unixknight

The problem is, not all parents can afford to home school or pay for private education. Most of us are stuck with whatever indoctrination the public school system sees fit to subject our kids to.

Essentially it's the story of a family in Massachusetts (where gay marriage is legal) being unable to prevent their local school district from teaching that same sex household couples are normal in the name of diversity. The parents, angered that they were neither consulted nor informed of this, tried to get the school to let them opt out of having their children taught this and were told that this was not a parental notification issue and that they could not opt out of these lessons. The point of the video is to ties this in with legalization of gay marriage, saying that in a place where it's legal, it will naturally be taught by the state as normal to children attending public school there.

So on another forum (populated mainly by those of Left wing viewpoints) I saw this link to a video about the impact of legalizing Gay marriage on a family in Massachusetts. Personally, as a Libertarian, I've always been one to advocate for a "hands off" approach when it comes to Government legislation on the issue, but this video has made me re-evaluate my position. I haven't yet drawn any conclusions, but I was curious as to the opinions of my fellow members of this forum. Video <--- link here.

The #1 justification for the charge that we don't believe in God is the fact that we don't subscribe to the Trinity as they do. My sister was once married to a guy who was, sort of, a minister for their congregation which considered themselves an offshoot of Baptists. For a time he tried to convert me, even sending me a tract titled "Do Mormons Worship Another Jesus?" and on the front panel was a picture of Jesus but with red eyes, fangs, and flame in the background. It would have been funny if it didn't strike me as blasphemy. I think the real reason is that they want to dismiss us as fellow Christians and yet account somehow for the fact that we profess a faith in the same Jesus of Nazareth as they do. (It's not like there was more than one.) When all logical arguments fail, turn to the illogical. Remember, guys, at the end of the day it's less about trying to define the reality of our faith as it is an excuse for them to dismiss it. "Mormons aren't Christians." "But they believe in Jesus!" "Ah! But it's a DIFFERENT Jesus." "Ohh okay I feel better now." It really is, tragically, that simple.

Then I guess it becomes a moot point

Refusing to vote is what you do to help the candidate you least like get elected.

That seems very logical to me, but I felt it a good idea to ask Thanks!

I think the hardest thing is to feel like wrong has been committed... Bear with me for a sec, guys. There's sins that hurt others and there are sins that don't. Having relations with a girlfriend prior to marriage is one of those that contains no malice, no intent to harm, and arguably doesn't harm anyone. And heck, if you're gonna get married anyway... So it's easy to feel like all is well, and that one can still be a good member and all that and that once married, it won't matter anymore anyway. But here's the thing, and I had to learn this the hard way... What is defined as a sin isn't just what harms others. It's what harms US, ourselves, when we commit them. Without getting into a long discussion on why premarital sex is a bad idea, suffice it to say that in God's eyes, it's sinful and will therefore distance us from the Spirit. The Spirit will withdraw. It may not feel like it, but that's what happens. Many blessings which the Lord grants us will dry up. Ask me how I know. After a while, we start to get used to the new status quo and become complacent. Sleeping with the girlfriend becomes common, not unusual, and heck, why not just move in together? At that point the moral compass is going to be pretty badly miscalibrated. We start to view fornication as no big deal, or even rationalize it. I mean after all, what's marriage but a cultural ceremony that changes from culture to culture so it can't be that important, right? We stop thinking of it as sinful and start to see Church leaders who do as being maybe a bit over conservative or stuffy, and suddenly their counsel doesn't mean as much as it once did. Why bother seeing the Bishop when he's just going to make you stop taking the sacrament and will confiscate your Temple recommend and make you go through some kind of process that will be completely irrelevant once you're married.... ...right? And before you know it you find yourself strangely uncomfortable in Church around people who you feel would judge and look down on you if they knew what you were doing, and so it becomes harder and harder to go to Church social functions, stay for the whole 3 hour block.... Maybe it gets harder to motivate yourself to get out of bed to go to church, especially when the girlfriend is there next to you... And subtly, by degrees, you've gone inactive. Now you've decided maybe to just get a courthouse marriage since it would be a lot more complicated to go to the Bishop now. So no you're married but inactive, and thinking maybe you can start going to Church again... after a new Bishop is called, perhaps... One that's less likely to ask you why you've been away. So at first you keep in touch with your Church friends but it's so hard to keep from telling them why you went inactive so you just let them assume you lost interest or whatever relatively innocuous reason people have for becoming inactive and returning to Church slips farther and farther into the future... But it's okay right? 'cause you're still a Mormon and it's not like you've been disfellowshipped or excommunicated or anything... And heck, if you've been Endowed then the world could end tomorrow and you're good to go... ...right? Well, maybe not but if you go back to Church and can't take the Sacrament then you're not really covered so it's easier to leave well enough alone. Perhaps, in time, you can return to Church in a much simpler, more direct way... ...eventually. Mind you, unless you've found repentance in the meantime then this will still be on you when you go back. And that's a motivation killer. I lived a story very much like this one. Not exactly, but similar. Eventually I DID come to realize the wrong of what I'd been doing and repented of it. Was it easier to repent since she and I are married now and it's not an issue? Maybe... I mean, it's not at all hard to commit to not fornicating when you're already married, but it can still be done. In our case, we talked about it for a long time to make sure we both understood, to the best of our ability, why that was wrong. After all, someday our kids will probably ask us why fornication, even with someone you're engaged to, is a bad thing and we decided we'd better have a good answer. (This was before she had joined the Church but even so we repented of it together.)

