Tuesday, August 02, 2011

A Few Observations

One thing became very clear to me while we were all working our way towards the Denver Temple last Thursday night. Satan was raging. I felt it all day long. I felt like the temple was truly a sanctuary of safety for our family that night. I have only felt this one other time and that was just before Tessa's casket was closed during the family viewing. I could literally see and feel the battle between good and evil as it was being fought that day. It was frightening. I felt some similar things last week and it wasn't necessarily about Laila. I KNOW this one thing: Satan doesn't want families to be united. He doesn't want happiness to be found amongst families and he definitely doesn't want love to abound. He doesn't like families and he hates the strength that comes through a united front. Whatever we were supposed to accomplish, we did. We made it for that one event. We have to make sure we continue to make it as a united group full of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and united with love towards one another.
I read this article in the BYU paper today and it was alarming and further proof of what Satan is doing -- and at the moment it looks like he is winning in the world. It's a bit lengthy, but you need to know what's happening on the international front concerning the family.


Students Encounter Opposition at UN Conference

By Scott Blickfeldt


Students from BYU recently faced some fierce debates head-on with the United Nations in New York City.
Four students from BYU and a student from Arizona State University attended a conference with the UN in New York City to represent United Families International on July 25 and 26. Many young people attended the conference to discuss issues facing the upcoming generation. Among the issues discussed was the sexual rights debate. Abortion and homosexual marriage were at the forefront of the debates, along with the idea that young people, including adolescents, should have no sexual restraints.
Faith Goimarac, a BYU student who attended the conference, said she was surprised sexual rights were the most important subject of debate among the youth at the conference.
“The whole thing was disturbing how much they thought that’s all there is to being a youth, that this is the most important right that they have and the most important thing to their future,” Goimarac said. “It was a little disgusting to me.”
Marcia Barlow, a BYU and Harvard alumna, led the team representing UFI. She said the sexual rights agenda being pushed by the U.N. is to allow the youth to freely exercise their sexuality as a human right as long as there is consent between participants. She said those who stand for decency and the traditional family are now viewed by the U.N. as being outside the mainstream of society.
“It [the U.N’s perspective] is very radical stuff,” Barlow said. “The interesting thing is that to the U.N., it is not perceived as being radical, it is perceived as being main stream. Anyone with traditional values or religious values in any fashion is viewed as an interloper and an obstructionist.”
Niels Wankier, another BYU student in attendance for the UFI, said participants had planned objectives heading into the debates. The plan was to create a document, as the U.N. usually does in its conferences, to describe their concerns with certain issues, in this case the family. The pro family side was hoping to have a fair chance to advocate their side in the creation of the document. Wankier said they did not get that chance.
“They kind of went ahead and made the document by themselves,” Wankier said. “We found out the day before the actual conference that the document was finished and that we wouldn’t be able to help influence the negotiating or the changing of that document.
Goimarac said the U.N. didn’t represent their side of the debate fairly.
“They were not very open-minded to our point of view,” Goimarac said. “They had premeditated responses to each of our arguments, and there was very little opportunity for us to speak up.”
Despite the heavy opposition to the pro-family point of view UFI was hoping to advocate, Barlow said the team advocating UFI did good simply by standing up for its side.
“Their mere presence met the objective,” Barlow said. “The opposition knew we were there, and we had a very articulate, well-put-together young people who could stand and said what needed to be said. The opposition knew that there were young people in the world who didn’t think like them, and still carried the understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman and that sexual orientation issues are not something that needs to be made a human right.”

1 comment:

Jaclyn M said...

I am a firm believe that the "signs of the times" are among us. Trials are become more common and much more difficult. WE are the minority. It is scary to see the grasp Satan has on soooo many people. I stumbled across your families blog a few months ago. I have to say that your strength and bond to one another has strengthened me! Thank You!