Should Parents’ Votes Count More? Unpacking J. D. Vance’s Attack on the “Childless Left”

Should Parents’ Votes Count More? Unpacking J. D. Vance’s Attack on the “Childless Left”

The answer to the question put forth by J. D. Vance, “should parents’ votes count more than those of the childless” is a resounding NO.

I’m not exactly sure if Vance defines himself as a conservative, a populist, or what.

But I find that people who are non-liberal, non-left tend to assume anyone who is single or childless is an anti-American, Democrat-voting, nuclear family hating heretic.

I’m a conservative woman who arrived into middle age with never having married or having had children – not by choice, but by circumstance.

I deeply resent how so many conservatives or other types of non-liberals frequently equate womanhood, or maturity, with marriage and parenting (having children). It’s revolting and sexist.

Other conservatives (or non-liberals and non-leftists) who despise the left, who want to “own” the left, frequently come up with moves like this, which inevitably end up causing collateral damage.

Not all women (and men) who remain single and childless are there by choice or because they hate marriage and the nuclear family.

I will say that it’s rather disingenuous for the author of the following to frame the situation as Vance starting the “cultural war” when as of the last several years, non-liberals have been responding to cultural wars begun by liberals!

Contrary to leftist and liberal propaganda (as what appears in this piece at The Week by Mathis), conservatives and Republicans do not want to suppress votes, or stop anyone (i.e., American citizen) from voting.

(Link): Should Parents’ Votes Count More? Unpacking J. D. Vance’s Attack on the “Childless Left”

by Joel Mathis
July 26, 2021

J.D. Vance has endured a tough start to his campaign for the open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, so maybe it’s no surprise that he’s borrowing a time-tested Republican tactic and doubling down on cultural warfare.

During a gathering of conservatives on Friday, the onetime Hillbilly Elegy author blasted the “childless left” — citing by name Democratic politicians including Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

“Why is this just a normal fact of American life, that the leaders of our country should be people who don’t have a personal indirect stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children and grandchildren?” Vance asked, rhetorically. (Harris, for what it’s worth, has two stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff.)

 Better, he suggested, to give extra voting power to America’s parents.

The Culture War is a Leftist Offensive

The Culture War is a Leftist Offensive

I am not in agreement with all opinions of this author on other subjects, but on this one, yes, I sure am.

Republicans and conservatives used to participate in the Culture Wars (I’ve spoken out against this in older posts on this blog, such as this one or this one from 2013),
but in the last few years, it’s been the left, the liberals, and the Democrats, and the “Never Trump” Republicans who have been initiating and perpetuating the Culture Wars in the United States – but they keep acting as though the evangelicals, the Trump voters, conservatives, or Republicans, are behind the Culture Wars.

(Link): The Culture War is a Leftist Offensive

Democrats have become more extreme on social issues, and they aren’t prepared for the backlash.

July 8, 2021
by Peggy Noonan

The word now is radicalized. So many people feel pushed to the edge and are pushing back.  Go to social-media sites and search “school board meeting” adding descriptors like “explosive,” “outrage” and “chaos.” Parents are rising up. New York Democrats just picked an anticrime former cop as their mayoral nominee.

Other signs that suggests a spirit of having been radicalized: Longtime alliances based on natural affinity are loosening.

Conservatives by nature support and respect the military. That’s changing among some of them, or at least becoming less reflexive, under the pressure of changes of political correctness and a woke brass.

… There’s a sense in America of a continuing political realignment, that it didn’t all start and end in 2015-2016.

I think that what happened last summer, when the streets erupted and statues toppled, is being answered now with a pushback – a quieter one but no less consequential.

…. [Author Kevin Drum wrote a recent editorial on his blog.]

He titled the piece bluntly: “If you hate culture wars, blame liberals.”

Conservatives In Civil War Over Whether or Not Porn Stars Can Be Considered Conservative or Should Be Permitted To Attend Conservative Events

Conservatives In Civil War Over Whether or Not Porn Stars Can Be Considered Conservative or Should Be Permitted To Attend Conservative Events

I am a conservative, I don’t support pornography, but I’m not sure if I agree with other conservatives who have been saying lately that pornography movie actors cannot be conservatives.

It’s my understanding that some conservative type symposium sponsored by TPUSA (Turning Point U.S.A.), aimed at high school and college aged students, recently invited or permitted to attend, a porn star named Brandi Love, in Florida.

