I consider myself a pretty extreme conservative and in most places I would definitely be labeled as such. I believe in less government interference, pro-life (obviously), and don't even get me started on the rights allotted from the second amendment and nobody better mess with them!
However, in my little town of less than 800 I seem to be more liberal than conservative and this has caused me some frustration.
Recently, a significant amount of women took to the streets all over our nation and marched. They marched for many different reasons but mostly to protest some stances that our newly elected president has pushed; mainly they way he views and treats women, minorities, and human beings in general.
For some reason this political movement was brought up in a recent woman's meeting at my church (which is supposed to refrain from discussing political stances such as this) and a few women began expressing their disgust with the women who marched - assuming the marchers did so because they don't fully understand their divine potential, or they're whining because "their candidate" didn't win, etc.
As I sat there listening to them go on I became more and more angry. To me, they obviously had no clue what the march was about or that most of the women (some from the same religion as them) were marching for reasons they hadn't even considered. I sat there thinking, "I totally would've joined in that march if I had known it was going on!"
Honestly, I did not vote for Trump and I am disgusted to think that any woman did. He has a complete disregard for women - going as far as admitting to and even bragging about sexually assaulting them:
"I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them, It's like a magnet. I just kiss, I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
What a sense of entitlement! He clearly doesn't view women as anything more than, and I quote, " . . . a good piece of ass . . . " I should include that's only if they're beautiful. It seems he discriminates against the ugly ones, thank goodness! ...maybe I should praise him for showing some restraint but it just illustrates his sickness.
There doesn't seem to be anything consensual about his behavior. It sounds more like these women don't argue because of his fame than because they want it to happen. It would appear that he uses his position for sexual gratification and cursed be the woman who refuses!
But back to my beef about my fellow church-goers' opinions. I am not against them expressing their thoughts, as off-based as I believe them to be. I am against the sentiment that every woman in that room should agree with it and that if they don't then they are unhappy and lack the understanding of their divine potential. That is the very mentality that some of the women were marching against!
We are all different and that is what makes us beautiful. We all have different opinions and views and when we come together that is what makes us whole!
Ironically, the lesson that day was on love and I felt the very opposite of that from those comments. Love would have caused one to say that even though they might not agree with many or any of the stances taken by some of the women marching but that those women are daughters of the same God, they have a divine destination also.
"Let us look for the most positive and supportive ways to give validity and power, one to the other. Let us be sensitive to and complimentary of one another's best efforts." - Beverly Campbell
"[The Church] is built not for men and women who are perfect or unaffected by mortal temptations, but rather it is built for people exactly like you and me. And it is built upon the rock of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whose Atonement we can be cleansed and become “fellowcitizens … of the household of God.”
"Without the Atonement of Jesus Christ, life would be a dead-end road without hope or future. With the Atonement, life is an ennobling, inspiring journey of growth and development that leads to eternal life in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
"But while the Atonement is meant to help us all become more like Christ, it is not meant to make us all the same. Sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe that the Church wants to create every member from a single mold—that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father. Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities and spiritual identities.
"It also contradicts the intent and purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ, which acknowledges and protects the moral agency—with all its far-reaching consequences—of each and every one of God’s children. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are united in our testimony of the restored gospel and our commitment to keep God’s commandments. But we are diverse in our cultural, social, and political preferences.
"The Church thrives when we take advantage of this diversity and encourage each other to develop and use our talents to lift and strengthen our fellow disciples." - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
The only way we are going to achieve our fullest potential is if we sit back and reserve our judgments and instead, walk a mile in each other's moccasins.
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