Down With The Family

While I never would have promoted this idea initially, after much thought about the subject of Family Values, I thought maybe progressive minded activists should be supporting a “Down With The Family” value system or a “Change the Family” agenda as a way to combat the traditional idea of the family within America that has a history of violence, control, oppression and hate. It certainly would catch people’s attention, at least for a moment. Let me elaborate.

The American Family Association (AFA) is a 501(c) (3) organization run by a group of right wing fundamentalist Christians. AFA was founded for people "tired of cursing the darkness and who are ready to light a bonfire" who promote traditional family values, targeting various media outlets that play "a major role in the decline of those values on which our country was founded and which keep a society and its families strong and healthy." Three of the issues they actively work on that are related to Queer Theory are marriage & family life, the homosexual agenda, and pornography.

One of the examples they cite in targeting the media is the normalizing of premarital sex. They say that the normalizing of premarital sex is directly related to a "dramatic increase in teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and abortion as a means of birth control." They don’t address the scientific facts that humans have a genetic pre-disposition to adolescent sexual emotions and that the abstinence only programs do nothing for the people who do chose to have sex before they are married. They also assume that all people want to get married, that all people will want to have children and that no person would have a sexual relationship without the purpose of reproducing- which are all completely preposterous ideas and which directly affect the lgbt community.

Let me preface the following by saying that I realize the following words may be seen as fighting words, but also recognize that I was raised Christian. I do not promote the hatred of anyone, including Christians. I am merely pointing out the contradictions I see within Christianity.

So, how do we define family as Americans? I would argue there is no essential notion of family. It is always changing and dependent on ethnicity, culture and social structure. Let’s look at some traditional Christian family values our country was founded on. In America, the early Christian settlers promoted inequality within marriage- where women weren't seen as equals in the family and were subservient to men, and supported spousal abuse for example the rule of thumb, the term that originally referred to the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife - these ideas were supported by Christian “families”.

Christian “families” supported slavery- they owned and operated plantations, and slave households- if this isn’t true then who was it in America that owned slaves? Muslim families? Hindu? Buddhist? Additionally, Christian “families” were directly involved in the genocide of the indigenous people of America- Christians slaughtered Native Americans in the name of god and in order to claim their land, Christian “families” operated the boarding schools responsible for the assimilation of indigenous people and the destruction of their culture. Within their own families, with slaves and with indigenous peoples they promoted child sexual and physical abuse and child labor.

While much of these values have shifted within American society weren't these among the supposedly "traditional family values", “those values on which our country was founded and which keep a society and its families strong and healthy."? Under these facts of history the AFA then would define the family as supportive of inequality, violence against women, slavery, genocide, physical and sexual abuse and child enslavement. The AFA contradicts itself. While the "family" notions that AFA currently supports promotes Christian values such as the opposition of pre-marital sex and homosexuality-which happen to be consensual issues, at the same time the AFA promotes a family existence where hate becomes the centerpiece, and oppression overrules. By condemning lgbt communities and untraditional families they are instilling a mantra of our lifestyle is the only one that is moral all others are unmoral and should be punished attitudes which I would argue in the current political atmosphere lead to violent-aggressive belief systems that perpetuate various forms of diversity based violence and hate crimes.

The AFA is for the family, so maybe to combat the AFA’s hate propaganda those of us who are pro-diversity, pro-homosexuality, pro-choice, and support a person’s right to choose whom to marry or not marry, or how many children that they have should be anti-"family". There is also the option of helping the AFA redefine the traditional family values that they are trying to preserve to be more inclusive and tolerant of diverse families (that would go over well). It’s just a thought that’s all I am saying. While I personally love my little family-me, my son and my daughter, it is outside the realm of the traditional family because I chose to live a life without a husband in exchange for not being beat up everyday-it’s a choice, unfortunately not everyone has that option.