How Focus on the Family is Losing Their War Against Familes

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

For more than three decades, James Dobson and others like him have been touting the same message. Only nuclear families are legitimate and any other family structure is detrimental to children. As we see in the video, they cherry pick or distort legitimate studies to try to prove their point.

But as suggested, gay and lesbian parents have to work harder to have a family, so there are no "accidents". They are not as a rule "teen" parents and when they apply for adoption, as with any other applicants, must prove that they can provide a stable and loving home.

In his book the Rights Revolution, Michael Ignatieff discusses family issues:

What conservatives see as the collapse of the family, liberals view as its mutation into new forms. Nowadays, there are many types of good parents and many types of good families: nuclear, extended, single-parent, same-sex. The fact that there are many types of families does not mean that there are no longer any fixed standards about what a good family is. The test of goodness is loose but evident: it's a community where each member receives and displays lifelong moral concern for the well-being of everyone else .... an enduring moral commitment.

A child needs to feel that her development matters intensely to another person, and that this person will stay the course with her to ensure that she develops as best she can. What a liberal insists upon is the idea that it is possible to reconcile a commitment to absolute standards of care and responsibility in family life with a faith that these standards can be met by a wide variety of persons and a wide variety of possible family forms.

So-called family values, as propagated in the rhetoric of North American popular entertainment, pulpit sermonizing, and political homily, are a downright tyranny. They make people feel inadequate, ashamed, or guilty about their inability to conform to what is in fact a recent, post-war suburban norm of family domesticity. (1)

That's what defines a family, not it's structural makeup. By hammering the idea that a child can only develop properly with a married mother and father, risks making some children feel inadequate, not in the home but within society. Because what children of "family values" parents hear at home they will repeat on the schoolyard or playground.

Most Christians, whether on the left or the right, will agree that children are a gift from God, so why can't they accept that maybe he (or she) just chooses a variety of gift wrapping?

The results of a study on children raised by lesbian couples finds the opposite to what Dobson preaches:

A study that has been following children raised by lesbian parents for the past 24 years has concluded that not only are the children healthy, they’re generally smarter, nicer and better behaved than those raised by male-female couples.

The results of the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study were published today in Pediatrics magazine and found that “daughters and sons of lesbian mothers, all conceived through donor insemination, were rated higher than their peers in social, academic and overall competence, and lower in aggressive behaviour, rule-breaking and social problems, on standardised assessments of psychological adjustment”. While there have been many studies about the children of gay and lesbian parents, this is the first one to follow children from conception through adolescence. (2)

This doesn't mean that we should aspire to having all children be raised by two moms, only that it's OK for children to be raised by two moms, or two dads, or one mom or one dad, or any other combination. And to do that we need to redefine "family values".

We need family values all right, but the ones we actually need must be pluralistic. We need to understand that the essential moral needs of any child can be met by family arrangements that run the gamut from arranged marriages right through to same-sex parenting. Nature and natural instinct are poor guides in these matters. If good parenting were a matter of instinct, families wouldn't be the destructive institutions they so often are. It is frequently the case that perfect strangers turn out to be better parents or step-parents than natural ones.

... The point is not to invalidate one type of parent. Instead, it is to insist that ideology will not help us here: if we insist that one category or type of parent will always do a better job than any other, we are certain to be wrong. Same-sex parents have taught us that there is no necessary relationship between heterosexuality and good parenting. The question to be asked in every case is not what kind of sexual creatures these parents are, or even what kind of biological or other relationship they have to these children, but what kind of parents they are. The test of goodness here is the capacity for sustained moral concern and to be willing to make reasonable sacrifices for the sake of children's interests. (1)

Religion is being used and abused for financial and political gain. As such it has narrowed discourse to single issues, like abortion and same-sex marriage, instead of looking at the broader picture, and examining faith from a variety of concerns. E.J. Dionne, in his book Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right, states:

... reducing religion to politics or to a narrow set of public issues amounts to a great sellout of our traditions. It is common to speak of religion as "selling out" to secularism, or to modernity, or to a fashionable relativism. But there is a more immediate danger .. of religion selling out to political forces that use the votes of religious people for purposes having nothing to do with a religious agenda—and, often enough, for causes that may contradict the values such voters prize most. It is a great sellout of religion to insist that it has much to teach us about abortion or gay marriage but little useful to say about social justice, war and peace, the organization of our work lives, or our approach to providing for the old, the sick, and the desperate.

