Week 3 - Threats to Marriage

I am not a person who generally follows politics, or even watches the news for that matter. If something big happens in the world, I am likely to know about it only if someone posts about it on Facebook, if it comes up on the Yahoo home page, or if my husband comes home and says "Well, there's been another terrorist attack." I know my lack of attention to world events is pathetic, but I only have so much room in my head. So, when I read the assignment for this week (all 98 pages of it) I was baffled. I had no idea that four of the nine members of the Supreme Court dissented from the majority ruling to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. I couldn't help hearing lines from the Book of Mormon in my head, about wicked versus righteous judges: "And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers and your judges" (Alma 10:27). On a lighter note, I kept thinking about Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith as well, when Palpatine takes emergency powers to start his war, effectively tramping out any vestiges of democracy. However, I was thrilled with the four judges who dissented, who had the courage to raise their voices in favor of democracy, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. My favorite quote was from Chief Justice Roberts: "Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty . . . Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples . . . Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today." (Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. (2015). Supreme Court of the United States) What the Supreme Court's majority ruling did for this country was not granting liberty to a minority. It was taking liberties from the rest of us. Bakeries who refuse to make wedding cakes for a same-sex weddings are fined. Therapists are now, by law, unable to give counseling to those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction. Think about what that means for a second! The government is telling individuals that they are not allowed to address something they see as an issue. One could say that they are not only encouraging but forcing people to be gay. One school district in Washington introduces same-sex lifestyles to their Kindergarten students as part of the curriculum. And that same school district, in fourth grade, has students "choose" which sexual orientation they are. Fourth grade - long before any child has any sort of sexual tendency unless it has been introduced to them. If I opt my children out of their family life unit because same-sex lifestyles are being taught as normal and completely acceptable, then I am a religious fanatic, or worse, a "bigot". There is no question in my mind that religious liberty will continue to be restricted by our government. A line is being drawn, and we must decide which side of the question we are on. How grateful I am to have The Family Proclamation! How blessed we are as a church to have a quorum of prophets, seers, and revelators up in the tower, watching the horizon for danger.