by Chris Basten

  What does it mean to be "pro-family?" The terminology reeks of insincerity and dubious distinctions to be sure. When I first came in contact with this phrase, I immediately tried to identify those who wouldn't be pro-family. The only group that came to mind was adolescents who bitterly fight for their autonomy and find their families to be restrictive to their individuality. Other than that, I could not think of anyone else who would so openly detest their relatives.

But if I was to listen to the status quo, I would blindly believe that the demons to family-friendly existence are liberals-each and every one of them. They are anti-God, support abortion rights, disseminate filth and sexual perversity, litter our universities with their professors, and inundate Hollywood with their immorality. Perhaps this is true of some liberals but surely not all of them. In fact, liberals argue amongst themselves about what is appropriate conduct for a society that tries to support families. The blame for much of what ails our nuclear and extended families in America is not as cut-and-dry as we would like to think.

Even a casual consumer of current events should be able to identify the fact that our country has deep-rooted problems with the well-being of families, especially those who are one-parent and of lower incomes. The automatic response to all of these overwhelming problems is to blame society itself. Our schools are unsafe and under-funded. Our youth no longer respect their elders and watch endless hours of MTV and other displays of gratuitous sex and violence. We are hopelessly dependent on our credit cards. We no longer fear God and go to church as we used to and have no sense of right and wrong. We find our lives meaningless and we are tragically self-absorbed. America is the dark cesspool of waste and depravity that Hollywood glamorizes. Nobody cares anymore.

This is a powerful explanation for what afflicts us as a culture. This certainly sounds reasonable as to why America is in so much trouble. However, the answer that is posed is well-intentioned but ill-equipped to bring about long-term solutions. A good number of conservatives venture that we need to get back to honoring God and country. We need to get back to respecting our families, taking care of the poor, and serving our fellow man. But these solutions are nothing more than abstract ideas that look good on paper. They do nothing to change reality. They merely point the finger at those who supposedly are tearing down society and try to fix them with good intentions and puffed-up speeches about morality. These ideals have been around as long as man and have done little to improve the human condition.

So, it is hopeless, then. It doesn't seem to matter no matter how hard we try. The country just keeps getting worse because there are just too many "anti-family" soldiers raping and pillaging our minds, our schools, and our homes. If it weren't for all of these liberal vampires sucking the goodness and morality out of society, we would be at peace and everyone would be taken care of. Indeed, many have come to believe this kind of nonsense.

As long as we have our minds and our pioneering ideas, nothing is hopeless. We will continue to be inundated left and right about who is to blame and who is demoralizing our once great nation. If it isn't the left, with its supposed loose-living, Godless agendas, it is the right, with its supposed "honor to God and country" solutions. In other words, if one isn't working, we'll just vote for the opposite the next time there is an election. U.S. history has shown how well this experiment has fared.

"Pro-family," then, is a term that has dulled our critical-thinking skills. It has made us reactionaries to the times instead of visionaries for the future. True, there are some people who are trying to rearrange society into a family-less structure of aimless individuals who do as they're told and have no regard for the effects of their decisions on themselves or others. While there are a handful of these proponents in America they cannot be easily spotted in our communities. Instead, they are to be found in our Congressional and Presidential chambers. After all, they are the innovators of the patronizing "pro-family" agenda.

The "pro-family" patrol is nothing more than a decoy. It sings the praises of purity, peace, and free choice, but brings about the exact opposite for families. Instead of letting individual families decide whether or not they want to worship God or ignore religion altogether, the "pro-family" cartel forces its agendas into schools because they think children would be immoral without their divine intervention. As a result of these groups using the government to get God into school, there are just as many who plea to the government to get God out of school. As a result, public schools become full of political propaganda to which our children are doomed from the get-go. Instead of learning how to read, balance a checkbook, or how to innovate, they learn how to take sides in debates that have nothing to do with what our tax dollars are supposed to be doing-that is, educating our children to be productive members of society. Instead of educating children to become adults who have choices, we use them as political bait to further our sickening agendas. No wonder public schools are so futile.

Moreover, though the "pro-family" agenda is correct in pushing for parents and private educators, instead of government-funded bureaucrats, to educate their children about sex, they do not honor those families who choose to have their children live as they wish. The "pro-family" movement wants every child to be abstinent until marriage and lies to kids about the effectiveness of condoms so as to scare them from choosing sex outside of marriage. Never mind how immoral and unhealthy this message is, for it is what God wants. So much for honoring freedom of choice. It is much easier to blame the liberals and Hollywood for all of the sexual problems that inundate America without taking a look in the mirror.

In part 2, I will go into greater depth as to why the "pro-family" movement is nothing more than a distraction from how "anti-family" our so-called compassionate conservatives really are. Conservatives undoubtedly have good intentions for the well-being of families but they ignore the dismal results of their brand of government intrusion. What we allow our government to get away with at the expense of our loved ones' lives and well-being is anything but "pro-family."