Family values DEVALUED
Why conservative economic agenda works against working families
Kelson Bonhet
Staff Writer
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Rick Santorum is not a man I agree with often, and his latest book entitled, "It Takes a Family," has done little towards changing that. In the book, the Senate's third ranking Republican rails against homosexuality, the presence of women in the workplace, and the "notion" that a college education benefits the uneducated. It would be difficult to find a more concise collection of skewed morality, and in fact, the content of the book proved to be so dubious that the Philadelphia Enquirer labeled Santorum as, "One of the finest minds of the Thirteenth Century".
Yet amid the darkness of his rampant misogyny and elitism, Santorum does manage to light one beacon of truth in "It Takes a Family," and that is the fact that it indeed does "take a family". Despite changing times, families are still the central fixture of domestic America, and the family unit has remained an important part of our societal and cultural fabric.
Conservatives have succeeded at something that we progressives have not, and that has been to emphasize the importance of the family in their policy rhetoric. But acknowledging families and aiding them are two different things, and that is where America's progressive movement can gain the upper hand in the battle for the votes and hearts of middle America. We have heard the term "family values" thrown around a great deal, and until now, we have sat idly and let the actual meaning of phrase be monopolized and horribly misrepresented by the Right. Our strategic responsibility for 2006 will rest upon exposing the failures the Republican government, but if liberals and progressives have an ideological responsibility for the 2006 elections, it is that we have to stop the spin and recapture the high ground in the family values debate.
What is most important to emphasize is that the moral climate our families exist in remains secondary to fact that families are able to exist in the first place. The essence of progressive policy is about making it more and more economically viable for families to stay together, and that is something infinitely more important than providing a moral compass for the American family.
Simply put, the time to further real family values is now. The minimum wage is at one of its lowest real values in American history, and because of that, over thirteen percent of our nation is currently living under the poverty line. Forty-six million Americans are being forced to make wrenching decisions between their physical health and their family's economic survival, all because of the fact that they lack health insurance. Mothers and fathers are watching their jobs bleed away through outsourcing loopholes, and are now facing the harsh reality of having to provide for their families on meager unemployment and welfare benefits. Every child is being left behind as our public education system continues to spiral downwards.
If America's understanding of family values is ever going to be corrected, we have to proclaim the truth of the situation: fighting tooth and nail against things like gay marriage and abortion does nothing to raise the minimum wage, provide health insurance for all Americans, protect our disadvantaged citizens, our secure a future for our children.
Santorum and the Republicans have been correct in that it is indeed "all about the family," but the discrepancy between their focus and their actions has been borderline sickening and outright criminal. The debate over such social issues is certainly one worth having, but the Right's recent perversion of morality has yet to put food on the tables of American families, or provide economic protection for those families that need it most. Practicing real family values starts with valuing the American family, and emphasizing that inalienable truth is an obligation that we as progressives owe both to ourselves and to the multitude of families that make America the great nation it is.