The Family Values Game

The last two presidential elections in this country certainly foretold troubling times in America. The Republicans definitely trumpeted their victories, but their claim to a so-called “mandate” by such a narrow margin of victory was, if unsurprising, rather reckless - especially in war-time. They are bad winners when victorious, but no less than when they lose. They acted as if they had a popular mandate four years ago, even though Bush actually lost the popular vote in that election. Today they proceed, with smugness, as if they are free to ignore the 49 percent of the citizens that voted Democratic (and which, presumably, lack “values”). Conservatives typically condemn this country as a valueless nation of individual choice with its promiscuity, homosexuality, crass entertainment, serial divorce, abortion, and licentiousness of every kind - and the dumping of its costs on the good people who lead straight lives. But at the heart of what they condemn and call immoral is a nation of their own corporatist making.

Families come first. If this value is to have any real meaning, then it is imperative that Conservatives make it possible for women to be both nurturing and receive economic consideration for the time and labor they spend on homemaking and caregiving, otherwise women’s economic opportunities, their ability to participate in the “Ownership Society,” their chances of advancement at any work they may do outside the home, and their chances of holding positions of authority in business, academia, and government are unequal and inferior to that of men. Why should women have to choose either family or career when most men don’t have to make that choice? How are women to enter all fields and advance in their work on the same terms as men while holding primary responsibility for families, while most men do not? A woman’s ability to make families their first priority needs to be protected, but at the same time, there should not be a socio-economic penalty for doing so, otherwise a woman’s ability to fend for herself in the event she is widowed or during her old age is jeopardized (seniority, in this case, counts for nothing in terms of the homemaker). How do the Conservatives intend to protect against the unfairness and unequal opportunities for women who do make families their first priority? This is what “family values” really means. As far as I can tell, they have no plan for that.

If there is truly a concern for family values, then there must also be a concern for the care of elders, the survival of children, income security, health care, pension and benefits, job security, affordable prescription drugs, the environment, a wholesome and affordable food supply, education, worker and consumer safety, housing, job training, equal opportunity, transportation, supplemental childcare, support for the Arts, respect for cultural diversity, and so on. These are the concerns of families, not just women, although typically policies related to family values are mostly connected to women and are not seen as needing to be taken seriously, or they are seen as low priority.

Conservatives champion marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society. Liberals, too, value marriage and family for those reasons. Why then do Conservatives attempt to protect marriage by denying marriage to a whole segment of our society that they do not agree with? By denying gay and lesbians the civil rights to marriage, society encourages promiscuity, divisiveness, and violence against a whole group of people, and discourages the formation of stable unions.

More and more, it seems to me as if government plays with our lives as if it’s a board game, and we are the unsuspecting, and often powerless, pawns.