Do you know who Phyllis Burgess is?  You should.  She is an elderly woman who went to a Prop. 8 rally in Palm Springs to voice her opinion against gay marriage. 

Like Daniel in the lion's den, Phyllis stood calmly among an angry mob of gay marriage activists.  They shouted at her, hissed at her, pushed into her when she tried to speak to a reporter, and knocked the cross that she was carrying to the ground and then stomped on it in a fit of rage.  Throughout all of it she remained resolute and calm and even told the angry mob that she loved them.  

This sort of activity brings to my mind the mob activity the Saints faced long ago.  The more these activists protest in hateful ways against those who profess traditional Christian values, the more they show their true colors, and I am not talking about the colors of the rainbow.  Their true colors show them to be potential converts to the great and abominable church of the devil, that organization which seeks to persecute the Church of the Lamb of the God and its followers.    

Given her age, Phyllis looks to be a member of what Tom Brokaw calls the Greatest Generation.  The Greatest Generation refers to our seniors who sacrificed so much to halt the tide of Nazi fascism that swept across Europe during WW II. When times were tough and everything looked bleak, they stood up to one of the fiercest tyrants the modern world has ever known.  Their courage liberated an entire continent and returned peace to billions of people.  Their efforts took guts and tenacity, the sort of guts and tenacity we see in people like Phyllis Burgess. 

Click here to view the video of Phyllis confronting the protestors.

After the passing of Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California, homosexual activists have been out in full force.  They have organized marches around the Lord’s temples (SLC and Las Vegas most recently) and harassed Californians who support Prop 8, so says my sister who lives there.  It seems that people who accuse members of the church for being hateful for embracing the gospel truth regarding the sanctity of marriage have become themselves agents of intolerance and intimidation.  

These activists did not appear overnight.  They have been infiltrating the regulating bodies and the legal system of our courts, changing policies and viewpoints in an attempt to normalize same-sex relationships.  I first noticed these developments back in 2001 when they planted some operatives in the American Psychological and Canadian Psychological Associations’ (the APA and CPA).  The outcome?  Both associations normalized same sex relationships and embraced gay marriage, all in the name of science and progress.  Moreover, they claim that psychologists who teach or say anything counter to their pro-gay resolutions are acting in an unethical manner.

I was once a card carrying member of both associations.  I am no longer a member of either association, and will remain so for a long time to come.   

A few years ago homosexual activists were also successful in ramrodding gay marriage down Canadians’ throats.  The issue was never put to a vote among the electorate; it was decided in the dark, smoke filled rooms of the House of Parliament, and pushed through by the defection of one conservative party member to the liberal party.  That’s right, the vote of one activist agent in the Canadian House of Commons forced the reality of legalized gay marriage into the lives of millions of Canadians.

Do gay marriage activists realize that they are working for the great and abominable church of the devil?  According to Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “To be in opposition to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on moral issues is to link arms with Satan and to fight against God. On this point we must speak plainly and bluntly—there is no middle ground; men are either for him or against him, and those who are not for him are against him” (The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1982], 144.)

Let’s not confuse the activists with individuals who are sincerely struggling with same-sex attraction; the latter need our love and support.  Yet the activists also need something from us, they need our prayers so that they may realize the error of their ways.  There is another thing that we should be doing during these perilous times, that is standing fast in the face of persecution from gay marriage activists and all other detractors.  As we do so we can take heart in the inspired promises of the Standard of Truth, uttered by the prophet Joseph Smith:

“No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

Two months ago nothing scared my 20 month-old son.  But as his awareness of his surroundings has increased over the last few weeks, he has grown increasingly weary of weird looking things like spiders and strange sounding things like my electric razor.  This change was especially evident during Halloween.  As most parents know, ghosts, ghouls, and goblins elicit some interesting and funny responses from kids.  Sure, we try to comfort and assure them that the ghost is not real, and the older kids seem to get it, but what about the younger kids?  

Studies suggest that toddler-age kids have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy, notwithstanding assurances from adults.  Belgian developmental psychologist Jean Piaget discovered that many kids have difficulty discerning fantasy from reality before 7 years of age.  I imagine that the younger kids are, the more they struggle with this.  This means that for a 2 year-old child, the ghost hanging above the porch at the neighbor’s house on Halloween night was real, no matter what Mommy said!

Other studies support Piaget’s assertion.  A recent study in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology found that when 3-5 year olds were asked to distinguish real characters such as knights and Michael Jordan from fictional characters such as monsters and dragons, they did so correctly less than 40% of the time.  Their ability to discern real from fictional characters dropped as age decreased.  

All this suggests that younger kids actually see monsters, ghosts, and goblins as being real, but this is only a problem during Halloween, right?  Wrong.  Children are bombarded with fictional content on television that, while innocent to adults, may create dilemmas for younger minds that are unable to discern reality from fiction.  This means that if a 3 year-old sees someone get killed in a movie, he or she may think that it actually happened, regardless of a parent’s assurances.  It is thus important for parents to avoid letting young children watch images on television that may upset their delicate minds, at least until they are able to tell fact from fiction.  Fortunately, most young children 2-5 years-of-age prefer playing to watching grown-up shows.

The counsel to avoid exposing young children to potentially troubling images on television is consistent with the words of Jacob who reminds us that the feelings of our children are “exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate,” and that we should avoid subjecting them to things that may unduly disrupt their delicate minds.