Ever since, conservatives have been feuding about this.

Some are saying, yes, porn actors should be permitted into the “conservative tent,” (or into conservative functions) while other say, “no way!”

My opinion is that yes, even porn stars can be politically conservative if they like, but I’m not sure it’s wise for one to actually attend an event for college students – and some said that while she was in attendance, she wore some kind of name badge with her “porn name” on it, to advertise her porn site or something(?)

I don’t think conservatives should defend porn, because porn is ultimately harmful to society and to women in particular – defending sexual hedonism and perversion is the province of liberals and leftists.

I see some overlap here and among the Christian faith, because a lot of Christians and churches used to defend the practice of remaining a virgin until marriage  (as they should), but in years past, they have begun defending sexual impurity and saying sex outside of marriage is no big deal.

Some churches, when having a “pro sexual purity” or “pro celibacy” event during church hours have been known to hire known fornicators – I’ve done posts about this subject in the past.

The Christians will never ask or hire an honest- to god- adult virgin to give a “sexual purity” lecture, no, they’d rather hire a person who FAILED at sexual purity.

It would be like hiring a food-addicted, 600 pound adult to give a “pro healthy eating” lecture at a church. It makes no sense.

Cancel Culture?

Some people are trying to market this move – of TPUSA of revoking her day pass – as cancel culture, but I’m not so sure.

If conservatives were trying to “cancel” Brandi Love, they’d be trying to ruin her entire career; there would be an on-going Twitter campaign by conservatives to “dog pile” and harass her on Twitter (which is not going on, AFAIK).

(If conservatives are harassing her, they should knock it off. I did read that some conservatives are defending her on Twitter.)

So far as I am aware, there are no conservatives writing to any of Love’s employers and demanding that she be fired and never allowed to work ever again – that would be the sort of thing that “cancel culture” leftists do.

Also note Love was not banned from the political conference due to differences in political opinion – the left always cancels people over political dissent. This banning was more over morals, not over a difference in view points.

Here is some material about this conservative feud:

(Link):  Conservative porn star Brandi Love fumes on Twitter about ‘cancel culture’ after she’s uninvited from GOP student event

I’m not sure if I agree with all of this essay or not:

(Link): About Porn Stars and Conservatism

Excerpts:

by B. Morse

…Now, the conversation has begun on the internet (read flame war) about where pornography fits into the big tent of conservatism after a right-leaning porn star, Brandi Love, showed up and was subsequently booted from a Turning Point USA event due to her profession.

This sparked a debate about whether or not Love can actually be a “conservative” and be a porn star with many of conservatism’s big names saying she can and others saying she can’t.

Women Are Having Fewer Babies Because They Have More Choices by Jill Filipovic

Women Are Having Fewer Babies Because They Have More Choices by Jill Filipovic

I bet my fellow conservatives are gnashing their teeth over this one, though I didn’t see anything wrong or bad about it.
Conservatives really need to resist the urge to take knee-jerk positions against anything and everything feminists say, and they need to stop deifying motherhood.

(Link): Women Are Having Fewer Babies Because They Have More Choices

Excerpt:

Further, while birthrates are dropping, the total percentage of women who are mothers has risen, in part thanks to older women, college-educated women and unmarried women being more likely to have a baby than they had been.

Childbearing remains overwhelmingly the norm: 86 percent of American women ages 40 to 44 are mothers. Motherhood isn’t on the decline so much as motherhood is delayed, and families with one or two children are ascendant.

Divorce In China Plummet 70% Following New Government ‘Cool-Off’ Law

Divorce In China Plummet 70% Following New Government ‘Cool-Off’ Law

 The introduction (this is the section before I get to the links about divorce in China):
Not a big fan of China myself, but – I bet you anything that other American conservatives (I’m a conservative, but one who doesn’t idolize marriage) – will be jealous of this policy in China!

I bet anything that members of “Focus On the Family,” “Institute for Family Studies,” or Al Mohler, or Bradford Wilcox, and other such marriage-idolizing and Christian patriarchal groups or persons, will, should they comment on this news story, speak of it in sad, longing, envious terms, as though they wish the American government would and could force married adults to have “cooling off” periods before divorcing.

(And such groups almost always blame women for divorce (they especially love to go after “feminism.”
The sexist pigs who run around on the “Manosphere” and such complain that women “initiate divorces more often.” Hmm, it could be that many American men make for lousy husbands, not that women just like to, you know, divorce for the hell of it.)

