The American Family Association: a wholesome-sounding, seemingly positive title for a non-profit, right?
Not until you read their mission statement::
"The American Family Association represents and stands for traditional family values, focusing primarily on the influence of television and other media – including pornography – on our society.
AFA believes that the entertainment industry, through its various products, has played a major role in the decline of those values on which our country was founded and which keep a society and its families strong and healthy. For example, over the last 25 years we have seen the entertainment industry 'normalize' and glorify premarital sex. During that time we have suffered a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and abortion as a means of birth control."
Sarah Palin's "family values" platform of hypocrisy, which are right in line with the AFA's views, has prompted me to think about my own family values, and those of other Democrat families.
Many Democrat families are open-minded, participate in spirited dinner table discussions and debates, encourage one another to learn as much as they can about the issues they care about, and promote a broad, respectful worldview. Many of these families celebrate their faith, be it Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or a very basic sense of spirituality. Many of these families have frank discussions about sexuality, or at the very least sexual health and safe sex practices.
Someone please tell me, why do the Republicans get to be the party of "family values?"
Is it because they believe they are sheltering their children from sin? Discourage premarital sex, birth control, abortion, and homosexuality? Are those "values" more important than encouraging compassion, realism, and acceptance?
Most Democrat families don't think so. So I ask you Kossacks, how much did your family values influence your own politics? Did you have conservative parents who frightened you away from the Republican fold? Were your parents former hippies who were more liberal than you are? What about your grandparents? Siblings?
On my dad's side, the entire family was raised Catholic. His parents took Catholicism seriously; but they also took being Democrats seriously. My father has said that the only time he ever saw his own father cry was the day Kennedy was assassinated. Today, all but one of my father's many siblings are still devout Democrats, and few still actively practice Catholicism (my dad no longer practices). The one of my father's siblings who ISN'T a Democrat is as far right as they come. Not sure how that happened, but I am sure that relative will be the only person who is related to me who will vote for Sarah Palin (I'd say McCain, but I'm pretty sure Palin will be what sealed the deal for him).
My mom's dad, who I mentioned in a diary yesterday, is a Mexican immigrant. He worked numerous manufacturing jobs after coming here and eventually became a teacher. He is supportive of unions and education. Above all else, he values hard work and compassion, which make for a really admirable combination. When I worked for the Kerry campaign in 2004, he told every person he knew that his granddaughter was working to change the world. Needless to say, my mother's family is also die-hard Democratic.
My brother and I were brought up volunteering in homeless shelters and at AIDS clinics. Our first experience with either homosexuality or AIDS was when a good friend of my parents, a talented NYC artist, died. When my brother and I wanted to know why (I was about 13), my parents explained that he had died of AIDS. Shortly thereafter, my mom told me that he had also been gay. And when my parents told us what AIDS and HIV were, they made very clear that there were ways to avoid ever contracting it ourselves. It was never said outright, but I always believed that my parents were more concerned with my not contracting fatal STDs than becoming pregnant out of wedlock. And equally as importantly as being aware of how to protect myself from either situation, my parents taught my brother and I never to judge people who did find themselves in crisis. Instead, we learned how to help where we could, through donations and volunteering, and treat everyone the same. Those are values I know were passed down to my parents from their own families, and they are values I intend to pass down to my own children.
Adversely, the "Pro-Family" AFA feels that "family values" include the following, taken from the organization's own website:
Capitol Hill Alert: Your tax dollars fund Planned Parenthood's shocking new Web site for youth. It’s time to defund Planned Parenthood - contact your U.S. senators and representative today
(The site they are referring to is Take Care Down There, a site that discusses the ups and downs of being sexually active in a frank way that teenagers will understand... it does terrible things, like allow you to ask a nurse questions online and provide information about various methods of contraception)
"Does AFA Hate Homosexuals?
Absolutely Not! The same Holy Bible that calls us to reject sin, calls us to love our neighbor. It is that love that motivates us to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture. AFA has sponsored several events reaching out to homosexuals and letting them know there is love and healing at the Cross of Christ."
I don't know about your family, but mine never tried to censor any demographic or "stop its spread through our culture."
What these organizations don't realize is that trying to prevent your children from making mistakes by instilling the fear of God in them is an ineffective method of parenting.
The more children know about the real consequences of unsafe or premarital sex, the LESS likely they are to have it. And by consequences, I don't mean hellfire. The more teenagers know about condoms, the more likely they are to use them. Are the families the AFA represents so against birth control that they would prefer teenagers be pregnant and contract STDs than use a condom? Come on. That's absolutely illogical.
We will never convince the Republicans or the AFA that we, are in fact, the party of family values. But we can continue passing our great values down to our own children in the hopes that they will be able to make informed, important decision on their own... even if it means they make different choices than we might have.