With all due respect to Herbert Chilstrom, the former presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I believe that it's he, and not the Catholic bishops of Minnesota, who are on the wrong side of the debate on the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment ("Church leaders should engage, embrace all," Dec. 8).

Marriage is indeed about love and civil rights. However, it's also about the love between a man and a woman, the only kind of love that generates new life, and the civil right of children generated by that love to grow up raised by their biological mother and father.

This is why the state created civil marriage -- to protect and safeguard the relationship between husband, wife and children for the sake of the children, who are the future leaders of society.

I commend Archbishop John Nienstedt and his brother bishops in this state for standing for truth and backing the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment.

I stand with them, and I will continue to pray for them.

MICHAEL BLISSENBACH, HASTINGS