Eight is Great

The title of this entry breaks from my usual pattern (which is soon to be ended anyway). The number 8 is significant in an incredible number of ways from culture to culture around the world. Maybe it is just a coincidence that it is a proposition of enough importance to get The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stirred up enough to take an official stance. Here's the letter from the First Presidency read to all congregations at the end of June:

"Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families

In March 2000 California voters overwhelmingly approved a state law providing that "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The California Supreme Court recently reversed this vote of the people. On November 4, 2008, Californians will vote on a proposed amendment to the California state constitution that will now restore the March 2000 definition of marriage approved by the voters.

The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children. Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.

A broad-based coalition of churches and other organizations placed the proposed amendment on the ballot. The Church will participate with this coalition in seeking its passage. Local Church leaders will provide information about how you may become involved in this important cause.

We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage."


"The sacred institution of marriage" is what they call it. Marriage is foremost a religious institution, it is secondly a civil institution, and I would argue that the developement of the civil version arose as an imitation or substitute for those less-religiously inclined persons. This issue is a moral issue (in reality, aren't all laws based off of morals at some level or another?). Ideally, laws and morals are made for the sustainability of the human population. They regulate our interactions with each other to promote cooperation and progress, they protect each other from mal-intentioned persons, or even to prevent innocent mistakes made by fellow members of society. I want to talk about marriage from a biological stance.

From a biological standpoint, all successful life forms are those who are able to strengthen an individual enough to allow it to propagate it's own species and pass on their own DNA and genetic structure. Any species that cannot propagate it's own kind in the face of adversity dwindles and becomes extinct. Most life is pretty simple. Aquire nutrition, grow, and procreate. This is the schedule of life that all organic lifeforms on this planet adhere to. Some species form slightly more complex groups or societies that aid in acquiring nutrition or aid in procreating, maybe both. Still, in the animal kingdom, this is as about as complicated as it gets. Even interactions between family units within species is to preserve the ability to aquire nutrition or procreative ability so that the family's own DNA can be passed on. This is THE driving force in all other lifeforms on this planet.

Why are we as a human species so complicated that we start missing out and destroying these basics of survival. I'm not talking about individual defects that get in the way of propagation, I am talking about the societal movements and cultures that destroy and impede such progress and discourage it in others. Why are we so complicated that we allow personal gratification to get in the way? Why are there significant portions of our populations that are okay with demoting our abilities and threatening our progression? Promotion of a species isn't a matter of choie, but a result of the environment and innate genetic programming. We have the ability to overcome our genetic programming and choose our own fates to a much larger extent than anything else on this planet, especially now with knowledge and technology so freely available. We have the potential and freedom to become so much more than simple biological creatures. So what are movements within society doing? They are taking advantage of that freedom by removing those morals and anchors that separate us from all other life. They are trying to promote lifestyles more in line with base hormonal creatures, than promote those institutions that provide an environment for maximum upward growth.

The institutions that move society in a progressive direction are healthy marriages. Healthy marriages tend to produce healthy stable families where healthy stable people are grown to promote the advancement of our species. Anything that degrades this institution will drag the human species backwards into just another biological species concerned with nothing but aquiring nutrition and obeying hormones. No better than lions on the savannah or gorillas in the jungles (except with maybe a few tools and shelters for our benefit).

As members of society promote alternative family units or companionships antagonistic to healthy families, they influence others to follow suit, if not in lifestyle then in priorities of selfishness. As families are degraded and disregarded, more families and potentially stalwart future members of society are destroyed. The knowledge of the value of the family is lost, even if for simple ignorance of its potential.

Anything that disvalues the importance of healthy families is based on selfishness. Cohabitation is based on erasing loneliness, sexual gratification, and financial gain. There might be some altruism in there by service to others or donations of time and money to worthwhile organizations, but the key is still missing. We are not passing on those unselfish habits to the most impactable part of society, our own children. Even if a couple intimately changes the life of a child or youth for the better, think of the good that could have been accomplished if you raised your own children in an altruistic fashion PLUS that one changed life. Likely, those children will go on to change countless lives themselves in an exponential fashion, reaching many more people and doing much more good than two people sharing resources could do themselves. Unfortunately, selfishness is much more contagious than unselfishness. Why should we encourage it by permitting selfish lifestyles and erasing the outward distinctions of such? Why are so many hetersexual couples avoiding and devaluing marriage as just a piece of paper, while so many homosexual couples are working so hard to get it? Are heterosexuals just taking for granted what a wonderful opportunity they have available to them, while homosexuals are doing everything they can to obtain a shallow imitation of the same thing?

Families are the gateway by which our species has arrived at this point. Unfortunately, having a family doesn't seem to be genetically ingrained into our brains. Our hormones are still there, driving women men and women to have children and gratify sexual desires, but having a healthy family is not instictive to us. We need to be shown how to do it. Find a healthy and (at least) mostly happy family and ask them how to do it if you don't know or if you want ideas. Even better, develop a deeply spiritual relationship with something incredibly better than yourself and live your life after that. Not everyone will get to have a family for various reasons. They still should keep themselves in a position to build up other's families, not set precedents and examples of what one can get by serving their own needs.

The importance of families and marriage is crucial to the progression and survival of humanity. It ties the whole world together in a vast meshwork of relation and background that allows us to progress in a way that can be healthy for all. It takes two families and two individuals with sometimes great differences and teaches them to be tolerant of non-destructive habits (or unusual but beneficial habits) and levels out each other's imbalances. In this way, the waves of the storm of culture are absorbed and smoothed over, bringing people together and combining talents to develop well-meaning children with a broader and more properly focused view of the world and all that is in it.

I'm not about to infringe on anybody's civil benefits (which are pretty equal across the board). People will do behind their closed doors what they'll do. But when it becomes public and when it is destructive to society and our species, limits must be set and lines must be drawn. Creating homosexual relationship institutions will not aid our situation any more than allowing unlimited speed limits on our streets would aid transportation. There may be excellent couples who could love each other as well as the happiest husband and wife. There may be couples who could raise children well and balanced, but there will be far more wrecks than it is worth. We should be focusing on helping everyone be a part of a healthy family to prevent the vast problems brought about by broken and incomplete ones. Giving marriage opportunities to everyone will not help this effort. I do wish everyone could enjoy the texture and detail of a happy family life and appreciate the variety of tastes possible by participating in one in an appropriate style.