Supreme Court Ruling

So, I'm taking a Child and Family Advocacy class- which is basically defending the family, and I LOVE it, because I LOVE my marriage and I LOVE my family. You guys.

There are so many people in the world that want good things, but don't know how to go about getting those good things. It's our duty as members of the church to share our beliefs, and stand up for not only your marriage and family, but also the marriages and families of others. 

With this Supreme Court ruling, we do know that God has a hand in everything. But WE ARE GOD'S HANDS. We can't just sit back because we think we don't know what we are doing or saying. We can't have the mentality that "someone else will do it". YOU are that someone else. We have to do what God wants, not push Him aside and take complete control of His hands.

Yes, equality is important, but so is our religious freedom. And just because we have lost this case, doesn't mean we should give up. We always have to keep trying. Joseph Smith said, “The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.” WE are responsible for spreading His Gospel.

Many have talked about the second coming, and we need to be prepared for when the Savior does come again. We have to be His hands, and we HAVE to be involved, and stand up for the sacred union of marriage. Christ will always help us, and He will be with us if we try. Exodus 4:12- "Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." This is Christ's work, not ours, so we have Him on our side always. We now more than ever, need to fight for our religious beliefs and freedoms.

And I just love you all so much, you guys are just the best! I will ALWAYS fight for my family!!! Thanks for being so awesome!

So this is what Dallin H. Oaks spoke about back in 2009. I took my favorite parts out and put them below, but here is the link for the entire speech.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/oaks-religious-freedom

"And now, in conclusion, I offer five points of counsel on how Latter-day Saints should conduct themselves to enhance religious freedom in this period of turmoil and challenge.

First, we must speak with love, always showing patience, understanding and compassion toward our adversaries. We are under command to love our neighbor (Luke 10:27), to forgive all men (Doctrine and Covenants 64:10), to do good to them who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44) and to conduct our teaching in mildness and meekness (Doctrine and Covenants 38:41).

Even as we seek to speak with love, we must not be surprised when our positions are ridiculed and we are persecuted and reviled. As the Savior said, “so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:12). And modern revelation commands us not to revile against revilers (Doctrine and Covenants 19:30).

Second, we must not be deterred or coerced into silence by the kinds of intimidation I have described. We must insist on our constitutional right and duty to exercise our religion, to vote our consciences on public issues and to participate in elections and debates in the public square and the halls of justice. These are the rights of all citizens and they are also the rights of religious leaders. While our church rarely speaks on public issues, it does so by exception on what the First Presidency defines as significant moral issues, which could surely include laws affecting the fundamental legal/cultural/moral environment of our communities and nations.

We must also insist on this companion condition of democratic government: when churches and their members or any other group act or speak out on public issues, win or lose, they have a right to expect freedom from retaliation.

Along with many others, we were disappointed with what we experienced in the aftermath of California’s adoption of Proposition 8, including vandalism of church facilities and harassment of church members by firings and boycotts of member businesses and by retaliation against donors. Mormons were the targets of most of this, but it also hit other churches in the pro-8 coalition and other persons who could be identified as supporters. Fortunately, some recognized such retaliation for what it was. A full-page ad in the New York Times branded this “violence and intimidation” against religious organizations and individual believers “simply because they supported Proposition 8 [as] an outrage that must stop.” [xv] The fact that this ad was signed by some leaders who had no history of friendship for our faith only added to its force.

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation.

Third, we must insist on our freedom to preach the doctrines of our faith. Why do I make this obvious point? Religious people who share our moral convictions feel some intimidation. Fortunately, our leaders do not refrain from stating and explaining our position that homosexual behavior is sinful. Last summer Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke these words to a BYU audience:

“We follow Jesus Christ by living the law of chastity. God gave this commandment, and He has never revoked or changed it. This law is clear and simple. No one is to engage in sexual relationships outside the bounds the Lord has set. This applies to homosexual behavior of any kind and to heterosexual relationships outside marriage. It is a sin to violate the law of chastity.

“We follow Jesus Christ by adhering to God’s law of marriage, which is marriage between one man and one woman. This commandment has been in place from the very beginning.”[xvi]

We will continue to teach what our Heavenly Father has commanded us to teach, and trust that the precious free exercise of religion remains strong enough to guarantee our right to exercise this most basic freedom.

