Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple

Notes from "Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple" Bruce C. Hafen, BYU Devotional, 31 Jan 2014

 if man-woman marriage is no longer a big deal for society but just a matter of individual preference, it’s little wonder that many people would now say of gay marriage, “It’s no big deal—let people do whatever they want.” That’s what can happen when we lose track of society’s interest in marriage and children. We know that God loves all of His children and that we must treat one another with compassion and ­tolerance—regardless of private conduct that we may or may not understand. But it is a very different matter to endorse or promote that conduct by allowing the appropriation of a legal concept—marriage—whose primary and historic purpose is to further social interests.

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There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers’ financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation’s underclass. . . . The poor [have uncoupled] parenthood from marriage, and the financially secure [blast] apart their [own] unions if [they] aren’t having fun any more.
"Is There Hope for the American Marriage?", Caitlin Flanagan, Time Magazine, July 02, 2009
(Quoted in "Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple" Bruce C. Hafen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy, January 31, 2014)
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