The religions of the world share many common understandings about the importance of marriage and the centrality of the family in society.

Despite differing doctrinal beliefs, we can agree in fundamental ways about the nature and the importance of the family. In fact, there is a striking consistency across disparate faiths in the perspective that the human family derives from deity, that marriage and family life is divinely appointed, that parents and children have deep and lasting commitments to each other, that sexuality is a gift to be exercised within divinely established limits, and that the family is the central institution of society and the most important source of mortal joy and fulfillment.

These shared convictions, properly understood, help bring all peoples of the earth together.

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