Forgive me if this has already come up... I didn't see it anywhere... Suppose a couple, both members of the Church, plan to get sealed. Unfortunately, before the Sealing can take place one of them is killed in some sort of accident. Can the surviving member get sealed to the spouse that passed away?

Thanks very much! I did suggest to her at one point that she see a professional but that suggestion was dismissed. In fact, I had even suggested it at one point during our marriage and her refusal to do it was one of the factors in the divorce itself, from my end. My boys are 13 and 15, and my older daughter is 9. I've made sure to remind her that her new baby sister is not, in any way, shape or form, competition, and I make an extra effort to giver her attention when she's visiting us so that she never feels like she's been replaced. I think it's working because she loves the baby and hangs out with her a lot. If there's any resentment, I can't tell. Thanks for your prayers... That is always the very best assistance anyone can offer and I appreciate it. I wonder if there's any restriction on putting a name on the temple prayer roll by username... Heavenly Father knows who it is.... hmmmm.... I'm Chris :)

Well I hope I have a resolution in place. I called her last night and told her what I'd found regarding the error in child support. I told her effective immediately I'll start increasing the amount to where it was supposed to be and that I'd come up with some kind of payment schedule to get caught up for the past. But I also used this opportunity to impose a condition: The bashing will end. Now. If my kids report to me that the bashing has resumed, the 'catch up' payments will cease immediately and we can take it to court. Sure, I'll lose (which is the plan anyway) but it will give me and the kids the chance to tell the judge about the bashing, which may be considered child abuse in some jurisdictions. She agreed to those terms. Now I can only hope she uncharacteristically holds to the agreement.

"If Knowledge is power, Ignorance is submission." -My son Sean "Fear is inversely proportional to knowledge." -Me "Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship. I am just as ready to die defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination." - Joseph Smith "Religion without Science is lame. Science without Religion is blind." -Albert Einstein

I will. and to add insult to injury I realized this afternoon that I've been accidentally underpaying child support by about $80 a month for the last year... and she hasn't noticed, either. I'm trying to figure out the best way to come forward with that without letting her turn it into another excuse to bash me in front of the kids.

