I’ve got a couple of things to say about freedom and about family, and those who want you to believe they hold a moral high horse on two things ruled by the choices and morals of the individual.
First, America has never had a single morality, religion, or system. Since Europeans stormed the banks of this land, the societies that existed and operated on collective morality and communal care, were removed. The very act of colonialism destroyed any idea that America was a thing of such singular action or thought. The hubris of taking someone’s land, murdering their people, then setting up systems that routinely cost the life of those whose land was stolen, and those who were stolen from their land to build this nation — and then asking those very people to accept and live by a set of rules that are never followed by the asker— is amazing. The distortion in Republican thinking is peak cognitive dissonance. The party of "Christianity."
The history of white Christianity is a bloody one. The amount of blood spilled in the name of Christ is astronomical. Probably more so than any other religion. This morality is artifice, a performance, because (en masse) the practice of Christianity has not been one for salvation, it has been the practice of superiority and a desire to claim superiority.
For weeks now, we’ve seen clips of JD Vance dogging childless women and anyone who hasn’t brought a child directly into the world. In the same span of time we learned that former KY Governor Matt Bevin abandoned one of his adopted Black children in Haiti. This is the pro-life, pro-family party. They are on the same side.
One, Vane, condemns our nation because, as he claims, it is being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs, and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
But his party has a troubled history with family, and the other, Bevin, highlights this in big gross detail.
First, family-making is a choice. You have kids if you desire. You have pets if that’s more your speed. It’s the beauty of freedom. You’re free to decide.
However, should you decide that family is a thing you want to have, abandoning that family when it gets tough for you is reprehensible, and highlights a need for children, particularly in cross-cultural adoptions, to have access to a community like their own. It gives the parents support and the child support and the cultural reference points they need to understand themselves better.
Bevin’s abandonment of “Noah,” puts this into glaring perspective. Bevin should have built this child a network while he was having his powerpoint presentations for Kentucky and crying about the mean ladies who tweeted about him.
While it is unknown why Bevin or his ex-wife left the child in an abusive boarding school, it is clear that they were ill-equipped in their family-making to offer a healthy home to this child. It certainly makes their decision making ability come under question. What risks do they pose to their other adopted children?
Now, I’m not passing that judgment but it does give pause.
It’s here that we zoom in on the idea of freedom and choice. Bevin, Vance and their fellow Republicans want you to believe that family is a duty and that the only choice is the one that fits the imaginary family structure that serves to churn out workers for the next generation. However, Republicans frame this duty as somehow linked to good Christianity.
Basically, Republicans are in a full panic about having more children because having children means having more workers and consumers, and that, in turn, keeps capitalism fed and happy.
The tricky thing about freedom is that it works in a couple of ways. It isn’t just a slogan. It means that if you want to have freedom, you need to be able to handle it responsibly. Freedom doesn’t exist without responsibility. That’s recklessness.
To continue calling ourselves free, we need to see that our duty to children is to love them through their struggles and not to leave them abandoned. We need to see our duty to each other to both mind our own business and be of service if we can. Both can exist at the same time. Our freedom cannot come at the expense of the rights of others to live as they wish.
To raise a cross over the idea of family is to imagine that somehow your idea of family is superior to the myriad of ways that humans have and do make family.
Whether these values line up with your own is none of your concern. As Minnesota Governor and prospective VP Tim Walz has been saying on the campaign trail with VP Kamala Harris, “Mind your own damn business.”
Bevin should have minded his and that of this abandoned child. Vance should and Trump should.
None of these people hold any moral high ground and it’s time to squash these arguments about good or bad “family” values because fiction is best on the bookshelf for reading but not as policy for human lives.
