Nothing to blog about...

However, since it is Father's Day I thought that I would post the main points of the Religion paper that I did in Sociology (I received an A). I thought it fitting since it is about marriage.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 King James Version). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) noted that in 2009 there were 2,077,000 marriages in the United States. However, in this world the lines of marriage and family have become blurred. Many people are opting out of the traditional family roles and instead are making new and sometimes costly ones. The media has turned love into lust. More people are becoming single parents or choosing to abort their family. The world is slowly losing out on the most important thing: family.

Many people are attacking the family roles. The mother is no longer being seen as gentle, and some mothers work outside of the home; the father is not always the sole provider, and some fathers choose not to help in rearing their children. Extended families are sometimes the ones rearing the children of parents who are avoiding taking direct responsibility themselves. Gordon B. Hinckley, former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1995) said, “HUSBAND AND WIFE have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. . . . Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” In 2009, Maria Shriver (2011) reported, “Women now make up 48% of the US workforce and ‘mothers are breadwinners or co-breadwinners in a majority of families.’”

Latter-day Saints believe that marriage is extremely important; however, the media says the opposite. Gordon B. Hinckley, former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1995) stated: “Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children”. In the LDS religion the temples are the most important. The most important thing that is done is being sealed for time and eternity to your family. Although, the “Mormon” religion believes that marriage is important, many people are finding out the world simply does not agree. For instance, Bleakley, Hennessey, and Fishbein (2011) found that 50 percent of teenagers actively search for sexual content using the mass media. Many television shows depict women and men in sexual manners.

The world would lead people to believe that getting married to start a family (or getting married at all) is useless. Many people point out negative things about getting married, such as the cost, divorce, adultery, and so on. They question getting married when people can have sex without the official title. Sue Christensen and Ann Rosen (1996) found that the American pop culture glorifies sex. Music videos and television shows show women being lusted after. Many unwed people are fast becoming parents; people are having sex at a younger age and, as a consequence, are having children before they are twenty years old. “In 2002, 12% of all pregnancies, or 757,000, occurred among adolescents aged 15-19” (as cited in Ventura SJ, Abma JC, Mosher WD, Henshaw SK, 2006). The CDC also stated, “In 2009, 46% of high school students had ever had sexual intercourse” (Health Topics, 2010). Many people are opting not to wait to have sex, and as a result the idea of "marriage" has become lost.

To conclude, the family is important to the Latter-day Saints religion; however, if the world continues to put importance on others things such as having sex before marriage, they will risk losing the morality that we once had. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that the family is essential to their salvation; however, the negative way that the family is depicted in the world will have a negative impact on the family. The youth should learn more about the consequence of their actions; only parents can teach them that. Love is clearly different from what the world shows it to be. People should not look to celebrities or the mass media to define love or family. Mothers, fathers, children, and extended family roles are important and should not be belittled or thrown away. The Latter-day Saint religion needs to stand firm in their view of the family and help put an end to the attack of the family roles. If we fail to do so, the children (next generation) will grow up without the beliefs needed to raise their family.