The petition will be presented to government officials from around the world and to the United Nations General Assembly at its meeting in observance of the tenth anniversary of the Year of the Family, which will be held in late 2004. The petition will also be presented at other international conferences.

The petition recognizes that “marriage between husband and wife, entered into with the free consent of both, continues to be the best foundation for strong and effective families and the best environment to prepare each new generation for productive lives and responsible citizenship.” It calls upon citizens and governments to “defend marriage as the exclusive union of male and female, to protect life from conception until natural death and to promote and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.”

The petition’s emphasis that marriage should be with the free consent of both parties is, of course, in agreement with Islamic Shari`ah. The call to define marriage as the exclusive union of male and female is important in our world, where some nations have already legalized homosexual marriages, others are in the process of doing so, and the United Nations is trying to make homosexual rights recognized as human rights.

I spoke with Sharon Slater, the president of United Families International, about whether the phrase “to protect life ... until natural death” connotes or entails opposition to capital punishment. She replied that it was meant to refer only to euthanasia and was surprised that we would understand it that way. “We are not interpreting it to mean capital punishment. We don’t take a side on that issue,” she said.