18 Years Ago, Today...

(And they lived happily, ever after)

...my husband made me a wife, and I made him a husband, as we made a marriage covenant for Time, and for all Eternity, before God and witnesses, legally and lawfully recognized by the state in which our union was solemnized. Eighteen years is awesome, but it's only the beginning. When we got married we were just a couple of poor, under-grad. college kids. Literally, we got married on faith, and we lived on love (and student loans). We had our struggles--meager income, a chronic illness for me, years of college left to complete, cross-country moves....Our first child was born 1 month after I graduated with my B.A. Our second child was born 6 months before my husband finished grad. school. Yep, we lived modestly, and struggled like any young marrieds, but those were good days, building our family, strengthening relationships on both sides of His and Her family tree. Now, we are not just 1+1=2; we are 1+1 = 7. We are parents of 5 wonderful children, whom we fully validate as individuals with their own needs, strengths, talents, and areas where they need extra help. We work hard to instill in them good values through weekly attendance at Church, Boy Scouts, the Young Women Personal Progress Program, family night once a week, community service, and daily family and personal scripture study (oh, and lots and lots of prayer--which makes a noticeable difference!). We encourage integrity, virtue, civic duty, education, and good moral values, such as those found in the 10 commandments. We are not perfect individuals, nor are we a perfect family, but as husband and wife, and father and mother, we do our best to live up to our commitments to each other, our offspring, and our extended family, as well as societal standards for marriage. We honor our children's right to have a relationship with and receive care from both their mother and father, and not just on the odd weekend, arranged by a judge, but every single day of their lives. Only marriage between a man and a woman guarantees this right of society's most vulnerable citizens. While it is true that the govt. may confer marriage benefits on some (but not all) sex-segregated unions (those who pretend such a union is the same as a marriage between a man and a woman), sex-segregated unions cannot, in turn, confer the same benefits and advantages on society, as does that of a public marriage between a man and a woman. (Hey, this is a political blog--you didn't think you'd get off without a little soap-boxing from me, did ya?)

Oh, and did I mention joy? The biggest blessing of marriage and children is joy. When I look at my kids, and see their father's features, mingled with mine, and know that these precious children are mine forever, and I get to enjoy the privilege and thrill of watching them blossom and reach for their full potential, well, there's just nothing better in life. Knowing my husband is fully committed to me and our children is priceless, above any treasure on earth. The price for joy is sacrifice; sacrifice of selfishness, above all else, and where better to learn to live for others than in marriage and family? Getting to joy is a process, and it doesn't happen overnight. But in marriage and family, it can be found, worlds without end. In marriage between a man and a woman, the whole is clearly more than the sum of the parts.

18 years down, eternity to go.

"Parents Have a Sacred Duty"

THE RESTORATION OF MORALITY AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

"Extraordinary effort will be required to protect religious liberty. Our doctrine confirms what both political philosophers and Founding Fathers advocated. Doctrine and Covenants 134:2 reads, '…no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience…' Religious conscience is grounded in one’s belief in being accountable to God for conduct. The effort of secularists or governments to coerce conduct in conflict with religious conscience leads to social disunity, and is a primary reason why religious liberty is essential for civil peace.[28]

The role of religion in blessing a secular society was set forth succinctly by Alexis De Tocqueville in his classic Democracy in America. He stated, 'The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire…principles. There is no religion which does not place the object of man’s desires above and beyond the treasure of earth, and which does not naturally raise his soul to regions far above those of the senses. Nor is there any which does not impose on man some sort of duties to his kind, and thus draws him at times from the contemplation of himself.'[29]"

"Moments of Startling Clarity: Moral Education Programming in Ontario Today" by Dr. Stephen L. Anderson

This article highlights the fruits of morality in a vacuum: students who could not bring themselves to make a judgement call on an act of brutality. If there is no absolute "right," then how can one acknowledge, let alone defend themselves or others from absolute "wrong?"

This article has the answer.

Afton’s Snow

Death is a part of life, and each life is worth preserving (including the unborn), no matter how imperfect or short it may be.

Different Forms of the Family

By Tom Christensen

Where there is life, virtue, optimism, and progress, traditional families abound. As a wise leader has stated, "If we ask ourselves what has held our nation together, what has given it the strength to endure and the spirit to achieve, we find the answer in our families and those basic family values of work, hope, charity, faith, and love."

The traditional family is the oldest and most important social institution in human history. Article 16 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by unanimous consent by the nations of the world, proclaims the family to be the "natural and fundamental group unit of society entitled to protection by society and the State" and recognizes the prior rights of "men and women of full age...to marry and found a family."

The issue today is not whether the family will survive, but what type of family will survive. Unfortunately, single parent families are forming at five times the rate of two-parent families in the US. Although there will always be a mix of family forms and all are worthy of some respect, certain kinds of families are statistically more stable and beneficial to society than others. Like a business, some families, by virtue of the way they are staffed, managed and organized, perform at a higher level and produce better results.

Traditional families are the ideal. They are based upon time-tested natural formulas, and the benefits are obvious. No other form comes close in terms of producing responsible, resourceful, respectful offspring. The traditional family is the most self-reliant, requiring the least amount of governmental intervention and financial support.

What follows the breakdown of the natural family?

