One pivotal issue stood at the forefront of the budget crisis earlier this month, almost causing the government to be shut down—the federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Amid back-and-forth debates on jobs, health-care reform and taxes, the final sticking point that emerged centered around funding Planned Parenthood and other similar centers.

At the last moment Republicans caved to avoid government shutdown, and Planned Parenthood funding remains in place.

While federal funds cannot legally fund abortions (except in the case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger), many argue that the government should not appropriate any funds at all to an organization that performs over 300,000 abortions a year.

Planned Parenthood also came under scrutiny earlier this year when antiabortionist activist group Live Action secretly filmed videos that showed Planned Parenthood workers offering advice on covering up abortion services for underage sex workers.

But Planned Parenthood abortions are only a drop in the bucket. Since the historic Roe vs. Wade decision, almost 50 million unborn babies have been killed in the United States alone, with an estimated 1.3 million killed each year. Worldwide, the figure jumps to 40-50 million every year.

A particularly chilling example of the evils of abortion surfaced this past January when Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder, seven of which were babies, who were first born alive and then killed by severing their spinal cords.

Such “death camps,” as Jeffrey Kuhner in the Washington Times called them, are “only the tip of the iceberg.” He continued, “The media is deliberately downplaying the story for one simple reason: There are hundreds of similar abortion clinics across the country.”

God prophesied that in these latter days men and women would be “without natural affection” (2 Timothy 3:3). Nowhere is this fulfilled prophecy more obviously evident than in our genocidal culture that makes it incredibly easy to snuff out human life by the millions.

But abortion activists aren’t the only ones working overtime to undermine traditional family values in America—political leaders are too.

At the end of last year, President Obama repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, allowing homosexuals to now openly serve in the military. In addition, he also called into question the Defense of Marriage Act (doma), which defines marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. “[M]y belief was when I first came in, and it continues to be, that by getting ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ done, we sent a clear message about the direction, the trajectory of this country in favor of equality for lgbt [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] persons. The next step I think would be legislatively to look at issues like doma and enda [Employment Non-Discrimination Act],” the president said in an interview last December with the Advocate.

Mr. Obama has also proclaimed the month of June to be “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month,” which he started in 2009 to commemorate the 40-year anniversary of the lgbt rights movement in America.

The White House is hosting celebrations for homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders. And we have a sitting U.S. president who sees it as his duty to loosen the grip some Americans still have on “old attitudes” about homosexuality. As far as the president thinks we still have to go, what would those who warned about family breakdown generations ago think about where we are today?

There is an ever increasing war being waged on the traditional family today. A recent survey funded by the British government released earlier this year showed that the happiest child is one who is living in a stable, two-parent family that communicates regularly, and in which Dad and Mom are married. Yet in Britain, the “traditional family” is penalized the most when it comes to taxes.

In America, states continue to battle over legalizing same-sex marriage, with five states caving to pressure so far. California has become the latest state to introduce legislation that would, if approved, require public schools to include history of lgbt persons in the teaching of history classes.

Meanwhile, the most basic building block of a strong and stable civilization—the traditional family structure—continues to disintegrate.

Herbert W. Armstrong saw this attack on the institution of family decades ago—and accurately predicted where it would lead. The threat, he wrote in 1976, was twofold. First, there is the prophesied breakdown of traditional marriage and family relationships. Added to that, he continued, “there is a widespread and aggressive conspiracy to destroy the institution of marriage” (Plain Truth, July 1976).

As alarmist as that might have seemed in 1976, who can deny the blatant attack that is currently being waged against family from every direction? “This is a war which is being vigorously and fanatically waged,” Mr. Armstrong continued. “Every subtle method is being employed to capture the minds of those of pre-marriage age.”

It all makes for more compelling evidence that we are indeed living in the very last days! Everything about our modern-day dysfunctional society is exactly as the Prophet Isaiah said it would be: completely upside down. Civilization, as Mr. Armstrong wrote in The Missing Dimension in Sex, is on the way down and out—unless the mighty hand of God intervenes to save us from utter destruction.

We can be thankful to God that His supernatural intervention in the affairs of mankind, as prophesied in hundreds of biblical passages, is now just ahead of us. In the not-too-distant future, the world-ruling Family of God will vigorously teach all of mankind the just and holy laws He intended, from the beginning, to govern the sacred institutions of marriage and family—institutions, by the way, that God designed for no other created beings, except man!