Thanks, melissar... But I think I may have caused more harm than good. I called a little meeting between myself, my ex, and our 2 sons on Friday night. I wanted to get this stuff out in the open so we could deal with it. I told her if she's still got bad feelings from our divorce that she needed to get out of her system, then fine. We could go talk somewhere and she can scream at me, call me names, hit me, whatever. Just not in front of the kids because this hurts them. The boys, delighted at the opportunity to get all this out in the open, told her the same thing. They love me despite the faults I have, and don't need to hear her complain about me 24/7. I did my best to keep their feelings at the front of this discussion but all she wanted to talk about was how unfair it was that they put me on a pedestal and criticized her. This isn't about what's fair. And the fact is, they don't put me on a pedestal, anyway. When I would occasionally slip and say something mean about their mother, they'd call me out on it just as fast. The difference is I try not to do it and I apologize to them when I do, so no wonder they're defensive of me when their mom gets off on yet another of her tirades about me. They know my faults and failures, but they respect me for being honest about them and for improving myself. All their mother can do is make excuses for her mistakes or find scapegoats. Our kids aren't stupid. They see it for what it is. Know what she said? Wanna guess? She said (and I swear she said this) "What am I supposed to do? Suck it up and be the grownup?" ... YES! That's what you do! You be an adult and be there for the kids who need you to be there for them because divorce is a traumatic and painful experience and as their parents it's our job to minimize the pain as much as we can. All she can do is think about herself and how she feels and how she, even after all this time, is hurting. Mind you, my kids spent a lot of time in this conversation trying to reassure her that they love her and respect her and think well of her, etc. I suspected her problem was that she felt unappreciated and I had suggested they do this. She blew them off. She wants people to feel sorry for her and play the victim, and the kids, by trying to show her love and kindness, were getting in the way. Toward the end of the conversation I lost my temper. My older son was trying to express that he's not bothered if she complains when I legitimately screw something up (like being late taking them back to her place and not calling) but when she goes on and on and on and on and on about it, it hurts him. Her response: "Well I guess I'm just not allowed to get mad at anything and your father never does any wrong..." That's when I got mad... Because essentially, she just told him that his feelings don't mean anything to her and that all that's important is how she feels about it. I shouted at her about what I thought of that. Took about 2 minutes. I told her how sick I am of her disregarding their feelings when those feelings are supposed to be priority #1. I was tired of her sending the message that they have to accommodate her instead of her bing a parent to them. I told her she's damaging those boys. She stormed out. My younger son went after her to try and calm her down but he was unsuccessful. So it was a complete disaster and I no longer believe it will be possible to fix it. Apparently she and her boyfriend even joke around about my weight or who would win in a fight between myself and him. That strikes me as pathologically juvenile. I'm completely out of ideas so I've told the kids to just pray about this and hopefully the Lord can reach her. 'cause we can't.

I think it's a good thing to try and understand people, especially ones that upset us, but at the same time you've got to be careful not to let yourself get walked over in the process of making excuses for people. Yes, it may be that this person was having a bad day, and yes, maybe you reminded her of someone she didn't like, but that doesn't matter. When you're standing behind a cash register you're expected to suck it up and put on the best face for the customers. If you can't do it, ask to be relieved. I've been a cashier. I've also worked at the parts counter at an auto parts store and I can tell you that I was expected to be friendly and helpful to the customer, who is always right, by the way... And if I had any personal issues then I was expected to deal with them on my own time, not take it out on the customers. I remember once a guy coming up to the counter and asking me for a starter for his car. I looked it up, got the part, and brought it to him. He said to me, "Are you sure this is the right part?" Of course i Was sure and I said so in a pleasant manner. His answer: "If it's the wrong part I'll come back here and kill you." Now, this guy was a foreigner and may have been just saying it as a figure of speech from a culture that doesn't take a statement like that as seriously as we do here. Regardless, my first instinct was to tell him off as if it were a real threat. As a counterman, that wasn't an option and it didn't matter if I was just having a bad day or whatever. I just assured him that it was, in fact, the right part and not to worry. Understanding people is one thing, making excuses for them is another. If people are nasty to you when they shouldn't be, it's because they've gotten away with it up to that point.

Dolly-Mama and I have been kicking around and trying some of the solutions presented here. The common thread among all those solutions seems to be that we need to develop some kind of discipline. That's our weakness. I've been seriously considering asking someone else to handle it for us. My mom used to work in accounting AND she's often the one who winds up helping us with extra money when we get mauled by overdraft fees. I was thinking of "hiring" her as an account manager of sorts, to basically handle our money for us and take a portion for herself to pay her back for all the times she's helped us out. It seems stupid for a pair of grown adults to have to take a step like this, but I don't know what else to do and I'm tired of seeing money hemorrhaging from our account when it could have been used to pay down some of our debt or get saved for emergencies.

Once I was driving past the Washington DC Temple and my sister was in the back of the van. She asked me why the Temple had 6 spires. I explained to her about how one set represents the Aaronic Priesthood and the other represents the High Priesthood. She nodded knowingly and said "Uh-huh." I have a pretty good idea what she was thinking, but I let it go. (She was a big fan of all things anti-LDS and would believe just about anything.)

The problem here is that no amount of legal wrangling is ever going to change the fact that only women CAN be subject to such a policy. It's a matter of biology, not social prejudice. If males could get pregnant (or if, at some point through bizarre medical wrangling they do) then it would apply equally to them. Men and women are equal in value, but they aren't biologically equivalent, and sometimes it gets in the way of absolute legal equality. I do find it noteworthy that this only seems to become a problem when we start pushing the boundaries of morality.

