Progressives are faking their pro-family credentials

American politics can be complicated in many ways, like explaining the Electoral College to a foreigner or recalling the last time a party had a brokered convention. But one thing is easy to understand: You can’t claim to be a family-friendly party if you think killing babies in the womb is a human right and believe that mutilating confused teenagers is “gender-affirming care.”

It is important to make this obvious point because the media has already started painting the Harris-Walz presidential ticket as being “pro-family” even though they subscribe to a worldview that is anti-human. Make no mistake, every aspect of the left’s social agenda is antagonistic to the creation and flourishing of families.

There is nothing about destroying the bodies and corrupting the minds of children that sounds 'pro-family' to me.

They have redefined marriage, transforming it from a union of one man and one woman for one lifetime to a contractual relationship between any two adults. The glowing profiles of polyamorous entanglements in magazines like New York are a preview of the next battlefront in redefining the institution.

The left’s embrace of second-wave feminism has encouraged at least three generations of women to see children as a burden, the home as a prison, and marriage as bondage. Women discipled by Gloria Steinem may not say that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” but her poisonous views have sown discord between the sexes.

Democrats are also the party of a welfare state that turns the government into the patriarch of millions of homes led by single mothers. One consequence of a culture that believes Uncle Sam can play the role of husband and father to low-income women and children is that Americans slowly begin to accept that the government – whether federal or local – should be responsible for every family.

One of the stories that the press is using to make voters think a Harris administration would be good for families is the universal school lunch bill Tim Walz signed into law in 2023 while surrounded by a throng of smiling Minnesota schoolchildren. On the surface, it was a great story of an elected official committing to feeding the children of his state, but good policy is more than a nice photo op.

The conservative opposition to universal free lunch is based on the belief that middle-class and well-off families don’t need it. Spending money to feed children whose parents do so without any issue is seen as an inefficient use of public funds. Progressives disagree. Based on my personal interactions debating this issue, it seems as if the average progressive on social media thinks American children are born in the wild and remain uncared for until a Democrat running for elected office comes along to provide them with food, clothes, and shelter. It’s as if people believe that no child would eat if the government didn’t provide school lunch to every child. This is the natural consequence of an ever-encroaching welfare state that persuades parents to turn over their core responsibilities to politicians and bureaucrats.

But I have an even bigger issue with the left than giving kids frozen pizza and tater tots. The party that claims to care for the poor and working class would much rather support universal school lunch than universal school choice. Some progressives will pay lip service to the success of charter schools operating in large urban districts, but they all hate the idea of vouchers and other programs that allow parents to use tax dollars to pay for private or religious schools. They support working-class kids using Pell Grants at private colleges but balk at the idea of using public funds to give the least privileged kids an opportunity to ditch failing schools.

There is nothing more on brand for Democrats than appearing to fight for families by giving out free cookies and chocolate milk while simultaneously opposing school choice for poor kids because teachers’ unions fear competition. The Martha’s Vineyard set would never send their own children to a school where students can’t read or do math, but they have no problem consigning low-income children to one.

This is a feature of progressive ideology, not a bug. The left is always willing to let children suffer for the sake of adults. Its message to women is never “be willing to sacrifice your career for your child.” It’s always “be willing to sacrifice your child for your career.”

It’s no wonder that a party with such a low view of babies in the womb would confuse them about biology starting in kindergarten, put them on puberty blockers in the fifth grade, push mastectomies in middle school, and mutilate their genitals in high school. All of this is done with the approval of adults who pat themselves on the back for being open and affirming. I’m no political pundit or pollster, but there is nothing about destroying the bodies and corrupting the minds of children that sounds “pro-family” to me.