Consider the costs when marriage is debased and discarded. A landmark 2008 study titled The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing concluded that breakdown of the family costs U.S. taxpayers a minimum of at least $112 billion each year, or more than $1 trillion in a decade.

That figure includes major costs for "higher rates of crime, drug abuse, education failure, chronic illness, child abuse, domestic violence, and poverty . . . more welfare expenditure; increased remedial and special education expenses . . . increased Medicaid and Medicare costs; [and] increasingly expensive and harsh crime-control measures," among other things.

The National Fatherhood Initiative website cites a number of studies showing that:

• "Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor."

• "Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers."

• "Infant mortality rates are 1.8 times higher for infants of unmarried mothers than for married mothers."

• "A 2002 Department of Justice survey of 7,000 inmates revealed that 39 percent of jail inmates lived in mother-only households."

• "There is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father."

• "A poor parental bond with one's father was highly predictive of depression, a well-known predictor of alcohol abuse and related problems for both females and males."

• "Youth who have experienced divorce, separation, or a nonunion birth have significantly higher levels of behavioral problems in school than do youth who have always lived with both biological parents."

These depressing findings make it all the more disturbing that different groups, movements and even political parties wish to redefine marriage and family. Do fruits like the sad conclusions stated above not demonstrate the folly of tampering with an institution the Creator of human beings designed?

As Jesus Christ Himself said: "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:4-6; quoting Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:24).

This is how God designed marriage. As we show in the articles in this issue, when we reject or redefine this pattern, we reap the tragic consequences. Never let yourself be lulled into thinking that marriage doesn't matter!