Protect Marriage and Vote like your life depends on it because it very well may come to that. ***Updated!

Many states have marriage amendment propositions on the table now or will very soon.  Several states have already voted on them.  Since we are residents of Texas, I'm very glad that prop 2 has already been passed.  I know that prop 8 in California and prop 102 in Arizona are on the ballots next month.  If you are a Christian and are a resident in either of these states, I would encourage you to do your research and really pray about your vote on November 4th.  Not protecting marriage would have enormous consequences for EVERYONE.  Click here for a clip about what happened to a Massachusetts family when they weren't okay with their kindergartner being taught about homosexual marriage in public school.  Also, my friend Vanessa has a really good post about this and several examples on her blog, click here for that.

As for voting...  Sam and I were able to vote by mail this year, since we aren't able to be there in person, thank you God!  We've already sent our completed ballots back in, so we're really glad we were able to get that all done and on time.  Now I know the usualy urge for people to get out there and vote usually goes along the lines of look at all the countries in the world that don't have that right or some who do, but it could be life or death to even show up at the polls.  This is all true and hopefully, it still stirs something deep inside you and makes you realize what a truly amazing country we live in.  I'm going to go even farther than that, though.  I'm going to speak to my fellow believers in Christ here for a minute.  The fact of the matter is that we are to be stewards of whatever God gives us.  He gave us this planet to care for, the plants, animals and people on it.  It also includes our communities and our nation.  If we are able to have a say, we should speak out.  We have an opportunity to be very involved in how our government operates and it is part of that stewardship to be responsible for our part in that opportunity.  There are many "minority" groups that get their way in our government processes because they yell/lobby loud enough and throw enough money at key people who are open to that.  You know, the old saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  That's been happening for too long without our intervention.  We have the numbers, the money and the opportunity to say, "Enough!"  So much has already been lost because of complacency and compliance.  It doesn't have to be that way!  We can make a humongous difference, but we all have to actually put forth some effort and do it.  So, I'm encouraging you to get up off of your tuckuses on November 4th and prayerfully vote.  There is a website where you can see who is on the ballot from the national level down to the county level for Texas.  I don't know about other states, but if you are a Texas resident and would like a free voters guide, click here.  If anyone knows about other free voters guides for other states, please comment and I will update this post with that info and a link.  We can turn things back around.  There will be opposition, but if we come together in full force and in agreement, the possibilities are endless!

***Added since first posted - So, I went and took a look at my friend Michawn's blog and she pointed me in the direction of this blog here and let me tell you it is WORTH reading!!!  Its lengthy and there are videos to watch, but watch the videos and read the whole thing.  These are two videos in particular that are on this blog that are just amazing, so I'm going to go ahead and add them to this post.  The second one made me cry so hard I nearly threw up.  Just warning you.  Please, go ahead and go read the entire post, though!