Wednesday, March 27, 2013

If I could turn back time...

8 years ago today my boy toy proposed to me via an Easter egg. He came over to my house early Easter morning and gave me an Easter basket. After I looked through all of the lovely things he gave me, he pulled one last final Easter egg out of his pocket. The romantic in me wants to paint a beautiful picture of how he had brought me to a beautiful spring location, or how he gave me the egg as he got down on one knee, but that just wouldn't be true ladies. He did sit beside me on the couch in my living room, trembling like a leaf. 
There were four eggs stacked inside each other. The outside egg said, "Tiffany." The second egg said, "will." The third egg said, "you." The fourth egg was blank. when I opened that tiny egg, there was the most beautiful ring. The ring looked antique with filigree carving. It was white gold and had tiny little diamonds all over with one center diamond. I started crying, but managed to squeak out, "will I what?" He said "Marry me of course!" I said yes. 
We left for church. His ward at the time met at 8 a.m. We arrived and sat with his parents. We were kinda excited and couldn't keep quiet. An older gentleman that was sitting in front of us asked us to be quiet. I was so embarrassed! Here I was 26-years old and I had to be asked to keep quiet!!
Easter was so symbolic. For reasons that aren't mine to share, Josh couldn't take me to the temple to be married. I had struggled with the decision to marry him, but felt like if he was doing his best to make everything right with the Lord, who was I to reject him? It was because of Easter that everything would be okay. It was because of Easter that We would be a forever family someday. (3 1/2 years later we were sealed to our two boys.)

Marring Josh has been the best decision that I have ever made. He has helped me to grow in so many ways. Marriage really is a refiners fire. I have grown so much through this one decision. I joke often that it would be so much easier if I had married a girl. And honestly it probably would have been easier for me, but it wouldn't have helped me to grown, learn and become the person I am today. I also don't believe it would have been easier for my kids. 

So I am pro-traditional marriage. It isn't a shock to anyone who reads this blog. I know that makes me very un-politically correct.
  A family, to me, isn’t about sexual attraction. Although my husband is cute, that isn’t what makes us a family. What we provide for each other, and for our children, is what makes us a family. Most of the gay guys I know would make AWESOME dads. Yet they wouldn’t be a mom. The lesbian women that I know would make marvelous moms. Yet they wouldn’t be a dad. Genderless marriage breaks down the roles and responsibilities of parents. This I am passionate about. I believe that in an ideal situation a child needs both a mother and a father.
               Here is an excerpt of an article that I read that explains it a little better than I can. “By traditional definition, marriage is the protective sanctuary that allows children to have a relationship with both father and mother. That relationship provides them with the stable and long-term care and nurturance they deserve. “Without this public purpose,” Dr. Morse explains, “marriage would cease to exist as a distinct social institution.”

Naturally, these protections regarding procreation cannot be extended to a homosexual union because that union cannot procreate. The solution to the problem cannot be to add protections to a power that does not exist. The only way that these non-procreative unions can become legally equal is to remove several biological protections—protections that that the law extends to the procreative unions found in traditional marriage.

Thus, the invention of genderless marriage has the potential to affect the nature of traditional relationships more than the nature of gay relationships. According to this new definition of equality, court judgments are already being handed down that strip biological distinctions and hence ignore biological rights.

States that have ratified homosexual marriage have done so by removing gender from the law, stripping rights from children and fathers and, in some cases, from biological mothers. For example, Illinois effectively instituted gay marriage by removing any reference to gender from their marriage laws. Likewise, Massachusetts’ marriage certificates recognize not bride and groom, but Party A and Party B.

Whose Rights are Threatened by Genderless Marriage?