To help encourage citizens to form stable families conducive to a free society and the rearing of children, the traditional family historically enjoyed special status under the law. However, the current global trend is to adopt laws, contrary to natural law, that repudiate sexual norms, reward childbearing outside of marriage or legalize and pay for abortions, shift parental responsibilities to employees of the state, and grant the same legal status to all family forms. The result is social chaos and an unprecedented escalation of drug and physical abuse, divorce, suicide, delinquency, poverty, crime, illiteracy rates, etc.

Rather than supporting and encouraging family forms most beneficial to society, lawmakers at the United Nations lump all families together. Many UN delegates refuse to speak of the family in the singular but only the plural "families" encompassing every possible family deviation. Any attempt to meaningfully define the family and address the needs of the traditional family proves divisive. The European Union, for example, refuses to address family issues unless all parties agree to expand the definition of family and marriage to include all conjugal relationships and to make abortion a human right. UN political correctness and failed social engineering often trumps the basic needs of countries and desires of children and adults.

In essence, UN delegates from the Europe and other developed nations seek to make the rest of the world miserable like themselves. Religion is stone dead in many of the nations of Europe and Scandinavia. Without a moral foundation in law or society and with generous welfare benefits and high marginal tax rates, the younger generations shuns marriage and parental responsibility.

Sweden leads the world in the percentage of single-person households. Prominent married men in Europe often support mistresses and father "love children." The weekly German magazine Stern reports that "18 percent of all German males older than fifteen seek the services of prostitutes on a regular basis." The daily activities of men and women are virtually identical. Abortion and sterilization are mainstream practices as nations depopulate. Babies are carted off to child-care shortly after birth. Most children are "only children" who do not have or do not know their father, siblings, aunts and uncles, or grandparents. Euthanasia of the old or infirm is legal and commonplace, while most die alone in subsidized housing. The government is involved in virtually every aspect of life.

Whether gay or straight, married or single, religious or atheist, liberal or conservative; no honest and informed person would want to live in a world devoid of traditional families. Sometimes people do not appreciate what they have until they lose it.

A few years ago, I accepted the "Family and Peace Award" in behalf of United Families International from the World Association of NGOs in Budapest Hungary. In my acceptance speech, I spoke briefly of the need for capable fathers and mothers and child-rich families. I closed then, as I do now, by quoting a few lines from the English novelist, Storm Jameson, in her 1966 work, The Early Life of Stephen Hind:

Some withered nerve in her brain twitched slightly, she softened, smiled, and told him a story about her grandfather who had been a page at Queen Victoria's coronation.

"That was another world," he said.

"Another civilization," she corrected him, "the one I was born into. It has died. I say: died, not vanished, because it was a living organism. A civilization based on the family. What has taken its place is not alive; an atomized society, without security, without warmth, a chaos of fragmented mechanical relationships. O, I know as well as you do, that in my world all was not well, there was ignorance and poverty. But the right way was not to tear that world down and replace it by anarchy. The family base should have been extended, cherished, encouraged."

Tom Christensen, former CEO of United Families, is a successful father, attorney, and politician. He has written extensively on the natural family and has addressed UN delegations in behalf of UFI in Istanbul, New York, Nairobi, the Hague, Lisbon and Geneva.

Occupy Wall Street - Afterburner with Bill Whittle - Three and a Half Days

"Thou shalt not covet." If only our current administration had got that memo.

"Traditional Family Law: Connecting Marriage with Children" by Helen Alvaré

"...[T]he path of divorcing marriage from children—a path taken to its logical end by same-sex marriage—not only disadvantages children, but is already helping to effect troubling social divisions between the more and less privileged in the United States. The persistence of such divisions could begin to suggest, falsely, that the well-off and the poor, the more educated and the less educated, the majority and various minorities, do not share the same fundamental nature where marriage and parenting are concerned. Second, such a strategy would highlight the relatively recent willingness among scholars and lawmakers to come to grips with the fallout of “disestablishing” the interrelated goods of marriage and effective parenting, and to begin proposing reforms. This is not the time, therefore, to ignore or deny the robust empirical foundations of such reform efforts, via legally redefining “marriage” to exclude its intrinsic orientation to children. A brief look at our Supreme Court’s longstanding positions on the meaning of marriage (in this first of a two-part series), followed by a look at the whirlwind of family law developments from the 1970s to today (in the second part), will suffice to sketch the argument I am proposing."

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Hey, whaddayaknow? It's my 500th Post!!! Thank you. Really; You're too kind. ;)

Love and Marriage:Why Does “Gender” Matter in Tennis but Not Marriage?

Sex/gender still matters in New York State – at least in professional tennis. In marriage, it no longer does. Any two adults, irrespective of their sex, can now get married – but don’t try any of that sex-doesn’t-matter silliness down at the courts. Tennis takes maleness and femaleness seriously. This is understandable, of course, because tennis features the big serve and television revenues. Marriage, on the other hand, only features the coming together, for better or for worse, of the two halves of the human race.

Alexander Tsiaras: Conception to birth -- visualized

Every human being is a miracle of dazzling mathematical complexity, from birth to death. This is the story of you, me, and every human being on the earth. I feel deeply, deeply privileged to have been the mother vessel for 5 of these miracles.