North Carolina Adultery Law Remains On Books After Repeal Effort Fails

North Carolina Adultery Law Remains On Books After Repeal Effort Fails

(Link): North Carolina Adultery Law Remains On Books After Repeal Effort Fails

North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that have similar laws

by Brie Stimson

North Carolina lawmakers killed a bill this week that would have repealed a more-than-a-century-old law that allows people to sue their spouse’s lover for “alienation of affection,” according to reports.

State Rep. Wesley Harris, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, contended the law was both “archaic and antiquated.”

“This was started in the 1700s in Great Britain when women were still treated as property of their husbands,” he said, according to WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

Jere Royall, director of community impact and counsel for the North Carolina Family Policy Council, disagreed.

This, *This,* of All things, is the Litmus Test in the Biden Administration? Are Liberals, Democrats Serious About This? Regarding: Marijuana Vs. Sexism

This, *This,* of All things, is the Litmus Test in the Biden Administration? Are Liberals, Democrats Serious About This? Regarding: Marijuana Vs. Sexism

I don’t know how fair it is to hold Joe Biden accountable for much of anything these days, as the guy apparently is in early stages dementia and doesn’t even know what year it is.

Maybe Kamala Harris is the actual POTUS (President) in practice, if not in name right now, and Biden is the feeble figure head only, who knows?

Having said that, Biden and his Democratic Party administration are FINE and dandy with saying they oppose sexism,
YET,
they also defend sexist pro-Transgender policies (such as allowing biological boys who “identify as girls”) into girls’ sports, thus depriving actual girls of scholarship opportunities and positions on sports teams.

Biden and most (not all, but most) Democrats, leftists, and progressives are FINE with that sort of unfairness against girls and women; allowing men and boys to succeed at the expense of actual females;  I guess I can dub that “Trans Sexism.”

But, smoking marijuana, (a habit I am rather neutral on, and no, I’ve never smoked it myself) is considered a fire-worthy offense by the Biden administration?

Biden administration: Sexism fine, smoking pot bad.

Seems to me that in some ways, smoking marijuana is less harmful than allowing biological males into biological female spaces.
But such is the wacko, nutty, inconsistent, stupid practices and beliefs of most Democrats, Leftists, Progressives and Liberals these days.

(I can’t say most of this on Twitter – they will suspend you for saying any of this over there – Twitter doesn’t like the truth getting out on their platform.)

(Link): Biden White House asks staffers to resign over past marijuana use: report

by Z. Folk, March 2021

A number of White House staffers were asked to resign or demoted for past marijuana use — regardless of whether those employees had been in one of the 14 states where the drug is legal, according to a report.

The Biden administration had required workers to disclose past marijuana use on a background check form, but told some new hires that it would “overlook” those who answered yes, the (Link): Daily Beast reported.
—— end excerpts ——-

If you seriously think that Democrats, liberals, Never Trump Republicans, leftists, or progressives really and truly care about fighting sexism or care for actual (biological) girls and women, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Open your eyes: liberals, progressives, Democrats, Never Trumpers do NOT care about women, girls, or in fighting sexism.

Look at what they DO, not at what they SAY.

Southern Baptist Al Mohler Intimates That Childless And Childfree Adults Are Not Human (2019) – and He Thinks This is a Good and Biblical Worldview

Southern Baptist Al Mohler Intimates That Childless And Childfree Adults Are  Not Human (2019) – and He Thinks This is a Good and Biblical Worldview

I am amazed that (Link): Mohler’s tweet / blog post / podcast from August 2019, where he indicates that anyone who doesn’t biologically pro-create is not fully human, did not get far more blow-back and attention than it did. Because it most certainly deserved a lot of push back.

(Please note: this post has been edited a few times since I published it, so that I could add more commentary and more links, and I may (or may not) edit it more in the future.)

At the time Mohler’s comment about this happened (August 2019),  I was too busy at the time to blog about it (or even months later). Hence, my post tackling this issue now, in June of 2020.

Mohler did (rightfully) get a lot of flack under the tweet at the time (I would ask that you (Link): click on the tweet link and read the replies he received), and one or two blogs ripped his attitude apart, but by and large, most did not tackle this.

