Same Sex Marriage

SAME SEX MARRIAGE

            This week’s readings were pretty interesting. I don’t really like reading or learning about same sex marriage because I am so opposed to it, but I did love the talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson titled Disciples of Jesus Christ–Defenders of Marriage. In it he talks about how we can promote light and truth and not just attack the darkness. He talked about how we need both mothers and fathers in the world. My favorite quote from his talk is, “Male and female are created for what they can do and become, together. It takes a man and a woman to bring a child into the world. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. Men and women are distinct and complementary. Children deserve a chance to grow up with both a mom and a dad.” That is so powerful because that is what we need to promote in this world. I also really loved the additional videos that were included in the links because they showed how we can promote the traditional family with a mother and a father without forcing anything down anyone’s throat or getting in trouble with other people. It was cool to see a real life example of a man going to work and living his beliefs. Even though he was called in, he was able to share what he believed in. That’s the most important part.

Going along with this topic, this semester I am taking a child and family advocacy class and we were talking about this same subject of same sex marriage. We talked about how men and women are created to be different but compatible with each other. One of my favorite visual analogies that my teacher used was the = and the +. When all of this stuff about same sex marriage was going on, it was popular to put an = as your profile picture on Facebook. But what is an =? It consists of two lines that are parallel, will never cross, and don’t amount to anything. But if you take those same two lines and put one perpendicular, it looks like this: +. A + is a symbol that means addition. The lines are the same, meaning that it still takes two people but in the +, they are going different directions. This means that men and women complement each other because they aren’t exactly the same. Also, because they are different, they are able to create an increase. An = is representative of two people who equal each other but a + sign is representative of two people who complement each other and that can have an increase.

Divorce

DIVORCE

            This week we were able to read about divorce and the role that it plays in the lives of children all over the world. We were able to watch some videos and read several articles and talks on the subject. Through all of the reading, I kept thinking of the family proclamation. It gives us a basis for what a family is and its roles. But specifically from the reading my favorite quote came from Elder Dallin H. Oaks talk titled Divorce. He said, “The kind of marriage required for exaltation—eternal in duration and godlike in quality—does not contemplate divorce.” That just hit me so hard that we need to plan to get married but not plan to get divorced. It broke my heart watching the video of the children that go to a special school because they come from a divorced home. I am glad that they have places like that for those children to go, but it makes me sad that those places are necessary. In the readings, it also talked a lot about how children that come from a divorced home don’t do as well socially, emotionally, physically, and in other domains. Children need a father and a mother who are married to each other and who will remain faithful. I also thought the studies were interesting that they did on the difference between divorced homes and cohabitating homes. The data shows that those children don’t do as well. This is stated in the article by Paul R. Amato titled The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation. In that article he says, “Research clearly demonstrates that children growing up with two continuously married parents are less likely than other children to experience a wide range of cognitive, emotional, and social problems, not only during childhood, but also in adulthood.” This shows that traditional families are what children need and will always need. It’s also important to remember that if you come from divorced parents, you can break the cycle and become what Carlfred Broderick calls a transitional character. This is someone that changes the future and does not fall into the traditions of their fathers.