Real Men Shop Not Stalk

Spousal abuse is the most cowardly deed a person can do. It is overwhelmingly committed by males on women. I don't call them men, because they are disgusting bullies, not real men.

Today we read in the Salt Lake Tribune that Utah's Number One gun lobbyist and activist is no man. His guns are to be taken away, maybe permanently, under the law. (This is the same bozo who had an AR-15 stolen from his vehicle a while back.)

It was a surprise to me the other day when my friend at Keepapitchinin.org linked to one of my recent blogs about trying to help my wife find a Mother-of-the-Bride dress. It was the come-on to her link "Going where few men are willing to tread." that made me feel oddly heroic, which is what I was going for with my whole Don-Quixote-Parsifal-Galahad-Disney's-Prince-Philip thing. With that sort of fantasy life, you might expect me to be living in my mom's basement working at a comic book store. Nope.

Anonymous D reminded me today that I live with a strong-willed woman. It takes a real man to do that. There's never been any physical violence and not much even of raised voices. Rather, it has been two very different and equally strong personalities learning to love, live, and become one together. Married almost 33 years, it takes a real man and a real woman.

1980 - Passionate Mormons, no moderation about it.

Here's something I remember from LDS General Conference a few years back. It was the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley: 

In the marriage companionship there is neither inferiority nor superiority. The woman does not walk ahead of the man; neither does the man walk ahead of the woman. They walk side by side as a son and daughter of God on an eternal journey.

She is not your servant, your chattel, nor anything of the kind.

How tragic and utterly disgusting a phenomenon is wife abuse. Any man in this Church who abuses his wife, who demeans her, who insults her, who exercises unrighteous dominion over her is unworthy to hold the priesthood. Though he may have been ordained, the heavens will withdraw, the Spirit of the Lord will be grieved, and it will be amen to the authority of the priesthood of that man.

Any man who engages in this practice is unworthy to hold a temple recommend.

I regret to say that I see too much of this ugly phenomenon. There are men who cuff their wives about, both verbally and physically. What a tragedy when a man demeans the mother of his children.

I wish I could tell you the full story from when I was a counselor in a Bishopric and got involved with a family with domestic violence issues and the law. The male person told me when I became Bishop that he would sustain me but never respect me because I took away the most important thing in his life. He wasn't talking about his family. He was talking about his guns taken because of his problems, not mine.

Guns. I still have mine. But as a real man I am not a threat to my family or society. Good job Utah for taking an arsenal of guns away from a person who is not man enough to be responsible for them!