Valuing family

by Claire Miller, DI editorial writer

I usually get my news from CNN, or the New York Times. But occasionally, when I'm feeling like getting my blood pumping, I enjoy checking out the news website of my favorite right-wing, evangelical Christian organization: Focus on the Family. It gives me a sort of guilty, livid thrill.

According to this week's stories on its Citizen Link News archive ("Helping You Defend the Family"), it is "anti-family" that a French airline is raising money to help the United Nations buy condoms for children in Third World countries. Oh, of course! Responsible family planning is obviously very bad for families. And the fact that the Episcopal Church USA is considering three gay bishop candidates in California seems to be harmful to American families as well.

What is up with this "family" word, exactly? I just don't understand why the term "family values" is synonymous with "conservative." I can think of tons of liberal policies that do just as much for families as right-wing ones.

Such as raising the minimum wage, which would allow, perhaps, a single mother to quit her second job, giving her time to put her child to bed each night. How would that do anything but further family values? Or the new, bipartisan movement in Congress to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants. That would certainly help families, who might not have to worry about a parent being deported.

So why does Focus on the Family, a group that so closely clings to contemporary conservative philosophy that it somehow uses the Bible to attack things like environmental laws and multiculturalism, get to claim the domain name family.org? If the Republican Party, and groups such as Focus on the Family, are so concerned about promoting family values, then they should go full circle, and consider all policies that do so, not just ones that adhere to a particular political agenda. Otherwise, it's pretty clear that they're hijacking words like "family" and "values" in order to defend an agenda that really does nothing constructive to protect these things at all.