This last Monday I submitted a letter to the Tribune posted 8/17/08 in response to the following letter:

"I'd like to know the correlation between marital fidelity and effective presidencies. Given the history I know, I think it is rather low. If John Edwards' family had dealt with it, why do we care?

The Tribune chose not to publish my response to this letter - asking me to pare it down from 440 words to 200, which was so drastic a cut, I gave up. Here is the letter:

"In light of the coming presidential election and the vote on proposition 8, Mr. Malykont's question of the relevance of a leader's marriage is most timely. I would propose that the correlation between the quality of a president's marriage and his effectiveness cannot be overstated for the following reasons.

First, one of the original purposes of marriage between a man and a woman is to bring together two very different and incomplete people, who when they learn to walk together in oneness and harmony can experience completion and wholeness by the contribution of each other's gifts and strengths. One of the great problems in marriages is men and women tend to resent these differences instead of realizing how much they need each other's contributions. When a man and a wife can recognize and receive one another's strengths and gifts, they they can accomplish far more than they ever could on their own. A wise husband will always seek his wife's input and will be the better for it.

Second, anyone who has studied leadership knows that whatever is at the top trickles down. If the president and his wife work at their marriage, and consistently strive to honor one another, then those under them (i.e. cabinet members and staff) are more likely to do the same. Whatever else we might say about George and Laura Bush, they appear to have succeeded in this regard over these last eight years, which is no small feat.

Third, because the president of our nation has such tremendous influence and thus responsibility, he must be able to focus and give his best attention to every decision and every issue at hand. A good growing marriage will be an asset in this regard. A failing problematic marriage will drain him of needed energy and distract him from the issues at hand.

Fourth if a man cannot be trusted to stay faithful to his wife and fulfill the commitments before God and man he has made to her, it follows that he cannot be trusted in other realms of life. Ultimately unfaithfulness in one's marriage reveals a defect in one's character that unless corrected will cause damage elsewhere.

I would hope that whomever we elect as president would have three things: 1. A deep rooted commitment to his own wife. 2. The courage to stand up for what we all know is true about marriage. 3. Compassion for those who have been wounded by their parents' or perhaps their own marital failure, and who thus have lost hope in its original intent ever being realized."