Nearly 700 people attended Sutherland Institute’s State of the Union II: The Challenge to Family and Freedom at Thanksgiving Point on Thursday evening, February 5, 2009. Those attending one of the largest events Sutherland has hosted were introduced to the Institute’s Sacred Ground Initiative – a set of five actions for responsible citizens to become informed and involved in protecting traditional marriage in Utah.
Sutherland President, Paul Mero, first speaker of the night, said that the proper definition of family is critical to our liberty and that responsible citizens need to distinguish between what they ought to do and, in their selfishness, what they want to do.
LaVar Christensen, the primary author of Utah’s Constitutional Amendment in support of traditional marriage, was the second speaker. Christensen said, “One of the bills in the [“Common Ground Initiative”] package directly seeks to eliminate the second sentence of Amendment 3 and if that doesn’t work, the other measures are designed to invite activist judges to do that for them and thereby overturn the will of the people.”
The concluding speaker was Lauralyn B. Swim, Sutherland benefactor and former member of the Young Women General Board. Mrs. Swim said that the five-part campaign, titled the Sacred Ground Initiative, will help citizens of Utah engage effectively in an effort to reaffirm and strengthen the moral climate of our local communities. She ended her speech by saying, “Defending marriage and family is an act of love for our children and our children’s children. May that love be visible as we go forward together.”
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