Stand for the Family

I slipped into the half-full auditorium and found a seat in the back. I realized too late that I had planted myself right next to a googly-eyed couple who had little fear of expressing their affection. I looked up and spotted another set of snugglers in the row ahead. I laughed as I said to myself, “Really, Amy? What inspires a single girl to go alone on a Friday night to a conference on families?”

To be honest, I don’t know. All that I know is that over the last several months, my feelings about families have completely changed. I grew up knowing that being a part of a family made me happy and was an important part of my theology, but I think that that was the extent of my honest conversion to the idea. Having recently felt the full meaning of the attack on the family in my own life, I was forced to a recognition of my lukewarm support of this important entity. I also was brought to my knees at the realization of the extent of the contorted effort to disband the family unit. It’s everywhere: in politics, the question of marriage is debated; in media, free and casual sex is promoted and accepted; in school, safe sex is taught more liberally than pre-marital abstinence. These are no longer abstract concepts in tattered newspapers or sociology textbooks; these are issues that will affect the strength of my future family. There is fast fading any opportunity to be gray on my position concerning the family. Either I believe in it and work for its preservation, or I don’t. I might be tempted to think that my state of being ‘between families’ qualifies me to sit on the sidelines of the family debate, but I have an even more pressing obligation to defend the family I hope to form someday.

I was glad to gain some added insight into the attack on the family over a two day symposium presented at BYU called Stand for the Family. The following posts will be personal notes on several of the presentations. The first is from the Friday night message given by Elder Bruce D. Porter.