Fourth, as advocates of the obvious truth that persons with religious positions or motivations have the right to express their religious views in public, we must nevertheless be wise in our political participation. Preachers have been prime movers in the civil rights movement from the earliest advocates of abolition, but even the civil rights of religionists must be exercised legally and wisely.

As Latter-day Saints, we should never be reticent to declare and act upon the sure foundations of our faith. The call of conscience — whether religious or otherwise — requires no secular justification. At the same time, religious persons will often be most persuasive in political discourse by framing arguments and positions in ways that are respectful of those who do not share their religious beliefs and that contribute to the reasoned discussion and compromise that is essential in a pluralistic society.[xvii]

Fifth and finally, Latter-day Saints must be careful never to support or act upon the idea that a person must subscribe to some particular set of religious beliefs in order to qualify for a public office. The framers of our constitution included a provision that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (Article VI). That constitutional principle forbids a religious test as a legal requirement, but it of course leaves citizens free to cast their votes on the basis of any preference they choose. But wise religious leaders and members will never advocate religious tests for public office.

Fragile freedoms are best preserved when not employed beyond their intended purpose. If a candidate is seen to be rejected at the ballot box primarily because of religious belief or affiliation, the precious free exercise of religion is weakened at its foundation, especially when this reason for rejection has been advocated by other religionists. Such advocacy suggests that if religionists prevail in electing their preferred candidate this will lead to the use of government power in support of their religious beliefs and practices. The religion of a candidate should not be an issue in a political campaign."

These are all just random articles and videos that I think are really good.

This article is a pretty non biased, and explains it further if you don't know that much about it, but it's good to know.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417717613/supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-allow-same-sex-marriages

Also, you've also probably heard of what the church has said about it, but here it is. There a link to the actual statement- The Divine Institution of Marriage, in this article below.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865631490/What-the-LDS-Church-said-about-the-Supreme-Court-ruling-on-gay-marriage.html

LDS Church news conference on religious freedom and nondiscrimination

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtc1iTOJtc

What is Religious Freedom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmComdllHI&feature=youtu.be

The Case for Traditional Marriage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvvvK_lcBXI

Parenting 101

This semester has been AWESOME!! Not only is it great being married, but I love my classes! I am taking a parenting class, and am learning so much! This book by Alfie Kohn, called-Conditional Parenting, has some really good principles and insights that I think everyone needs to know and understand, AND implement. Hopefully I have explained them well enough, but the principles that Kohn talks about are these....

1. Be Reflective- Don’t stop being troubled by things that really are troubling. Be alert for signs of unconditional parenting, and stop and think about the way you interact with your child. You may not have been even aware of what language you use, or of your tone of voice.

2. Reconsider your requests- “In some cases, the trouble is that parental demands are out of step with what can reasonably be expected of children at a certain age.”

3. Keep your Eye on your Long Term Goal- Evaluate what you say and do to your children. “Whether your child spills the chocolate milk today, or loses her temper, or forgets to do her homework doesn’t matter nearly as much as the things you do that either help or don’t help her to become a decent, responsible, compassionate person.”

4. Put the relationship first- We have to be willing to throw away our anger and hurtful words. “There will be times when, in order to do the right thing, we have to put our foot down and cause our kids to become frustrated with us. But before we resort to controlling interventions, before we make a child unhappy, and certainly before we do anything that could be construed as placing conditions on our love, we should make absolutely sure it’s worth the possible strain on the relationship.”

5. Change how you See, Not Just how you Act- Conditional parents make children pay for their actions through consequences when the child does something wrong or inappropriate. “Unconditional parents are apt to see the same act as a problem to be solved, and opportunity for teaching rather than for making the child suffer… Moreover, to see children’s behavior as a teachable moment invites us to include them in the process of solving the problem, which is more likely to be effective.”

6. Respect- “Taking children seriously is treating them with respect.” We should talk about our children the way we would talk about other adults, and talk to them like adults. “Children are more knowledgeable about some matters than we are.” They know when they are hungry, sleepy, and cranky, they know the quality of their friends, their goals, how people treat them, their urges, whom they love, what they value and what they don’t. “We can’t always assume that because we are more mature we necessarily have more insight into our children than they have into themselves.”

