Thursday, July 25, 2013

Attack on the Family

A couple months ago, I was part of a discussion about the "attack on the family". The original post came from a judgment a friend of mine (let's call him "Kevin") had that many people in the church view the attack on the family to be the same as legalization of gay marriage. Now, I've expressed my stance on gay marriage (I stand with the church in not supporting it) but by no means would I go as far as to say that the "attack on the family" is the same as gay marriage.

I'm a family studies major and even though I'm very very early on in the program, I feel like I have learned enough to say this: The family is under attack, but gay marriage is probably the least of our worries on that front. If I was to pick anything and call it the Goliath of the battle we are fighting to save the family, I'd say it is no-fault divorces. Couples making a mockery of marriage by getting married and then a month, six months, a year, etc. down the road deciding that they "just aren't compatible". Or you’ve got the celebrity marriages that last less than a month.

I’m not saying there isn’t cause for divorce. Abuse and infidelity are valid causes for divorce. However, I’ve also known marriages where one spouse has been unfaithful and yet the marriage survived because both partners were committed to the marriage. I honestly don’t believe there is such a thing as no-fault divorce. Marriage is work and both partners need to work at the relationship. That’s why married couples have been counseled to continue to go on dates after they get married, even when children come into the mix. However, if one spouse gives up on the marriage… does it really matter how much effort one spouse puts in if the other spouse is apathetic? I mean, it’s admirable… but if the effort is not reciprocated, the marriage isn’t going to be as strong as it needs to be.

That being said, I’d like to back up to infidelity and abuse. If abuse exists in a home (a husband abusing his wife OR a wife abusing her husband, because both scenarios exist) the highest priority in my opinion is to get the abused spouse to safety. As important as the sanctity of marriage is, the safety of an individual is more important. Staying in an abusive relationship because a husband/wife loves his/her spouse and believes they can change sounds to me like codependency (if you don’t know what that means, here’s the Wikipedia page). The same thing would be true of infidelity, if a husband/wife stays with his/her spouse even when infidelity is known to be happening, because he/she thinks they can fix the situation… again, it sounds like codependency to me.

Another thing I want to bring up is the innocent victims of divorce, whether it be no-fault divorce or divorce at the hands of abuse and/or infidelity: children. Richard Cohen, the author of “Coming Out Straight”, said that children have a God-like view of their parents. Their parents are the example they look to in everything. Especially as little kids, they don’t see that their parents can do anything wrong. As a result, when divorce happens, there are children who believe (and are wounded by the belief) that their parents separating must be their fault.


Granted, all of this comes from a single, BYU family studies major, who is only starting his second semester in the program this fall, but I just wanted to put my thoughts out there and challenge the idea that I think exists in the church that gay marriage is the same as the attack on the family. What are your thoughts on the “attack on the family”? Let me know in the comments. Just remember to be respectful and nice.

5 comments:

  1. Hey...I think the both are very well intertwined and one cannot be separated from the other. Study in both areas have led to me conclude that both gay marriage and no fault divorce equally play a part and at times, even help to precipitate both. Furthermore, if marriage is for the purpose of rearing children, and gay marriage is intertwined with the right to adopt children (all you need is love in a family right?) yet children do better with both genders (and yes I know the current politically charged research which suggests is the same sex parenting is the same type of parenting as one with both genders but quite frankly psych 101 teaches that boys do better with a mother at X age and with a father at x age and vice versa and without both role 'healthy' model, it can lead to an increase in children who are in the high risk category for conduct disorders), then it'd be very hard to say that it is not an attack on the family in that sense. Both no fault divorce and same sex marriage therefore have the same effect on the family and out of that potentially comes high risk kids. And again, we would have to ignore multiple disciplines and multiple studies and ignore 200 yrs of research to accept gay parenting is as successful as (here is the catch) "successful" marriages with equal (not co dependent) spouses of both genders parenting their children. So I'd say it could very well be that both could be viewed as an equal attack on the 'traditional' version of marriage- with kids. So it begs the question, will gay couples want kids? If so, yes it's an attack. Just a thought.... :)

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    1. I'm not going to disagree with you, since most of your opinion and my opinion are probably similar. However, the point of my post was to say that there are other issues besides gay marriage. That's what bothers me is when gay marriage is EQUATED to the destruction of the family. I believe it's a contributing factor, but it's not the whole cause.

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    2. Also, I'm going to point out that (to my knowledge) there probably isn't research substantial enough yet to say whether same-sex parents do any worse or better than opposite-sex parents. Again, not trying to pick a fight. Just trying to be fair. Like Elder Oaks quoted last October, "same-sex marriage is a social experiment, and like most experiments it will take time to understand its consequences." We honestly don't know the full ramifications yet.

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  2. I agree with you. Frankly, I think one of the reasons same-sex marriage has become such a hot topic is simply Satan's way of diverting us from the other issues that are the bigger percentage of the ways that he is attacking the family. Bigger issues include not only no-fault divorce, but also the way we view marriage, the lack of willingness among people to have children (for whatever reason), putting off having children, simply having an unstable home (due to a plethora of reasons), among others. I think same-sex marriage is sort of "small potatoes" in the grand scheme of the attack on the family. Our attention is being diverted with same-sex marriage and, in the meantime, we are being surrounded by the enemy and finding that we have not fortified ourselves against them.

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    1. I think it's especially a "distracting" topic for most people because it doesn't and will likely never affect them directly anyway. It felt like so many people on my Facebook friends list got so worked up about the Supreme Court debate on Prop 8 and such when it would never affect them anyway. So they focus on other people's problems instead of their own.

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I have one rule: Be nice! That's all :)