Religion becomes less relevant to public life when its role is marginalized to a predetermined list of "values issues," when its voice is silenced or softened on
the central problems facing our country and our government. (3)

The neoconservative movement that has tapped into religion, has been able to deflect attention away from the things we should be focusing on, including those mentioned above, but also on health care, education, poverty, homelessness, etc. This has worked to their advantage because those are all the things they really want to avoid having to deal with.

The religious right, left and everything in between, need to start working together on the things that really matter, and not allow the politicians who choose to exploit, or those in the lucrative "business" of selling faith, to set the agenda.

Sources:

1. The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, By Michael Ignatieff, Anansi Books, 2000, ISBN: 978=0-88784-762-2, Pg. 102-103

2. The Secret To Having The Perfect Child: Be A Lesbian, By Brian Moylan, The Defamer, June 8, 2010

3. Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right, By E.J. Dionne, Jr., Princeton University Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-691--13458--1. Pg. 3

Stephen Harper's Homophobia Runs Long and Deep

"Same sex marriage is not a human right. ... undermining the traditional definition of marriage is an assault on multiculturalism and the practices in those communities." (Stephen Harper, Hansard, February 16, 2005)

Isn't it interesting that Stephen Harper made this about an assault on multiculturalism? I don't know what I find more offensive. The fact that he believes that equal marriage is not a human right, or that anyone with an ethnic background lacks tolerance.

One of the principles of neoconservatism demands that you find a wedge issue, add a bit of fear mongering and a healthy dose of religious fervour, and then beat it for all it's worth.

In 2005, Stephen Harper found his wedge issue in the debate on same-sex marriage and the passing of Bill C-38. And he had a lot of help.

Exploiting the Issue to Capture the Ethnic Vote

To the Reform Party under Preston Manning and Stephen Harper, the image of Canadians was extremely compartmentalized. Everyone fit into their own little box. Ethnics, Gays, Women, Jews, etc.

So when determining policy, they would pull out a box and frame that policy based on their stereotypical views of the people inside. Since they could already count on the undying support of the Christian fundamentalists, they had to take their message to one of the boxes.

A survey at the time had shown that 6% of Liberal supporters would leave the party over this issue, and despite the fact that there was no racial breakdown in the poll, Harper assumed that most non-whites would rally behind his party if it continued it's strong stand against homosexuality. He had been looking for an issue that would gain popularity with a voting sector that had up until then, been out of his grasp, and believed he'd found one.

I guess having a member of your party suggest that business owners should be allowed to demand that gays and ethnics move to the back of the store, if it meant that they could lose business; did not sit well with everyone.

According to an article in the Globe and Mail at the time:

Party officials concluded that the six-percentage-point drop for the Liberals was probably made up of small-c ethnic supporters, and decided at that point to begin running controversial newspaper ads opposing gay marriage. "We're the only ones who win under that calculation," said one Conservative member of Parliament, who asked not to be identified by name.

Struggling for years to find a way to crack into the immigrant voting marketplace, Mr. Harper and the party now believe they see a ready-made opportunity. Aside from the advertisements, which ask readers "Where do you draw the line?" the party leader began actively making his case at multicultural events, like at a Sikh meeting in Toronto a week ago. According to a senior party organizer, Conservatives believe they have potentially tapped into a well-spring of insecurity among ethnic groups, some of whose members feel the Liberal bill will force their
clergy to perform same-sex marriage.

