The Religious Right Vision of Marriage

Christian conservatives always talk about “defending traditional marriage” – which has that warm, homey, fresh-baked-apple-pie feeling to it – but never make it clear precisely what they’re defending.

This is deliberate, of course, and a clever political strategy: they choose phrases with positive mental associations but otherwise leave their position vague. That way, ordinary people can project onto it whatever idealized notion of a happy family they happen to hold. By this tactic, the religious right makes it sound as if all they want is to protect millions of imaginary-1950s, smiling-wife-and-picket-fence families against the godless hordes who want to take this all away. (How would granting equal rights to same-sex couples take anything away from heterosexual couples? Don’t ask!)

But when Christian conservatives talk among themselves, they’re not nearly as concerned with disguising their true goals. And if we listen in to those internal conversations, we can see exactly what their model of “traditional marriage” is: what they want to defend, and more so, what they want to impose on everyone else. And it bears mention that the ideal religious-right model of marriage and family is nothing like ordinary people’s conception of those things. In fact, most ordinary people would be shocked and revolted by their true plan and desire.

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