The Gay Marriage Debate

After several months of praying and battling with myself over whether or not I should continue to support gay marriage, I've decided it's the right thing to do. I carefully followed both sides and did research on both arguments and logically, it just makes more sense. First of all, I don't believe that a religion should dictate how people should live their lives. I've never been okay with forcing religious beliefs on anyone.
I believe that people should live their lives according to their religion and convictions but never force anyone to live according to those beliefs, it's just not right. That is why we have freedom of religion.
I believe that we should be encouraging gays to live monogomous lives, mainly for the health of society, and the only way to accomplish that is through marriage.
I'm against religions encouraging gays to marry someone of the opposite sex because one of two things will happen. Either the marriage will fail and end in divorce or it will continue to be a bad marriage and in the case of children, neither is healthy.
Finally, I don't believe that allowing gays to marry will make straight marriage less meaningful.
That comes from within the marriage, not from who marries and who doesn't. If we want to strangthen marriage, we need to focus on our current straight marriages that are failing miserably.

This post is just an explanation of how I've come to my decision and is not meant to prove others wrong. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm just going with my convictions.

Life

It's been a really long time since my first post, so I figured I better starting posting again. I just watched a thing on CNN about God's Army Ministries. They are a group that is devoted to "help those who are held bound by the powers of darkness to become free through the principles taught in the Holy Bible." They pray on innocent teenagers who are struggling with various issues in their life...parental divorce, depression, abuse, etc and encourage them to leave their families (because they are evil) and send them to a school to basically get brainwashed. They are anti-woman and pro-hate/war. One quote that sticks out in my mind is "Fags don't belong here". This is so wrong. They are here because God put them here and no matter what we struggle with, we ALL belong here. They say that in life, there is no gray, just right and wrong. This is not Christ-like.

Even though I mostly don't agree with conservatives, I still have respect for most of them and I do support free speech, but it saddens me to know that there are people who claim to be Christ-like and then turn around and do things like this. I don't believe that Christ would agree with this. In fact, I think this extreme ideology makes him very sad. Christ accepted people for who they were no matter what. I think that is where most religious extremists have missed the mark. There is so much hate, avoidance, and disrepect for human beings. We don't always know why people do the things they do, but it all comes down to one thing...we are ALL children of God and he loves ALL of us no matter what.

Life is amazing. Even though at times, it is very rough. I know because I have been through many struggles in my lifetime and I've made many mistakes. But, I don't regret anything. I know I'm not perfect, but I work to fix my mistakes and make the best out of life. I know that God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. As hard as my life has been, I've gotten through everything and will continue to get through everything. I know that I'm here for a reason and that God has a specific plan for me and it is my job to follow that plan to the end and have faith that I can get there...and I will.

How the Gospel has Blessed my Life

I will begin with talking about how I came about joining the church. I figure that is a good place to start since that is one of the first questions I am asked when I tell people about my baptism.

Well, I met a boy on Facebook, (who out of respect, shall remain nameless). For now, we'll just call him "the boy." We sent messages back and forth, almost daily for a few months, until I moved out to Virginia and we finally met in person. Soon thereafter, there was a first date and then a second date and so on. Then I found myself going to church with him. After several weeks, I was meeting with missionaries and then finally after 8 months of going to church with "the boy," I was baptized. I know...in your head you're thinking "oh, that's so sweet" or "how romatantic!" Well, if that works for you, that's fine.

Now here's a funny story. I was born into a Lutheran family, to an alcoholic single mother and adopted into a well-to-do, Jewish family. My adoptive parents, who I will refer to as "Mother" and "Father," sent me to a Jewish Day School and Sunday School in the hopes that I would pick it up and carry it on. Obviously I didn't, but I do believe it was essential in my acceptance of the Gospel. Starting at a very young age, I decided on my own that I would abstain from drinking alcohol, using drugs, and sex before marriage. I also chose to dress modestly even if my friends weren't and remarkably enough, even with encouragement from my parents to be less conservative in my choice of attire. As the years went on, it became clear to my father that I would become a Mormon and he would always ask me "Are you going to become a Mormon?" I usually just ignored this question because I was not then nor would I ever become a Mormon. Little did I know. During my college years, the Mormon Missionaries would come around and try to invite people to read The Book of Mormon. I went to college in a small college town in South Dakota so it was obvious when the Mormon Missionaries were in town. Friends would call me up and say "Quick, it's time to get out of town, the Mormons are coming!" As I think back on it, it makes me laugh that we were so afraid of these crazy Mormons.

I've been blessed by my decision to join the church and it is those blessings that will keep me with the church forever. Because of the events surrounding my life, I have gone through a number of problems (depression, suicidal thoughts, cutting, etc). The Gospel has changed how I deal with these problems. When I get depressed, instead of it leading to thinking of suicide, I turn towards Heavenly Father and the Church. I believe that the things in my life happened for a reason and were necessary in order to strengthen me emotionally and spiritually. I also believe that Heavenly Father chose me to help others in a way that no one else can. That's what makes me special and gives me a reason for living. I know that through faith in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father that I can anything that comes my way and I'm very thankful for the blessings the Gospel has brought to my life.