Protect The Children

Yesterday I listened to a talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. Read it here. A very timely talk for our day and age. Two thoughts:

First - I thought it was amazing that he said "one of the most serious abuses of children is to deny them birth."  A powerful warning.  I hope it is not an abuse that members of the Lord's Church are guilty of. 

A personal story that I won't share much of here, but my husband and I got married over President's weekend in 1999.  No time for a long honeymoon cause we were both in college at the time.  The week after our marriage, we both had research papers to turn in on a class we took together called "Teachings of the Living Prophets" (we went to school at BYU).  The assigned subject of our research papers: "The Position of the Church on Birth Control".  That paper was such a blessing in our life together.  And our first child was born 11 months later.  I don't think we would have all of our precious children in our life today if it weren't for that homework assignment.  I'm so grateful for that class, for our teacher Dale LeBaron for that inspired assignment and what it taught me to do.  The prophets truly do point the way to true happiness if we will follow where they direct us in this maze of life on earth.  As we've sought to follow the truths that we learned, we've been blessed abundantly.  I'm so grateful for my husband and children and for who I've become by being a wife and mother.  I have not kept many of the papers and assignments from my college days, but I do still have within easy access those two reports Corey and I did.  A quote by President Spencer W. Kimball is the one I remember most and have sought to live by:

"I have told tens of thousands of young folks that when they marry they should not wait for children until they have finished their schooling and financial desires... They should live together normally and let the children come."

So grateful that I was willing to let these angelic blessings come into my life.

My second thought on Elder Oaks talk - I thought this quote below from his talk was of particular interest concerning that the Supreme Court will arguments in a high-profile case on gay marriage this week.  


"We should assume the same disadvantages for children raised by couples of the same gender. The social science literature is controversial and politically charged on the long-term effect of this on children, principally because, as a New York Times writer observed, “same-sex marriage is a social experiment, and like most experiments it will take time to understand its consequences.” 

I agree that same-sex marriage is a social experiment and that it has implications that we are not aware of. Here is a really long but excellent post I read today about Marriage that explains what might be some of the fall out of redefining marriage, written with good examples of past public policy changes - source here.