Our learned friend has been plugging this post by his paramour Keri James because it broadly agrees with his new AFL creature. Now as much as I respect Keri James I could not let this post go unconsidered in the light of Jezza singing its virtues.
Keri James
Families come in all forms. Young married people with children, biological or adopted, same-sex couples, unmarried parents, grandparents or extended families living in a cohesive family unit, separated and divorced couples raising their children separately, re-married couples with children from multiple marriages….
I think you get the drift.
This is a Popeye definition isn’t it? Keri is saying that “families are what families are” with a definition so broad that it loses all meaning. Hmm not such a good start as far as I can see.
If you look at the the organisations out there who claim to speak for families, they’re by-and-large talking about one type of family; man, woman, children. There’s no room for anyone else at the Christian Value Family table. Same-sex and raising a child? Nope, sorry, one of you needs to have the opposing genitals to the other. Don’t ask why. Divorced and parenting co-operatively? Nope, you’re ruining society with your children from broken homes. Unmarried and parenting with no rings in sight? Don’t you realise that a marriage certificate makes you a much better parent? There’s a secret instruction manual handed out on the Big Day!
This is where Keri’s use of logic begins to fail. The organisations she derides make it quite clear that they are advocating for a particular demographic and that they are arguing for a particular model and definition of family. Those organisations put the case that what they define as a family needs advocacy and they work from their own definition so it is just a nonsense for Keri James to complain that they don’t meet her Popeye definition of family or that they don’t sing to her preferred song sheet.
As far as I am concerned, the only people who get to decide what a family unit is (or even what the best family unit for their particular situation) is the family concerned. All very well for the God Squad to preach from the plinth what is best for society (usually based on studies that do not stand up to any kind of scrutiny, or based on “self-evident” truths); the rest of us live in the real world.
The point being so widely missed here is that in a democracy anyone may advocate for anything they please and they are free to put the argument to the people in any manner that they think will be convincing. That is precisely what every different lobby group of any persuasion or for any cause exists for. They have no power to make decisions for the people. If what is advocated displeases anyone there is no reason at all that their arguments have to be heeded but to suggest that they should be silenced as Keri does in this sentence is profoundly undemocratic
The world where more than half of marriages result in divorce, where same-sex parents have been demonstrated by several long-term studies to be as good at parenting as heterosexual parents, where more and more parents are parenting equally, either from the necessity of needing two wages or the realization that Dads are just as able to raise a child as a mother (sans breastfeeding, of course).
According to Divorce Statistics Australia only on third of marriages end in divorce so I don’t know here Keri got the claim that “more than half” of marriages end in divorce and as for the long term studies about gay parenting I suspect that Keri is alluding to this research which is usually cited by Gay advocates but its methodology and very small self selecting sample really makes it rather less suited for drawing general conclusions about gay parenting.
Frankly the claims about “equal parenting” above are absolutely ludicrous, As someone who has spent the better part 0f the last eleven and a half years being the primary care giver for my children I know that it takes team work to raise them (and I dips me lid to single parents who must do it all on their own) but you can’t pretend that who does what in the parenting task within a couple raising their children has anything to do with “equality” Men and women are different and they each bring to the role of parent what they are capable of giving.
Families are awesome. They’re an endless source of support, camaraderie, learning and love. My own family wouldn’t fit into the Australian Family Associations incredibly narrow definition of a family. My parents are re-married, I have five step-siblings, and I’m engaged to a raving lefty, and we firmly intend to share the parenting responsibilities equally when the time comes.
Of course families can be “awesome” but they can also be entirely ordinary or even rather toxic. As for making a family herself I suspect that Keri may actually be leaving her run rather too late in her life. Like far too many women who have focused on their career rather than respecting the biological reality that children are most easily conceived before a woman hits thirty.
Further, we don’t live like we used to. I grew up in a mining town in Wales, and my great-aunt lived three doors down, my other great-aunt lived a street away, a third great-aunt lived a street further up and my aunt was also within walking distance. We wandered in an out of each others houses and some of the closest bonds I have to this day are with my great-aunts and second-cousins. Families lived closer, and the family “unit” was larger, and included a greater diversity of extended relatives. The old adage “It takes a village to raise a child” has never been more true, but the availability and willingness of that village to get involved isn’t there anymore. The inter-generational care and bonds dilute as we live further away from each other, and place more and more responsibility on the primary care-giver of a child (usually the mother) for the upbringing of children. Further narrowing the definition of a family adds to that pressure. We need to step in and step up with each other more. I want my children to have that same bond I have with my aunts and uncles and cousins. It’s sad that we’re losing that as a society.
Call me naive if you like but isn’t this lament for the disappearing extended family somewhat at odds with Keri’s endorsement of a Popeye definition of family that she opened her missive with? As much as I agree that involvement with an extended family sounds nice and lovely it can also be something that stifles diversity and change. Like all things a large and socially active extended family can be a blessing or a curse depending on the nature of the dominant personalities in play within the family dynamic (think of the Morans in Melbourne for a less than sparkling extended family)
The motives for keeping the definition of Family “Pure” are fairly obvious. Take the Australian Family Association as an example. On their “Your state” page for Victoria? Links on how to elect Pro-Life MPs and “Protecting religious freedom in Victoria”. On their main page is a link to their current campaign on preventing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
Gee who would have think it that an organisation would advocate for what it believes in or that it would run its arguments on its own website But Keri is rather gilding the lily here and being a little unscrupulous by not linking to the site she is deriding. Well I googled the Australian Family Association and rather than the site is far from being as rabid as Keri is suggesting. The page for Victoria really only contains the two links that she mentions and one other to an out of date function invitation. The pages f9r the other states are equally sparse. But one thing that the site does have that the AFL site does not have is a page that makes clear just who those responsible for the site are .
