Growing the Party

Well folks, it's an election year so this is a common theme for us Washingtonians, but typically "grow the party" conversations revolve around microtargeting efforts or Get-Out-The-Vote initiatives or maybe a direct mail campaign. Rarely do they focus on generativity as the key to capturing votes as USA Today does (sort of - smile) in its article this week on The Liberal Baby Bust.

Here is a quick excerpt from writer Philip Longman, on his theory that falling birth rates among progressive secular elites in America will ultimately result in a rising number of conservatives and a reshaping of American politics in future generations:

Today, fertility correlates strongly with a wide range of political, cultural and religious attitudes. In the USA, for example, 47% of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children. By contrast, 27% of those who seldom attend church want that many kids.

...Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.

This article ties in nicely with a lecture I attended today at which Maggie Gallagher, a prolific writer and advocate for marriage, made a compelling case for the importance of procreation within marital unions. She outlined, as she always does, why marraige is a universal anthrolopological phenomenon in practically every ancient and modern society: 1) because sex creates babies 2) because societies need babies in order to survive 3) because babies need fathers as well as mothers and marriage. As she said, "When a baby is born we always know a mother is close by..." implying that since physiology doesn't naturally tie a father to a child a social institution, i.e. marriage, acts to unite the father to the child via sexual union with the mother.

She spent a great deal of time on her second point, that societies need babies to survive. As she said it, "whether or not to have babies is optional for a couple but it is not optional for society." Plainly put, if society does not replace its population with each generation it will decline and ultimately cease to exist. Doesn't seem like rocket science, eh? Still, it is a hotly contested point, especially among liberal advocates of population control and advocates of gay marriage who hate to concede that procreation is a uniqueness only heterosexual marriages can boast. To say otherwise is akin to bigotry and hate speech.

In any case... this is just food for thought. Check out some of Maggies' longer articles as you have time. My favorite phrase from her on the gay marriage question is that "this is an us problem not a them problem" i.e. it is heterosexuals who have the responsibility to honor and uphold the meaning of marriage among themselves first and foremost.