[Vision2020] adventures in pro-family politics

[keely emerinemix]

Visionaires,

Dale Courtney's blog has an interesting item on the Family Research 
Council's pronouncement that illegal immigration is now 
Number-4-with-a-Bullet on the official list of "pro-family" concerns, right 
after abortion, judicial activisim, and "defense of marriage."

Now I should confess to some bias here:  the FRC is an arm of Focus on the 
Family, whose publications are not allowed in our household, and generally 
is an example of "evangelicals missing the point entirely." Therefore, I'm 
inclined to disregard pretty much everything they say.  Gary Bauer, former 
FRC head, doesn't speak for me, and neither does the current gang.  Further, 
I'm disinclined to embrace the Idaho Values Alliance, and it seems 
extraordinarily unlikely that Dale and I will ever agree on much of anything 
political.

Still, it's hard not to comment.  First of all, I would give my right arm to 
see an evangelical "pro-family" group devote itself to battling domestic 
violence, rape, child abuse, and subjugation of women, which are real 
threats to families but would lead to the inescapable conclusion that many 
"Christian" homes are dangerous for women and children.  Not much likelihood 
of successful fundraising there, I guess, what with the unseemly behavior of 
many evangelical patriarchialists.

Second, immigrant communities, while not inherently Utopian, generally prove 
to have lower rates of divorce, higher rates of multi-generational families, 
greater quality care for children and elderly relatives, and are typically 
much more family-oriented in leisure time pursuits than are other families.  
I can affirm anecdotally that by virtually any measure of "pro-family" 
activity, the immigrant community in which I worked exceeded that of my 
current neighbors, my former Anglo neighbors, and my own extended family, 
which has managed to do a lot to pollute the ideal of family in and around 
North Little Rock, Arkansas, for at least three generations.

All in all, it's enough to make me wonder if "pro-family" has now become so 
utterly devoid of meaning as to become as useful in describing political 
movements as "well-reasoned and profound" is in describing certain blogs.

keely

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