(However, not all were amused)

Mr. Harper drew criticism not only from within his own party, but from some of the very people he had hoped to attract. "Mr. Harper is ignorant about immigration issues, and his statement reflects that ignorance," said Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a grassroots group with a membership in the hundreds. "What he's saying is that people can only be gay if they're white Anglo-Saxons." (1)

And as suggested in the Globe, it did draw criticism from within his own party. In fact, CBC's the Current ran a segment:

The leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, has emphatically promised to preserve marriage as the right of heterosexual couples only. The party recently launched a series of anti-gay marriage ads aimed specifically at ethnic and urban voters. As a result, Harper now faces opposition from his own caucus about the ads and about the party's stance on same-sex unions.

The American Religious Right to the Rescue

During the 2005/2006 election campaign, same-sex marriage became the hot button issue for the Religious Right and ultimately the new Conservative party; as they tapped into the vast resources of the Religious Right.

American James Dobson, former head of 'Focus on Family' and one of the founding members of the Council for National Policy, added to Harper's success. CNP had already approved him for membership in 1999, and in 2000 threw their support behind George W. Bush. These guys don't fool around.

"OTTAWA – January 27, 2005 - On the heels of a US right-wing fundamentalist campaign devised to drive a wedge between Canadians, Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM) are calling on Stephen Harper to publicly disassociate himself from the American effort.

The campaign, spearheaded by James Dobson, a well-known American evangelical leader with close ties to George W. Bush, is being broadcast on more than 130 Canadian radio stations. It urges Canadians to oppose same-sex marriage.“We already know where Mr. Harper stands on this issue, preferring ‘selective rights’ to enshrining this very fundamental right for all Canadians. Curiously, Mr. Dobson’s ads echo the same sentiments. " (2)

But instead of backing down, Harper himself went on Drew Marshall's Christian radio program, where he denounced the advocacy groups and assured Marshall that his governemnt would overturn Bill C-38.

And he even took it a little further when discussing the issue of homosexuality. He purposely mentioned his father's switch from the United Church to the Presbyterians, noting that Marshall’s evangelical audience would get his drift. What he was referring to was the 1988 decision by the United Church General Council to approve the ordination of homosexuals.

This confirmed concerns during the 2004 election campaign, as noted by a group of gay Christians:

Conservative leader Stephen Harper has dismissed sexual orientation as a "behaviour" and said he does not even recognize us as groups protected by the Charter. The Conservatives will not only override the Charter, they will appoint judges that ensure they'll never even have to. His candidates have described sexual orientation as "deviant", "unnatural", "repulsive" and as encompassing paedophilia. In two weeks, Stephen Harper could be Prime Minister of Canada. (3)

However, long before any of this took place. Stephen Harper's views on homosexuality were well known. He was a founding member of the Northern Foundation, a group that became the vanguard for the far right in Canada. They were concerned that Canada was losing it's Anglo, Judeau-Christian heritage, so were determined to put an end to homosexuality and abortion, two direct threats on the white race.

Their publication, the Northern Voice was always filled with visceral attacks on gays, and the Reform Party ran ads in their newsletters and periodicals.

In an attempt to appeal to moderate Canadians, he has toned down his rhetoric in public, but this party is still very opposed to gay rights. But in a sppech to the Civitas Society in 2003: Harper said his goal is a future ruled by socially conservative values and small government. Movement toward this goal must be “incremental”... he said.(4)

Sources:

1. Harper uses same-sex to tap into ethnic vote: By: Brian Laghi, Anthony Reinhart and Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, February 12, 2005

2. EQUAL MARRIAGE GROUP CALLS ON HARPER TO PUBLICLY ‘DRAW THE LINE’, Canadians For Equal Marriage, January 27, 2005

3. With a federal election fast approaching, this is a crucial time for LGBT equality in Canada! Christian Gays June 18, 2004

4. Harperstein, By: By Donald Gutstein, June 6, 2006