"...if ye are not one ye are not mine."

I wouldn’t normally write anything political, but because of the election last week, and the hotly contested Proposition 8 in California, I felt the need to write down some thoughts.

Last night I was reading a talk titled “The Blessings of Being Unified” by Elder Hugh W. Pinnock of the First Quorum of the Seventy. There wasn’t much that stood out to me in this particular talk; a few stories about various stakes, wards, neighbors and families overcoming differences to try to be more unified in their various activities. As the talk was winding down, I was getting more and more tired, and almost skipped the last paragraph. I’m glad I didn’t. It reads as follows: “With gratitude in my heart, brothers and sisters, for you and for that which we are doing together, I pray that we may each resolve, in this era of social problems and economic difficulty, to follow as one our prophet-leader and others who have been called to direct us. May we avoid the pain and problems that come to families, neighborhoods, and institutions when they are not one, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, amen.”

You would think that these sentences were spoken in our day because of the economic challenges we are facing, and with the widening gap of political differences, including Proposition 8, we definitely have our fair share of social problems. As I read that last paragraph, this is what came to my mind. As a nation, we are definitely not united. We are more split than I think we have been for a long time. More and more issues are causing people to take one of two sides. There is hardly any middle ground anymore.

Then this morning I received an email about Scott Eckern, an LDS member who donated money toward and voted “Yes” on Proposition 8. Scott was the former Director of the California Music Theater, and second in command of the theater; this week at least one actor and composer of popular shows sent emails “decrying Eckern’s actions” and urging the artists and theater workers across the country to boycott the CMT. The mounting pressure of the emails and boycotts caused Eckern to resign his position. When did voting become something that should be decried? The email also links to a website that has been set up that shows people's names, companies and amount of money donated to help Proposition 8 pass. The site header says “The following individuals or organizations have donated money to the California Proposition 8 campaign which seeks to ban same sex marriages. Please do not patronize them.” So apparently organizations like UCLA, Disneyland, Intuit, Home Depot, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young, Boeing, Morgan Stanley, Columbia Pictures and the cities of Long Beach, Claremont and Los Angeles to name just a few, are now in danger of being boycotted because some of their employees exercised their right to vote. These actions just amaze me. I can’t believe the bitterness and hostility that one group would go through to dismiss the will of the people.

Back to the talk I read last night; the last sentence hit me the hardest “May we avoid the pain and problems that come to families, neighborhoods, and institutions when they are not one…” I shudder to think of where we are heading as a nation, and hope that somehow we don’t end up like the societies we read about that were destroyed because they were so divided. In D&C 38:27, the Savior said "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine." If as a society we are not one, we are not His. Who do we belong to, then?