The first casualty in the gender battle is the primary and essential purpose of marriage, which is, according to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, ‘to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another.’”
               So now you may understand why I am pro-traditional marriage.  I may have also just made a rambling fool of myself. Either way these two articles by gay men have helped me understand why I feel we are trying to make an apple into an orange. Check them out here: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9432/ and here http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html .
       Yet above all, I would hope that those that disagree with me would not hate me as I don’t hate those who feel differently. Christ set the perfect example of love towards one another.  I have listen and empathized with many gay friends as they are trying to sort through their feelings and emotions.  I have a pretty strong feeling that the Supreme Court is going to rule in favor of gay marriage. Yet I just felt like I needed to sort out my feelings about the whole thing. And I do that best through writing. 

3 comments:

  1. Tiff,

    You have some really great quotes here, and a beautiful and strong message to share. Thank you for that trust you gave to your husband to change for you all. Thank you for being an eternal family. Thank you to your family for choosing Christ and His path for you. You all are such an example.

    I admire your courage to share your beliefs which are true. Gender roles in family are essential for optimal happiness in this life. I know it because apostles of the Lord, mouth pieces for Him have spoken it, and so it becomes a fact to those who have Faith that He speaks to his children on earth.

    What I would like to share with any readers is, something I have learned from my husband: We gain a lot of our self worth by the identities we perceive ourselves to be. Yet to understand Deity, is to realize that even obvious attributes we attach to our identity may be completely seen differently by God. Such as that I am short and have a round face. These may seem like unmistakable facts, but when we realize someone sees us in a wider spectrum of vision, we can realize that temporary facts may not be facts at all to Him, but temporary conditions. In Him, everything is possible, in Him, we are loved always and in every condition, yet we can indeed let Him show us our true identity, and assume nothing about ourselves. All of our assumptions can pretty much lead to shaky confidence; but when we vulnerably and flat out scarily let Him guide, we begin to get a glimpse of who we really are....and with this glimpse, can change the seemingly facts of yesterday, through Him. This change doesn't mean we were crap before but means indeed that we are god-worms, and God, is nothing short of a Beautiful Endless Being who has Chosen the courage of change through grace, chosen to trust, and chosen to be loved, who has been ok to need to change to become better than yesterday, and has through this path become Perfect, and this too, is our goal to choose Him and His truthful vision, that we can gain all that He has and in turn give and love and see, as He does.

    Blessings on your path, Tiffany and I, believe in you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tiff,

    You have some really great quotes here, and a beautiful and strong message to share. Thank you for that trust you gave to your husband to change for you all. Thank you for being an eternal family. Thank you to your family for choosing Christ and His path for you. You all are such an example.

    I admire your courage to share your beliefs which are true. Gender roles in family are essential for optimal happiness in this life. I know it because apostles of the Lord, mouth pieces for Him have spoken it, and so it becomes a fact to those who have Faith that He speaks to his children on earth.

    What I would like to share with any readers is, something I have learned from my husband: We gain a lot of our self worth by the identities we perceive ourselves to be. Yet to understand Deity, is to realize that even obvious attributes we attach to our identity may be completely seen differently by God. Such as that I am short and have a round face. These may seem like unmistakable facts, but when we realize someone sees us in a wider spectrum of vision, we can realize that temporary facts may not be facts at all to Him, but temporary conditions. In Him, everything is possible, in Him, we are loved always and in every condition, yet we can indeed let Him show us our true identity, and assume nothing about ourselves. All of our assumptions can pretty much lead to shaky confidence; but when we vulnerably and flat out scarily let Him guide, we begin to get a glimpse of who we really are....and with this glimpse, can change the seemingly facts of yesterday, through Him. This change doesn't mean we were crap before but means indeed that we are god-worms, and God, is nothing short of a Beautiful Endless Being who has Chosen the courage of change through grace, chosen to trust, and chosen to be loved, who has been ok to need to change to become better than yesterday, and has through this path become Perfect, and this too, is our goal to choose Him and His truthful vision, that we can gain all that He has and in turn give and love and see, as He does.

    Blessings on your path, Tiffany and I, believe in you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this so much, Tiffany.
    Do you remember how frustrated I was when Jeff wouldn't propose? Haha.
    Your words on marriage are so beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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