Here is how Mohler’s tweet read (it is also embedded below):

Americans are basically, by the millions, giving up on the fact that to be human is to be a parent, eventually to take on that responsibility to get married and have children, to take on the responsibility of passing on civilization itself.
— end Mohler Tweet content —

Mohler also had a (Link): web page with either an essay or a podcast about this topic, but as of June 2020, the page does not seem to be working (you might be able to view an archived version of that page (Link): here – or view Mohler’s page on (Link): Google Cache).

At this point in time, I do not care to re-explain, for the billionth time, why the Bible and the God of the Bible does NOT support the “nuclear family,” marriage and natalism (and parenthood) to the insane degree that so many social conservatives and Christians and guys like Al Mohler assume.

I refer you to these older posts of mine which explain that no, the Bible does not endorse “the nuclear family,” marriage or parenting, not in the way conservative Christians presume it does (I have many more blog posts discussing this, I will only be sharing a few of them here – also some related posts here):

(Link): Conservatives Have Now Abandoned All Pretense of Advocating For Sexual Abstinence and They Actually Lament the Lack of Fornication – The Bradford Wilcox Piece, 2019

(Link):  “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – one of the most excellent Christian rebuttals I have seen against the Christian idolatry of marriage and natalism, and in support of adult singleness and celibacy – from CBE’s site

(Link):   If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t, by John B. Carpenter, CP Guest Contributor

(Link): Salvation By Marriage Alone – The Over Emphasis Upon Marriage by Conservative Christians Evangelicals Southern Baptists

(Link): Why Christians Need To Stress Spiritual Family Over the Nuclear Family – People with no flesh and blood relations including Muslims who Convert to Christianity – Also: First World, White, Rich People Problems

(Link): This Christmas, I’m Defining Family by My Single Friends by L. Wilbert

(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible

(Link):  Ever Notice That Christians Don’t Care About or Value Singleness, Unless Jesus Christ’s Singleness and Celibacy is Doubted or Called Into Question by Scholars?

(Link):  Really, It’s Okay To Be Single – In order to protect marriage, we should be careful not to denigrate singleness – by Peter Chin

(Link): Parents Who Regret Having Children Speak Honestly About Why It Was A Huge Mistake

(Link): The Bible Does Not Teach Christians to “Focus On The Family” – The Idolization of Family by American Christians (article)

(Link): Why Having Kids Won’t Fulfill You

Mohler Judging If Someone is Human Or Not Based on Their Childed Status

I’m pretty sure that the Bible says all humans are fully human because God deemed them so, and because all humans are created in the image of God.

The Bible says nothing about one’s value or worth or humanity being defined by marital or parental status.

God does not love childless or childfree people any less than he does people who have children.

Supposedly Woman-Honoring and Pro-Marriage Focus On the Family Group Wants Wives to Blame Themselves If or When Their Husbands Commit Adultery – Re: Book: ‘How God Used the Other Woman,’ by Tina Konkin

Supposedly Woman-Honoring and Pro-Marriage Focus On the Family Group Wants Wives to Blame Themselves If or When Their Husbands Commit Adultery – Re: Book: ‘How God Used the Other Woman,’ by Tina Konkin

I have some new developments in my personal life that have kept me busy the last month or two, which is why I’ve not been blogging as often.

During this time, I do recall seeing comments on other people’s blogs and on Twitter, about some idiotic, sexist, stupid book that “Focus On The Family” was recommending or selling.

Here is a page about the book by Tina Konkin that created an uproar:

(Link): How God Used “the Other Woman”: Saving Your Marriage After Infidelity via Focus On The Family site

Excerpts about that book from the site:

In How God Used “the Other Woman,” Konkin shares how she and her husband Ron saved their marriage after his affair and fought to make it better than ever before.
——

I am horrified to see that this Tina Konkin works as (or claims to be) (Link): a “relationship expert.”

This awful book of hers is also being sold at Wal-Mart.

From what I can recall, it’s a book for Christian wives that tells them how to approach their husband or their marriage if and whenever their husband should commit adultery,
and their view is that you, you Christian wife, should blame yourself for  your husband’s adultery, don’t hold him accountable, and just write off the situation as a learning experience.

Below you will find a few links or videos to work by other people refuting such a disgusting viewpoint.

Before I get to those resources, though, I wanted to point out how utterly hypocritical these conservative secular and conservative Christian groups are, who proclaim they respect women, and marriage, and The Nuclear Family.