Well the fact is people who DON'T believe abortion is murder are going to reject that bottom line. That's what there is to argue about. And mind you, the argument isn't always about whether or not an abortion kills a human being. I've dealt with those who are perfectly willing to concede that it's a living person, but that abortion is justifiable on the grounds that it's a human being who is living off their body without permission, thus justifying the act of removing said human by whatever means are necessary.

The original Battlestar Galactica from 1978 was written by a Mormon, Glen Larson. he incorporated a lot of LDS elements into the story. For example, the Quorum of 12 in LDS refers to the 12 Apostles, while in BSG they represented the governing body of the 12 colonies. It wasn't subliminal, just borrowed elements. The new Battlestar Galactica has very little of the original in it, using most of the common terminology but Mr. Larson himself isn't involved in it. (I wish he were, sometimes the new BSG gets a little spicier than I'd like.)

Seconded. There's Battlestar Galactica!

The problem is that in a lot of cases if you portray getting an abortion as the easy way out, or a failure to take responsibility for one's actions, the response in a debate will be either: -A strawman in which you'll be accused of wanting to 'punish' the pregnant person for her 'immorality' -They will respond that going to get the abortion is difficult emotionally and IS taking responsibility. Mind you, I am on the pro-life side of this one but I've been through enough of these debates to know there is no such thing as an iron-clad argument.

Ill be very disappointed if that happens, because it would effectively make abortion a taboo topic for this board and I have found many of the arguments here to be very useful in an educational sense. I've also been forced to re-evaluate my own position in a positive and constructive way, and if there are individuals who start to get overemotional then I'd ask for mod action to be limited to those causing problems, and not the thread as a whole.

I've seen it, and I feel like since I come originally from a Catholic upbringing I "get it" in a way a lot of people don't. Catholicism is filled with images of the Cross and Jesus upon it. The Catholic school I attended from K-8 had crucifixes hanging everywhere, almost always depicting blood from each wound, a very emaciated and tortured looking Jesus on each... We just got used to it and in a way I think that's a problem... Mel Gibson's movie is telling us the story from a Catholic perspective in that the purpose was to say "Look how much suffering Jesus endured -- willingly -- because he loves each and every one of us!" There's a dash of guilt in there, to be sure, but it's meant to be a sobering reminder of why sin is bad. I've heard it said that the closeup of the hands putting the nails in Jesus' hands were those of Gibson himself, in his own poignant contribution to the imagery. I find the LDS perspective to be more hopeful, more constructive, but there's no way to quantitatively say which is more useful or spiritual. To each his/her own. What I do know is that this movie is an effort to give an honest and useful portrayal of Christ's sacrifice for us in a time when the media is increasingly working to make us forget. This is therefore a good thing. Watching the movie is exhausting and difficult, but it does create an appreciation for the Lord that I found to be valuable. If I could lodge one complaint, it would be that there isn't enough of an emotional payoff at the end. I wanted to see more of the Resurrection. I wanted to see Jesus more as He appeared afterward... how He appears today. Alive, vital, strong. I wanted to see the stone rolled back from the tomb. I wanted to see Him in the sun. Alas, this is where the emphasis between Catholicism and LDS differs most dramatically. They emphasize the Crucifixion, we emphasize Jesus Christ as alive and well as He is today. That's my only complaint, but perhaps after such an emotional beating I might have broken down completely after that had they done it that way. I do recommend seeing it, if for no other reason than to encourage Hollywood to make more movies about Christ, instead of ones that use His name in vain or disregard the Gospel altogether.

Debating religion can be fun if you're doing it with someone who's in it for the same reason. For example, a very close friend of mine is from Baptist roots and we debate for fun but neither of us is trying to convert the other nor do we take it personally when we disagree. Debating to convert is an automatic fail. Have you ever been with the Missionaries when they go on visits? I have, and I noticed something. They don't engage in debates, and they don't go into deep and minute detail into doctrinal matters. They simply teach in the simplest possible terms. That's all they do. When people convert, it's because the Holy Spirit testifies to them that what they're hearing is the truth, and changes their heart. In a way, it doesn't even really matter exactly what is said. When a person is ready, the Spirit can use the testimony regardless of the specifics to show them the truth. When people aren't ready, they're not ready. When they are, the Spirit will guide them.