Week 01

This week, I had so many things to share with you all. First of all, I am having such a good time in my "Marriage and Family" class. My teacher, Brother Williams is very interesting to listen to and he has taught me many things! We learned about how hard it was in the past to get a divorce. If you ever wanted to get a divorce in the 1800's-1900's you would go to court, and the judge would ask for proof for a divorce.  Then after providing all of the proof, the judge would decide if he granted the divorce or not. Fun fact, Indiana was the first state that allowed divorce in the 1850s thus giving it the nickname of "the new Sodom." For reference, Sodom was a biblical city famous for sin and was eventually destroyed.

After this, little by little, all the states made divorce legal. South Carolina was the last state in declared divorce legal in 1949. Even after the legalization of divorce, most of the newspapers started to blame women because of divorces, what a big surprise. Anyways, I thought that was interesting. I also learned about all these things that had to happen so same-gender marriage could be "legalized". I wrote legalized in quotation marks because it was never something illegal. Nobody thought about it or even acknowledged this was acceptable. Many people think that same sex marriages started in the 21st century, but actually, there is a story about a Rome emperor, that cut all the parts of a slave and made him a man and then forced him to dress as a woman so the emperor could marry him.

Marriage is something that many people do not want right now, and that probably never would want, so the question is "why do the LGTBQ+ population want to get married?" Well, besides loving each other and wanting it official I thought possibly it could help with tax reasons. However, Brother Williams explained that they wanted it legalized for their children. Children are very vulnerable and susceptible to many things, and knowing that their parents are not married can impact emotional stability. Studies have shown that children raised by homosexual parents do not show any disadvantage over the children in heterosexual families. And having a family is what I think is most important in this life. I had the blessing of growing in a family with a married father and mother, I remember watching some friends in elementary school when they talked about how their parents were not married, they were very troubled about this. I lived in a catholic country, meaning I grew up going to catholic schools and they always emphasized how marriage is important. I believe this deeply affected my friends; they were trouble from what they were learning about in school compared to their home situation. From seeing these experiences in my own life, it has taught me so much of why the LGTBQ+ community has fought for the right to be married for such a long time. When some states decided to make it legal, many couples needed to travel to those states to be married, however, some of them lacked the resources to be able to make this trip. This is why they kept fighting and protesting. They finally got the right to do it on June 26, 2015. When the U.S. supreme court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage. Since that moment, all fifty states legalized same-sex marriage. I had the pleasure of meeting a homosexual family, and thanks to science they were able to have a son with the same blood as one of the parents. To me, this was a very cool experience to see the blessing of marriage in their lives and for their son. This week I really enjoyed learning about marriages and the evolution in how they have changed over time.