Family Values Won’t Stop Mass Shootings – Lawmaker Who Blamed Dayton Massacre on Same-Sex Marriage and Break Down of the Family Urged by GOP Leader to Resign

Family Values Won’t Stop Mass Shootings – Lawmaker Who Blamed Dayton Massacre on Same-Sex Marriage and Break Down of the Family Urged by GOP Leader to Resign

I’m a conservative person and was a life-long Republican until 2014/2015. So, I’m certainly not a left wing, family- or family-values hating person.

However, I do believe that other conservatives over-estimate the importance of, or the effects of, the nuclear family, marriage, and “family values.”

I have (Link): plenty of examples on my blog of self-professing, God-fearing “family men,” who even tout family values, who do things like rape children or beat their wives.

Even if every one in our nation was married with children, and professed belief in Christ, we’d still continue to have sin – we’d have mass shootings, rapes, and the like.

Granted, if people were sincere about following Christ and his teachings, maybe some of those things would decline, but I don’t believe any of those things would give us a crime-free society.

The Bible doesn’t say any where the marriage, the nuclear family, and (Link): being a parent will make people into better, more ethical people. The Bible points people to Christ, not to marriage or pro-creation.

Family values, the family unit, marriage, and natalism have not stopped men from raping children and beating their wives – again, I have plenty examples on my blog of married men who are fathers to children who have been arrested for raping their own children, selling their own children to other men for sex, for beating and murdering their wives (see here and here).

And, by the way, I don’t think video games or homosexual marriage causes mass shootings, either. This lady is wrong.

(Link): Ohio lawmaker blames mass shootings on open borders, homosexuality, video games

Excerpts:

Candice Keller is a Republican state representative from Middletown, a small city 30 miles south of Dayton, where a gunman killed at least nine people and wounded 27 others early Sunday. In a now-deleted Facebook post, she wrote: “After every mass shooting, the liberals start the blame game. Why not place the blame where it belongs?”

 The post listed reasons Keller thought the United States is grappling with mass shootings, including “the breakdown of the traditional American family,”…

Conservatives Have Now Abandoned All Pretense of Advocating For Sexual Abstinence and They Actually Lament the Lack of Fornication – The Bradford Wilcox Piece, 2019

Conservatives Have Now Abandoned All Pretense of Advocating For Sexual Abstinence and They Actually Lament the Lack of Fornication – The Bradford Wilcox Piece, 2019

The following piece at The Atlantic (“The Happiness Recession”) was written by marriage-idolater and anti-singleness bigot of The Institute for Family Studies, W. Bradford Wilcox, and co-writer Lyman Stone.

I’d like to remind any new-comers to this blog that I am a life long conservative. I am not a liberal.

Marriage Is Not A Guarantee For Good or Regular Sex

This moronic essay actually suggests that single adults having less sex is what has led to them reporting higher rates of unhappiness, if I’m understanding things correctly.

This, astonishingly, from a right wing organization, (Link): The Institute For Family Studies, that claims to promote “strong families,” and good Lord knows they are obsessed with promoting marriage, even if that comes at the expense of singleness.

The members of this organization regularly publish materials intended to scare, guilt, shame, or pressure single adults into getting married, because this organization exists to promote the nuclear family: hetero-marriage where the couple have children.

My Thoughts Regarding the Editorial: Sex & The Single Pastor by Rod Dreher

My Thoughts Regarding the Editorial: Sex & The Single Pastor by Rod Dreher

The following editorial by Rod Dreher is about a liberal Luthern preacher named Nadia Bolz Weber who recently had a bunch of women’s “sexual purity rings” melted down to have an artist form them into the shape of a vagina.

Bolz Weber also released a new book about sex called “Shameless.” It’s an anti-Purity Culture book.

The author of this essay, Dreher, refers readers of his piece to (Link): this page (“The Luthern Pastor Calling For a Sexual Revolution”) at the New Yorker about Bolz Weber.

I was a devout Christian for many years, and that is one reason among a few as to why I remain a virgin past the age of 45.

That’s right, I’ve never had sex – because I was waiting until I got married to have sex, but I never found the right guy to marry.

I have spent a few years blogging here pointing out how nobody but nobody respects adult virginity or celibacy.

Many conservatives and Christians mock and insult adult celibacy and virginity, not just “sex positive” feminists or liberals.

As a matter of fact, a lot of Christians (and secular conservatives) view marriage to be the norm, and as something that can “fix” society, so they shame or insult anyone who remains single past the page of 30, whether that singleness is due to choice or circumstance. (I have examples of this sort of thing in older posts on this blog.)