Earlier today on Wallbuilders Live, David Barton suggested that women weren't initially given the right to vote because--wait for it--the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the institution of the family by only allowing husbands to vote.
One of Barton's listeners wondered if women were kept from voting in order to keep families united. Barton thinks this interpretation is more than valid. In Barton's eyes, the Founding Fathers felt that only allowing men to vote was the best way to keep the family together. People for the American Way got a clip.
And you have to remember back then, husband and wife, I mean the two were considered one. That is the biblical precept. That is the way they looked at them in the civil community. That is a family that is voting and so the head of the family is traditionally considered to be the husband and even biblically still continues to be so ...
Now, as we've moved away from the family unit - you need to be independent from the family, don't be chained down and be a mother and don't be chained down and be a father and don't be chained down to your parents, you know, we've moved into more of a family anarchy kind of thing, the 'Modern Family' kind of portrayal - that understanding has gone away.
Clearly, what [the listener] has asked is a brilliant question because it does reveal that the bigotry we're told they held back then, they didn't hold and what they did was they put the family unit higher than the government unit and they tried to work hard to keep the family together. And, as we can show in two or three hundred studies since then, the more you weaken the family, the more it hurts the entire culture and society.
Listen to the whole thing (if you can stand it)
here. I've heard some crazy apologies for keeping women from voting, but this has to stand as one of the looniest--even by Barton's standards.