All well and good, they’re entitled to lobby for whatever they like, but I don’t see anything, anywhere declaring them to be an organisation based on religious values. It’s not anywhere. The aim? You don’t associate them with any church, or religion, you associate these views (These religiously informed views) with “Family”. I also see nothing encouraging an increase in funding and awareness campaigns for parents of intellectually and physically disabled children, which if you “believe in the sanctity of life from conception to death”, presumably you’d be screaming for. They’re anti-abortion, but not campaigning for increasing adoption services, or increasing funding for disability support services. They’re anti-euthanasia, but there’s nothing about increasing palliative care funding, or aged-care funding. The care they demonstrate ends at the delivery room door and a long way before the grave.
Well in the first instance The Australian Family Association has a series of names on its About/patrons page that contain two people with the title of Reverend :
Rev. Dr. Margaret Court, A.O., M.B.E., Ph.D. (Hon), LL.D. (Hon).
Major General Michael Jeffery, A.C., A.O. (Mil.) C.V.O., M.C. (Retd.).
Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, A.C., D.B.E.
Major General Peter R. Phillips, A.O., M.C (Retd), B.A. (Qld), F.A.I.C.D.
Major General W.B. “Digger” James, A.C., A.O., M.B.E, M.C., M.B.B.S.(Syd), F.R.A.C.S.
Rev. Dr. J.I. Fleming, B.A., Th.L. (Hons), Ph.D.
Sir Peter Lawler, O.B.E.
Dr. T.B. Lynch, A.O., M.B., B.S., F.R.A.C.P.
Dame Mary Scholtens, D.S.G., (Papal).
Judge Frank Walsh, A.M.
Keri seems here to be suggesting that a website (and by extension the organisation who own it) should be all encompassing and containing all of the answers to the questions it raises and I can’t help wondering if she would be as critical of Jeremy’s attempt to create a rival “progressive” lobby group about families.
The Australian Family Association is also hella misogynist. In it campaign to increase funding for mothers to stay home, there’s plenty of mother-blaming in the argument that kids in all-day daycare fare worse than those who don’t. The mother should be staying home to rear the children. The mans job is to be the bread winner. Direct quote from the about page of the Australian Family Association;
“Society should recognise the different biological and psychological functions of the mother and father. It should require the latter normally to maintain the family by virtue of his work, which society should reward with a minimum wage or salary sufficient to maintain a family. The maintenance of the family should be the financial responsibility of the father and not of the State, unless the father proves incapable of fulfilling his obligations. The law should not inhibit the legal or ethical right of the mother to engage in outside employment. Society, through its systems of taxation, family allowances and endowment, and similar provisions, should ensure, however, that no mother is forced to engage in outside employment through economic pressure.”
So the definition of a family narrows further. It’s not just man, woman, children. Your roles are defined by this group as rigid and inflexible, taking into account none of the individuality of your family, your careers, the opportunity to equally parent. It’s not up to you. They know best.
Where is the link to your quote Keri?
Can’t find it?
Try here .
Good blogging etiquette surely demands clear and unambiguous citations that link to their source but perhaps you failed to do so on this occasion because the full page you quote from is not arguing that the Australian Family Association is defining “family” as you suggest as much as it is advocating for a particular definition for marriage having more virtue than any other. As it happens I don’t agree with them about gender roles in a family because my own circumstances (of doing a role swap with my wife) mean that I appreciate that there is more than one way for a family to function well but the important aspect of any family is cooperation and negotiation between husband and wife but beyond that I do think that there is virtue in families consisting of both biological parents of the children that they make being promoted as a superior model to any other.
I believe that the best people to decide how a family functions, how it changes, how it is defined, are the family. That the government should support families in all their forms, and that pushing “Religious Values” in the name of “Family Values” is dishonest and destructive, and we need to take back the word family to ALL it applies to, not just the Righteous, noisy few.\
Keri we are all free to make any sort of domestic arrangements that we think will suit us. The Raison d’etre for the existence of any lobby group is advocating for the values that its members and patrons believe in. In a democracy even the most obscure groups and individuals can freely make the arguments for their ideas just as you or anyone else. But the reality is that the government does broadly support all kinds of families, children of any kind of domestic arrangement are all equally entitled to a free education in the state schools, no individual is denied medical treatment because they have an unorthodox domestic arrangement there is no practical difference between a homosexual or straight couple are treated by Centerlink when it comes to claiming benefits. Surely you are not saying that being righteous is a bad thing? Its funny how the so called progressives are all for diversity and tolerance until it comes to anyone advocating a conservative position on issues such as marriage or family.
Cheers Comrades
) is to ban “the footy ” so that our best and brightest at running jumping and chasing balls can be redirected into other more internationally popular sports and Australia can once again acquire greatness on the fields of foreign lands. Gee and here was me thinking that sport was supposed to be for fun and fitness rather than a proxy battle for international dominance…
