to the organization's board of directors whether The Family Leader endorses a candidate during the current election cycle.

For more on this story, go to The Des Moines Register.