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DES MOINES, Iowa, July 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has signed a pro-family pledge that if she becomes president she will uphold the right to life, the dignity of marriage, and will oppose “all forms of pornography and prostitution.”

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The Des Moines Register reports that Bachmann, a U.S. House Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, is the first to sign “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” issued by the Iowa-based social conservative group, the Family Leader.

Bachmann is the head of the House Tea Party Caucus, and has a strong record of advocating fiscal and social conservative policies, especially against abortion.

Bob Vander Plaats, a former GOP candidate for governor, told reporters at the Iowa Statehouse that his organization wanted those vying to be future leaders of the United States to “pledge personal fidelity to your own spouse and a respect for the marital bonds of others.”

Bachmann signed the pledge Thursday. Other GOP candidates have yet to make a decision on signing the pledge. Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart told the Register that the Minnesota congresswoman did not hesitate because, “She has been married for over 30 years and has a strong marriage and faith.”

The pledge admits that the institution of marriage in the United States “is in great crisis.”

“Enduring marital fidelity between one man and one woman protects innocent children, vulnerable women, the rights of fathers, the stability of families, and the liberties of all American citizens under our republican form of government,” the preamble states.

“Our exceptional and free society simply cannot endure without the transmission of personal virtue, from one generation to the next, by means of nurturing, nuclear families comprised of sexually-faithful husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.”

It notes that about “one million U.S. children suffer through divorce each year” and the cost to the taxpayer from family breakdown “exceeds $112 billion per year, especially when all costs to the justice system are recognized.”

The pledge signed by Bachmann states that “in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman.”

The candidate then says he or she commits to “[p]ersonal fidelity to my spouse,” “[o]fficial fidelity to the US Constitution,” to appoint strict constitutionalist judges, defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman, support policies that oppose “quickie-divorce”, provide “bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),” and the “humane protection” of women and children “from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.”

The pledge also commits a candidate to protect women in the military, keeping them from forward combat roles, and eliminating policies that create situations that could foster marital infidelity.

It also specifies the candidate must act on behalf of families and future generations and reduce the federal government’s “$14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.” The candidate must also work for “prompt reform” of laws that discourage marriage especially in “welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law.”

The Family Leader pledge can be read in full here.