The War Against the Family

by Dr. Phil Stringer (Florida)

"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation: Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15-16)

"But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;" (Ephesians 5:3)

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NEW PAGANS' ATTITUDE TOWARD THE HOME

The new pagans take particular offense to the concept of the traditional Christian home.  Redefining the family is a major priority as is destroying the traditional Christian concept of the home.

Homosexual activist Roberta Achtenberg has been a leading spokesperson for the attempt to redefine the family.  (She also was a high-ranking official in the Clinton administration Department of Housing and Urban Development.)  In a 1985 speech she said:

We are building our own tradition of family for which we demand recognition and respect.  We are entitled to love and to protect our partners, to keep the children we have, to have the children we want, to teach and counsel the children of others, and to stand against anyone who tries to take these cherished rights away from us.

When Achtenberg was on the San Francisco Task Force for Family Diversity she suggested this legal definition for the term family:

A unit of interdependent and interacting persons, related together over time by strong and emotional bonds and/or by ties of marriage, birth, and adoption, whose central purpose is to create, maintain, and promote the social, mental, physical, and emotional development and well being of each of its members.

If this definition of "social and emotional" bonds is given the same status as natural birth, or the legal contracts of marriage and adoption, the entire meaning of family changes.  This philosophy is behind the "domestic partner" legislation in San Francisco and other cities.  One simply registers as a "partner" and qualifies for all the benefits (legal and financial) of a traditional marriage relationship.

Activists are serious about using the force of government to redefine the family and society and to overwhelm anyone who objects.

As a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Achtenberg sought to have the Boy Scouts of American expelled from the public schools.  She asked, "Do we want children learning the values of an organization that provides character-building exclusively for straight, God-fearing children?"

Most of the supporters of domestic partnership legislation, however, are not satisfied with legislation like that in San Francisco.  They want to be able to register "multiple domestic partnerships" (three or more people joined together) and they want to remove all age restrictions, allowing "minors" to be listed in the partnerships.

The 1994 Federal Tax Code is another example of the war against the family.  Just as the tax code has had for two decades, there is a "marriage penalty" in the 1994 code.  Couples who "play by the rules" and help to create a sound family base for society are taxed at a higher rate than those who do not marry.

The prevalence of divorce also provides a major attack on the stability of the American family.  Over 40% of all first marriages and over 60% of all second marriages end in divorce.  The social stigma against divorce has been virtually lost and most state laws concerning divorce have been liberalized to the point that divorces are  now usually easy to obtain.

"Open marriages," "contract marriages," "wife swapping," and "living together" have all become part of American culture.  All have weakened the role of the traditional American family in our culture.  As George Santayna observed, "The chief aim of liberalism seems to be to liberate men from their marriage vows."

The "women's liberation" or militant feminist movement is also an attack on the traditional family.  In the name of freedom, women are being set free to function outside the traditional family structure.  More emphasis is being placed on the idea of being a "career woman" than on being a mother.  However, many "modern" women report that even cultural pressure cannot undo the God-given maternal instinct.  After two decades of career preparation many women realize that their "biological clocks" are ticking and opt for "focusing on the family."

For the most part, the women's liberation movement has only set women free from the kind of security (emotional and financial) found in the traditional home.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

The concept of "children's rights" is another attack on the traditional family.  Though the public spokespeople for "children's rights' usually talk about child abuse (physical and sexual) -- an issue that is legitimate -- their agenda involves much more than that.  They want to empower children against the authority and guidance of their parents.  Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote in the Yale Law Review in 1979:

Decisions about motherhood and abortion, schooling, cosmetic surgery, treatment of venereal disease, or employment, and others where the decision or lack of one will significantly affect the child's future should not be made unilaterally by parents.  Children should have a right to be permitted to decide their own future if they are competent.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF CHILDREN

There is a difference between saying that parents have responsibilities (seeing that their children are secure from physical and sexual abuse) and saying that children have rights.  Liberals want the government to have the final say over children and see biological parents as only "caretakers" for government-owned children.

The assertion of government control over education is another attack on the authority of the home.  This was the first (and most widely successful) transfer of parental power over to the government.  As more and more parents are reclaiming control over the education of their children (private schools and home schools), a growing open tension exists between government agencies and parents.  As Thomas Sowell so well puts it, the question is "Whose children are these?"  Too often, the state is willing to claim the children as its own.

The assertion of welfare agency control and authority over families has become another source of attack on the family.  What began as the idea of the government stepping in in emergency cases (neglect, abuse, etc.) has often become an assertion of control.  Local governments (or even individual welfare agents and case workers) have been known to classify Biblical discipline as child abuse or to label basic Christian teaching as "mental abuse."  Christians can expect many legal battles over these issues.

The glorification of single life and even single parenthood is also an attack on the traditional family.  The Dan Quayle/"Murphy Brown"/family values debate is an illustration of the controversy.  Situation comedies (sit-coms) that once illustrated traditional values are now used to promote anti-traditional family ideas.  Even unmarried teen mothers are sometimes told by social workers that single motherhood is no problem and that it is better than adoption.

Adoption laws have been changed to make adoptions harder and to limit the rights and security of adoptive parents.  This happens because so many government agencies are pro-abortion instead of being pro-adoption.  Only recently has there been any government support of adoptive parents.

Massive government pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality campaigns are, of course, attacks on the traditional family.  Exalting choice above responsibility is the opposite of the attitude that builds strong families.

George Gilder summed up the importance of this attack on the family in his book Sexual Suicide:

Marriage attaches males to families, the source of community, individuality, and order in a free society.  As we are increasingly discovering in our schools, prisons, mental hospitals, and psychiatric offices, the family is the only agency that can be depended upon to induce truly profound and enduring changes in its members.  The family is the only institution that works on the deeper interior formations of human character and commitment.  Thus it is the only uncoercive way to transform individuals, look in social time and space ... into voluntary participants in the nurture of society.

God's way works best.  It always has and always will!

Dr. Phil Stringer is Executive Vice President at Landmark Baptist College, Haines City, Florida.