7. Be Authentic- Some parents are accused of being friends with their children, instead of parents. “But while we have to be more than pals, we mustn’t stop being people with them. We shouldn’t hide behind the role of Father and Mother, to the point that our humanity (or our human connection with them) disappears. We shouldn’t pretend to be more competent than we are. And when we screw up, we should admit it.” We need to be willing to apologize because it sets an example to our children that apologies are needed, and that we as parents aren’t perfect. It shows our children that it’s possible to acknowledge that we make mistakes, and that sometimes, things are our fault. “Children will still look up to us even if we’re candid about our limitations, even if we speaks to them from our hearts, and even if they can see that, for all the privileges and wisdom that adulthood confers, we’re still just people struggling to make our way in the world, to do the right thing, to balance people’s needs, to keep learning-just as they are. In fact, the more real we are with them, the more likely it is that they’ll feel respect for us.”

8. Talk Less, Ask More- To be a great parent is more a function of listening than explaining. As a rule, our first priority is to figure out the source of the problem, to recognize what children need. Our job is to create a sense of safety, to listen without judgment, to make sure they know they won’t get in trouble for telling us what they’ve done or be condemned for what they feel. Hugging and holding (if the child allows) can convey feelings much better than words. There will be time for words later.”

9. Keep their ages in mind- “Controlling parents… are likely to hold children to unrealistically high expectations, partly because they don’t understand just how unrealistic those expectations are. It’s completely normal for children “to fidget, to be loud, to forget to turn off a battery-operated toy, and to become unnerved by what seem to us to be tiny changes in their environment. We have to keep our expectations keyed to what they’re capable of doing.

10. Attribute to Children the Best Possible Motive Consent with the Facts- “Children construct a theory about their own motives based in part on our assumption about their motives, and they act accordingly: “You think I’m just plain bad and need to be controlled all the time? Fine. Watch me act as though you’re right.” We can help kids to develop good values by treating them as though they were already motivated by those values. Maybe what looked like a deliberate act of aggression was actually accidental. It’s important to realize that a one-year-old keeps pushing the spoon off the high just because kids of that age get a kick out of dropping things- not because she’s “testing limits,” and certainly not because she’s trying to make Mommy miserable. Just because a child’s action may have a negative effect on you doesn’t mean that was the child’s intention. We need to sympathize and try to understand why our children acted as they did.”

11. Don’t stick to your no’s unnecessarily- “It’s important to realize that children become better able to anticipate and avoid danger as they get older. (Of course, they’re more likely to develop these skills if they’re given the support they need and treated with trust and respect.) This means that many parental restrictions become increasingly less necessary and more confining. What matters most is the reason for our decisions, and the extent to which we’re willing to provide guidance, to support children’s choices, to be there with them-all of which is a lot more challenging than just saying yes or no. Don’t say no if you don’t absolutely have to. Think about the reason for everything you say.”

12. Don’t be Rigid- “Make it clear to your kids that what you’re doing is, in fact, an exception, something they shouldn’t expect all the time, but don’t let a fear of creating a precedent prevent you from being flexible and spontaneous. It’s healthy for children to see that adults sometimes disagree, which helps to underscore that we’re human. It also allows us to show them how people can resolve their disagreements respectfully-or in some cases, how we can just learn to tolerate differences.”

13. Don’t be in a Hurry- “Parents become more controlling when time is short, just as they do when they’re in public. Determine where it might possible to change your schedule in order to reduce the likelihood of having to rush your child. It’s often easier than you think to avoid urgency, the goal of being to allow children to feel unhurried so they can enjoy being children. It’s important not to be minute-wise, and hour-foolish. Trying to rush a small child is a fool’s errand. Therefore it makes sense to spend a little time now, to save more time later. “Don’t be in hurry”… also might be thought of as a reminder to slow down and savor your time with your kids.”

This is an amazing book, and even though he is very extreme with some of the things he talks about, it is ALL backed up and based off of research. I would HIGHLY recommend this book, if you want to be a better parent and person. The Principles though are all his opinion, but I agree with all of them. This book, not only helps me in becoming a parent, but a better person as well, because I apply these with my every day situations. I know that these principles are based off of attributes of Christ, and I know that Christ would use, and probably has used, each and every one of these principles. I just love learning!! And no, just because I am taking a parenting class, doesn't mean I am going to be a parent anytime soon. Just a little disclaimer for ya.