What about the Children?

Over the summer I had the opportunity to attend Philmont Scout Training with my husband.  There we were taught and trained by the General YM presidency and the General Primary Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Prior to this the Supreme Court had made the decision to legalize same-sex marriage.  I will not forget how I felt when Sister Rosemary Wixom (General Primary President) stated that the children in this country have been forgotten and they no longer have many rights at all.  This sent a chill right through me.  How can a nation disregard the rights of our children who will, one day, be our future?

There are those in society that have applauded the legalization of same-sex marriage.  They feel that finally those in same gender relationships will be able to enjoy all the benefits of a heterosexual married couple.  But will they really?  Maybe from an economic standpoint, as far as government benefits go, but what about the most significant role of marriage: the creation of children? 

In The Family: A Proclamation To The World it says,  “Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” In the article, The Divine Institution of Marriage, it states that children need both a father and a mother. Each has different qualities and strengths that are “of enormous importance to a child’s overall development…Traditional marriage provides the most solid and well-established social identity for children. It increases the likelihood that they will be able to form a clear gender identity, with sexuality closely linked to both love and procreation

In his article, THE ATTACK ON MARRIAGE AS THE UNION

OF A MAN AND A WOMAN by Lynn D. Wardle, he points out  “marriage links not only men with women, but parents with children. Legalizing same-sex marriage obscures that linkage, weakens the message connecting marriage with spousal and parental responsibility, and guarantees that children will be deprived of an extremely

valuable and protective relationship with their father or their mother.”  In her letter to Justice Kennedy, Katy Faust (a child raised in a same-sex headed household, who opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage) says this “When a child is placed in a same-sex-headed household, she will miss out on at least one critical parental relationship and a vital dual-gender influence.”  And Wardle goes on to say, “Every child deserves to be raised by his or her mother and father. While unwed birth and divorce impair that right for some children of conjugal unions, same-sex marriage guarantees that all children who are born during or raised in such unions will be deprived totally of this fundamental moral right.”

The children of today need all of us to stand up for their rights; rights that can best be achieved within the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman.  In his book Standing for Something, the President of the Church of

Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Gordon B. Hinckley, expressed it well when he wrote, “We go to great lengths to preserve historical buildings and sites in our cities. We need to apply the same fervor to preserving the most ancient and sacred of institutions – the family!”   This is exactly what our children need. 

Faust, K. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14370/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=782782f4d4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-782782f4d4-84114781

Hinckley, G.B.(2000). , The Family, We Can Save Our Nation by Saving Our Homes,

in STANDING FOR SOMETHING 143, 145

The Divine Institution of Marriage. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/the-divine-institution-of-marriage

Wardle, L.D. (2008). The attack on marriage as the union of a man and a woman. North Dakota Law Review, 83 (June 2008).