As promised in my last entry, this is the inauguration of what will, I hope, be a fun series on TGIA.
This was spawned by what I can only conclude was a very clumsy (and only thinly veiled) effort on the part of my girlfriend’s father to shame us for living in sin. Actually, since at that time he saw me as the great corrupter of his pure and innocent daughter, I’m guessing it was more to shame her into leaving my heathen ass.
It was Easter time a couple of years back, and as a present to all his daughters and their families, he handed out nice color-printed copies of The Family: A Proclamation to the World. This was a big deal because he’s (and I’m going to try to be kind here) juuuust a little tight with the money, so the fact that he went out of his way to a Deseret Book store (I assume) and dropped some cash on one of these for each of his four girls proved how much he wanted to send this message.
Things were still very tenuous with my darling parents-not-in-law at that time, so we just smiled and thanked them and took the hateful document home. But what to do with it? It seemed like too little to simply throw it away, so I decided to make it less offensive. I got out a marker and scribbled out anything that was outdated (i.e. gender roles as defined in the 1500s), offensive, or had to do with religion. Doesn’t make much sense, but as gifts go, at least this wouldn’t have been offensive or insensitive…
With that, I give you The Family: A Proclamation to the World… REDACTED.
 Click to enlarge… |
