It's much, much worse.
Today I've been sidelined from house renovating work which has sucked away much of my blogging time last week by a small bug bite which turned into a large infection which in turn may have spread to my joint. So hello, Couch.
On my first spin through the Yahoo news aggregator, I ran across this AP article on conservative "Christians" urging the masses to take a better look at the "real" problem with marriage today, most of which has little to do with gays seeking the benefits of matrimony.
Referenced in the article was one Bryce Christiansen, a Southern Utah University English professor who writes frequently about conservative family issues. Sending out the Googling monkeys to gather more info on Christiansen, I ran across the Howard Center website, a purported "pro-family" organization which puts out the monthly "publication", "The Family in America." Christiansen's latest article, "Why Homosexuals Want What Marriage Has Now Become," essentially boils down to this:
Once defined by religious doctrine, moral tradition, and home-centered commitments to child rearing and gender complementarity in productive labor, marriage has become a deracinated and highly individualistic and egalitarian institution, no longer implying commitment to home, to Church, to childbearing, to traditional gender duties, or even (permanently) to spouse. Gone is the productive husband-wife bond defined by mutual sacrifice and cooperative labor, replaced by dual-careerist vistas of self-fulfillment and consumer satisfaction. That homosexuals now want the strange new thing marriage has become should surprise no one: contemporary marriage, after all, certifies a certain legitimacy in the mainstream of American culture and delivers tax, insurance, life-style, and governmental benefits—all without imposing any of the obligations of traditional marriage (which homosexuals decidedly do not want). Thus, while the attempt to deny homosexuals the right to marry is understandable and even morally and legally justified, such an attempt is probably foredoomed if it does not lead to a broader effort to restore moral and religious integrity to marriage as a heterosexual institution.
Christiansen, and most of the other contributors to TFIA are only marginally concerned about same sex marriage; their real goal is rolling back the last 40 years of the Women's Right movement, ending no-fault divorce, and defunding international family planning. (All of it, not just anything abortion related, but preventative population control as well.) They also believe that generous pension benefits, Social Security and daycare facilities have led to the breakdown of the intergenerational family, as seniors are no longer dependent on the goodwill of their grown children, and can't be exploited as child caregivers.
I never understood why poor and middle-class Fundies supported the massive tax cuts of the Reagan and Bush years, particularly those which overtly favor the very wealthy. But another TFIA contributor and Howard Center BoD member, David Hartman, argues that the only way to reverse Europe's declining birth rate is by eradicating the welfare state. His eight point plan for a Stronger, more Populous Europe (and America, as well) includes:
Restoring primacy to marriage and family by repudiating policies that make the welfare state the surrogate parent of the child and the surrogate husband of the woman.Restoring religion to a respected place in society, so allowing it once again to reinforce a family-centered morality, particularly in the education of children.
Encouraging women to devote themselves to child rearing rather than employment, and helping men to accept the challenge of providing for their wives and children.
Relentlessly cutting the welfare state, so reducing the tax burden it imposes on families and so ending the government intrusion into domestic matters that families can and should handle by themselves.
Replacing the old-age pension and health-care programs of the welfare state with individual and family savings accounts owned and managed by individual families for their own benefit.
Ending welfare-state programs that give benefits to unwed mothers and improvident retirees by taxing young families.
Reversing policies that sustain present prosperity by saddling future generations with the responsibility for deficits in trade and in government budgets.
Ending in both social and tax law the discrimination that denies to married couples the rights of any other partnership and excuses them from the obligations.
I highly recommend Progressives spend some time in the archives of the Howard Center and similar conservative "pro-family" websites. We tend to think that the "values war" is simply gay marriage, abortion and school prayer. Truth is, we could completely capitulate on all of these, and it would merely be a drop in the bucket.
Posted by MB Williams at November 22, 2004 07:17 PM | TrackBackWow. That is prety scary. The good news is that the agenda you document, if undestood, would be wildly unpopular even in red states like Georgia.
DM and MB, Focus on the Family et al. speak regularly about being against any 'marriage counterfeits' and lowered standards of morality. You're right to say that it's scary, but I think many conservatives (in even bluish-purplish states like Michigan) understand this and support that agenda.
Posted by: Peatey at November 23, 2004 03:04 PM1) Religious leaders will now be surrogate parents to everyone.
2) Sounds like an al Qaeda policy endorsing terrorist-in-training madrassas for the children.
3) Yep, definitely al Qaeda.
4) Every man, woman and child on their own. And if any intruding is to be done, the religious leaders will do it...through the government and their morality police goons, of course.
5) Every old man or old woman on their own. And if the economy tanks or you get taken by an investment shark, then it must be God's will you are pushing that shopping cart down that alleyway scrounging in that trash bin. Oh, is that your child beside you?
6) Oh, that's right, Jesus Christ didn't say pray for the less fortunate, he really meant to say "prey on the less fortunate." And, that unwed mother? She's the young one who was knocked up by our exalted religious leader after choir practice. Shame on her...the floozy.
7) Finally, a policy that castigates the Bush economic policy of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, while passing on this crime to homeless old people, children begging on street corners and widowed women in the future.
8) I see. Idol worship takes many different forms in this world. The Howard Center proposes that we worship the idol of God-fearing "married couples" from now on.
Well, so much for the "Golden Rule" being practiced in our democracy ever again. The message of Jesus Christ has been replaced with the Howard Center's "Golden BULL."
Posted by: PaulTEXAS at November 25, 2004 03:56 AMThanks for bringing this to your readers' attention, and for sharing your other insights.
The real question this raises, though, is if the obvious things like so-called gay marriage and partial birth abortions can be used as wedge issues, might this deeper agenda of the right be practical down the road?
Posted by: Rowan at November 25, 2004 11:00 AM"Restoring religion to a respected place in society"
FSVO 'religion' meaning: evangelical Christianity.
Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., need not apply.
Posted by: vaara at November 25, 2004 01:13 PMI assume they are proceeding with destroying the public school system so the improvident retirees won't be paying for schools for those young families.
Posted by: aw at November 26, 2004 01:03 AMBack in the early eighties, Nancy Reagan gave an interview to, I think it was Ladies Home Journal, where she said "I look around and see everyone who is for abortion and birth control has already been born." This crowd has been opposed to contraception, not just abortion, from the start, and they weren't always shy about saying so.
Posted by: KC at November 26, 2004 11:28 AM