www.Townhall.com
1 July 2005
Family's feud with a fascist future
By Kathleen Parker
If you were a Big Picture sort gazing
at America through a wide-angle lens,
you might begin to wonder: Why the
big rush to fascism?
For a nation that prides itself on
freedom, even seeking to infect other
countries, we're terribly busy undermining
our own.
How? Specifically, by destroying the
family.
Sanctity aside, the traditional family
is the front-line defense of liberty,
the Maginot Line against creeping
totalitarianism. Without the primary,
autonomous unit of mother and father
- whose duty is to protect and nurture
their offspring - government inevitably
intercedes.
Indeed, it is a goal of totalitarian
governments to supplant the family
by undermining parental authority,
which Americans and other Westerners
seem increasingly willing to surrender.
Gluttons for irony, we surrender freedom
in the name of freedom - as in liberty
and equality for all.
Talk about unintended consequences.
This family dissolution has been gradual
and incremental, occurring almost
without our notice. First, we demonized
men and made women into martyrs and
victims. We didn't do this halfheartedly,
but with gusto. We codified the concept
"men bad, women good" with
laws that gave women supremacy over
men:
- child custody awards in divorce;
- acceptance of drive-by, sperm-bank
impregnation and single motherhood;
- and finally, special status in new
laws such as the "Violence Against
Women Act."
Violence against women, though indefensible,
is presumably no more unacceptable
a crime than violence against men.
Nevertheless, we created a special
law just for women - funded by taxpayers
- that institutionalized female victimhood
and cemented the image of man as predator.
Then, we turned child-rearing over
to day-care workers and public institutions
where parental control over the moral
content of their children's lives
has been diluted. From sex education
to diversity training, public educators
increasingly have decided what and
when children should learn, sometimes
without parental approval.
There's nothing wrong with teaching
children about human reproduction,
assuming information is phase-appropriate.
But human reproduction is taught values-free
because there is no secular moral
consensus that fits all families'
cultures.
Nor is there anything wrong with teaching
tolerance for other cultures, except
it is often done at the expense of
covering Western Civ. An odd omission
for a nation trying to export Western
principles. Meanwhile, public education
dumbs itself down for the least common
denominator. One pregnant 11-year-old
in a school means that all 11-year-olds
should know the fine points of sex.
Thus, parents were outraged last month
when sixth-graders in Shrewsbury,
Mass., were asked various questions
about their experiences with oral
sex in a survey designed to help educators
plan health education programs.
Finally, we "advance" toward
the "de-institutionalization"
of marriage, as David Blankenhorn
(president of the Institute of American
Values and author of "Fatherless
America") recently described
the move toward same-sex marriage
(SSM). As SSM becomes the law of the
land in other countries (recently
Spain and, pending expected senate
approval, Canada), and perhaps, inevitably,
here, power is being ineluctably shifted
from the natural family to the state.
In Canada, Blankenhorn says, the idea
of the natural parent has been removed
from marriage law and replaced with
"legal parent." In New Zealand,
a child legally may have three parents.
By the logic of same-sex marriage,
which insists that marriage is a contract
of rights disconnected from sex and
procreation, why shouldn't those three
parents be allowed to marry? A question
being asked by polygamists everywhere.
Viewed simplistically as an equal-rights
issue, it's hard to argue against
same-sex marriage. We want fairness
and equality for all. But viewed historically,
marriage isn't an equal-rights issue,
nor a legal contract of privileges.
The foundational purpose of marriage
always has been a bond of duty cementing
the affiliation of mother and father
to the child.
By separating sex and procreation
from marriage - and granting marriage
"rights" to anyone and everyone
- we are curtailing the rights of
children to their natural parents,
as well as to protection from the
strong arm of the state.
That no family is perfect, that divorce
is also an assault on children, that
the family is otherwise under siege
by irresponsible and self-gratifying
heterosexuals is irrefutable. None
of those facts justifies further erosion
of the original and still-important
purpose of securing parents to their
dependent offspring.
Today's family portrait as a collage
of individual snapshots is not a happy
or promising picture:
- no fathers;
- single - busy and stressed - mothers;
- no-fault divorce and "marriage"
that means everything and therefore
nothing;
- children depressed and dosed in
dumbed-down schools where the least
common denominator dictates curriculum.
In such a state, someone has to take
charge, for better or worse. When
the state takes over, you can bet
on worse.
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