The Proclamation on the Family starts to address the church’s valid concern about the critical need for strong, intact families in order to provide the love, security and protection that every child deserves and requires in order to survive and thrive. There are many who criticize the Proclamation. However it is actually a good starting point. It perfectly addresses a large number of families that it speaks to. It’s only limitation is that it doesn’t address all of the families that, for whatever reason, fall outside of this model. I am offering here some amendments to the Proclamation that clarify how it should apply to family configurations that aren’t included in the original document.
The Family and Children–A Proclamation to the World
ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. Some children are born into this earth and their gender is not immediately clear to their parents or to their doctors. Sometimes parents and doctors mis-identify the true gender of a child. These children will know and discover their true gender. Since it frequently impossible to determine a child’s gender, it is up to each child to seek guidance from God to determine his or her true gender as he or she reach an age where they have the capacity to do so.
WE DECLARE the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan.
IN THE PREMORTAL REALM, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only within a lawful marriage.
HUSBAND AND WIFE have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord”. Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations. This includes every child. Parents will be held accountable before God when they shun their children because of their sexual orientation or gender non-conformity or their disbelief.
THE FAMILY is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a parents who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are responsible for the nurture of their children. By divine design, mothers are also to preside over their families in love and righteousness. Mothers are also responsible to provide for the necessities of life and protection for their families. Fathers are also responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Parents who are single, or widowed or divorced or who have disables spouses must provide the necessities of life, protection and be responsible for nurture. The circumstances of some parents may require them to reverse their traditional roles in order to best care for their children. Households with two same-sex parents must also determine how they will divide the duties of providing the necessities of life, protection and nurturing. Extended families and wards should offer support to all of these family configurations.
WE WARN that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. God is especially displeased by those who try to weaken families and harm children by stigmatizing those whose families have less traditional configurations or those who would cast out their children because of their sexual orientation or disbelief. Those who would break their marriage vows or pursue divorce simply because of their spouse’s disbelief will also stand accountable before God.
WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen ALL families which are the fundamental unit of society and to support the well-being of ALL children, regardless of the configuration of their family.
Daniel Parkinson
DANIEL PARKINSON was born and raised in Utah to a Mormon family with a thick Mormon Heritage. He comes to this issue as a psychiatrist, with a strong sense of activism, and a desire to help the two communities that he inherited as his birthright: the Mormon community, and the gay community. He administrates the GayMormonStories.org podcast and the NoMoreStrangers.org blog.
All posts by Daniel Parkinson
“WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen ALL families which are the fundamental unit of society and to support the well-being of ALL children, regardless of the configuration of their family.”
This is the most brilliant wording! My gay uncle’s family requires just as much support and love as my straight brother’s family. They all bear or adopt children who still, by the way, need love, nourishment, support, happiness, and patience. Yes! The well-being of ALL children is our goal. The gay man’s/woman’s children are just as precious! As is the man or woman himself/herself.
I think I may just re-memorize your “Proclamation”. This time for myself so that I may embed these ideas of equality deep in my mind and heart. I may just shock a few people because it will become THE Proclamation quoted by accident…
Would that be somethin’?
Thank you!
Most the criticism of the proclamation arises out of the way it is used (and was intended to be used?) to put down certain kinds of families in the name of promoting others.
Even traditional mom-dad-kids families might not fit into the roles if mom is a bread winner and/or dad has great nurturing skills. Let alone families with same-sex parents at the helm.
Is there a way to make a proclamation that is universally supportive of families?
Get rid of *preside*.
Men do not preside over women.
Every mature person presides over themselves.
Fathers and mothers preside over immature children until they are grown and become for themselves, at which point they also preside over themselves.
I made a little change there….
SO GLAD I LAID IT ALL ON THE LINE FOR THE MORMON LGBT.
YOU ARE A SELFISH ASSHOLE.
Sorry if it doesn’t work for you. My idea was take the proclamation as written, and see if there was a way to simply add things to make of for the deficiencies. When I saw your comment about preside I agreed that they way I wrote it still left some inequality. I tried to fix that by making the wording identical. There is still the problem that one is mentioned first and the other second, and I decided that my point of adding to the current proclamation only worked if I added sentences that clarified the earlier ones. Sorry if I didn’t totally succeed….and I invite anyone to improve further on the Proc.
LOVE being totally invisible to you, shithead. SO GLAD I worked so hard on your behalf. SO GLAD I did that.
This wasn’t an improvement. First, it claims that gender matters, which does not reflect our current understanding of how biology works. Sometimes someone has both sets if genitals, or none, or lots of both hormones, or not enough of any if them. God’s own genetic diversity contradicts the importance of choosing between only two gender identities.
Further, it stresses the importance of a husband or male presiding. Contrary to the insistence that a household needs a head, truly harmonious families and households are not a hierarchy. The strongest and most loving families I know are sometimes pagan, or Buddhist, or atheist, or interfaith. It would be more accurate to claim that the strongest families are based on the TEACHINGS of Christ, which are the universal values of love, compassion, forgiveness, service, and gentleness.
I get your point, and I actually made a change. My goal was to take the existing proc, and not delete things, but add things that would correct the problems. I may not have succeeded, but that was my intent. When it talks about husbands presiding, I really wanted to communicate that the woman should also preside just as much as the husband. I went back and tried to reinforce that idea by giving them the exact same wording except the also (which I felt I had to do to point out that this was the new part). My goal was really to create a document that allows for full equality, so if I failed, it wasn’t because of bad intent. 🙂
Sadly, I don’t think it’s possible to truly make the necessary changes without deleting or changing parts.
You’re probably right :(. This was really an exercise for me. Sometimes I try to talk to traditional Mormons and show a way that they can see things differently without having to throw out their basic beliefs. I don’t know how realistic this is, but it is what motivated the essay. I would love to see the Proclamation completely thrown out and replaced with something better myself.
Your place can be valueble for me. Cheers!…