Marriage and Equality: How Natural Marriage Upholds Equality for Children

In November of 2008, Jennifer Johnson did not vote Yes on California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Raised by divorced parents since the age of three, and vaguely aware that something was wrong with how her post-divorce "family" was structured, her life was marked by constant turmoil as she tried to reconcile her conscious need to "be resilient" with her buried feelings of anger and loneliness. As a young adult, she sought consolation through an arranged marriage in a controlling Gnostic personality cult, yet healing from her past remained a mystery until she discovered the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage later in life.

In this memoir, Johnson chronicles her journey in her defense of natural marriage. The story starts in 2013 with an inspiration about God's design for the family. She applied this inspiration to her own childhood family situation and other forms of so-called "family diversity" with striking results. She identifies several ways that children who are raised outside of the marriage of their own mother and father experience inequality. Johnson's lifelong search to explain her chaotic and painful childhood comes full circle in her realization that the ancient Christian teachings on sex and marriage provide more justice to children than any of the alternatives.

Her book is for anyone who cares about children and family policy, anyone who believes that equality is an important ideal, and anyone who wants to connect the pro-life movement with the pro-marriage movement in a deeper way. It is also for those who want to understand why accusations of discrimination made against the Catholic Church in regards to its historic teachings on sex and marriage are shallow and misguided.