Quiverfull of Santorum

Quiverfull of Santorum

by digby

This article about Rick Santorum in today's New York Times discusses one of the more interesting aspects of this year's presidential campaign --- his popularity among women. Well, not among all women but rather the most conservative religious women. And this is their theme song:

GAME ON! Join the Fight
We've finally got a Man who will Stand for what is Right

GAME ON! Victory's in Sight
We've got a Man who Understands that God Gave the Bill of Rights

CH:
Oh, there is Hope for our Nation again
Maybe the First time Since we Had Ronald Reagan
There will be Justice for the Unborn
Factories back on our Shores
Where the Constitution rules our land
Yes, I Believe... Rick Santorum is our Man!

Vs 2:
GAME ON! He's got the Plan
To Lower Taxes, Raise Morale, To Put the Power in our Hands

GAME ON! Change is at hand
Faithful to his Wife and Seven Kids - He'll be Loyal to our land

BR:
Oh It's crazy, What's been slipping through our hands
When we the People are still supposed to rule this Land
Rick Understands

It's awfully tempting for a latte sipping, west coat elitist like me to make fun of that. After all, the idea that God "gave us" the Bill of Rights is just plain ridiculous. And this seems to be one of those huge Christian celebrity families like the Duggars who wish to enforce traditional values I find to be narrow minded and backward. But I'm not going to make fun of them. These are sincere people participating in the political process just as Will.I.Am did when he made his paean to Obama with the "Yes We Can" video in 2008. Obviously, it's a very different style, but the earnest intent is the same.

What's interesting is how this song has apparently become the theme song for the socially conservative women who form the passionate core of Santorum's support:

Rick Santorum was running late, and about 250 people were growing restless at a rally sponsored by the Tea Party. So the Harris sisters, a country singing duo, took the stage.They harmonized on “Game On,” a sprightly campaign anthem that concluded, “Yes, I believe/Rick Santorum is our man.”

What happened next was more like a revival meeting than a political event.

The performers asked each other and the crowd what they liked best about the presidential candidate. Camille Harris, 20, exclaimed into the microphone, “Seven kids! Seven kids!” Turning her attention to Mr. Santorum’s youngest, Isabella, born with a genetic disorder, the singer added, “Didn’t abort the last one, which is amazing.”

Then several women in the crowd called out that Mr. Santorum was a Christian and a “man of faith,” and that he was “honest and honorable.” Bursting with enthusiasm, one woman said, “He’s for life!”

There is no mistaking the bond that Mr. Santorum has with conservative women — particularly married women — a group that has formed a core of his support since the primaries began in January. He has handily carried the votes of women in primaries that he has won, including those in Mississippi and Alabama. And where he has lost, in Arizona, South Carolina and Illinois, he has enjoyed a higher level of support among women than men.

"Didn’t abort the last one, which is amazing."

Let's just say that this illustrates once again, the danger of speaking for all women. These women couldn't be more different than I am. And yet when I watch that video I can't help but like them on a certain level, the same way I always smile a little bit when I watch those adorable Duggar kids. They too have been appearing at Santorum events all over the country and have also done a slick endorsement video:



It's very cute. And notice that this is a full embrace of the Republican agenda, not just the social conservatism. (Well, not the entire agenda --- but then none of the candidates except Mitt are advertising their corrupt relationship with the wealthy.)These are conservative Republicans, in the most hardcore, true believer definition of the word.

However, there's more to this that isn't so cute. The Harris sisters and the Duggars are part of the Quiverfull movement which basically makes women slaves to their wombs.

Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization. Adherents are known as "quiver full", "full quiver", "quiverfull-minded", or simply "QF" Christians. Some refer to the Quiverfull position as Providentialism, while other sources have referred to it as a manifestation of natalism.
And while it's possible that every one of those lovely young girls in the videos are completely happy to follow their family's religious traditions when they grow up you have to worry about the girl who isn't. The unhappy one who doesn't get educated and who doesn't know that she might have a different role in the world. You can see it when you watch the Duggars reality show 19 Kids and Counting. I wrote a little bit about this a few years back:

[A]s I watched, it became clear that there was something more odd about them than just their unusual numbers. And after a while I realized that it was the oppressiveness of their insularity, particularly for the older girls, who seem to be emotionally underdeveloped and nearly obsessed with childbearing. It's the entire focus of the females, as you might imagine, who are basically raising children from the time they are able to pick one up. Their world is so small and they have no agency at all even when they are in their late teens.

They all seem quite happy, with good humor and a lot of affection among them so maybe this is just my own cultural bias kicking in. (And this is a TV show in which they are evangelizing for a certain way of life, so who knows what goes on beneath the surface?) But regardless of their good cheer, it's quite clear that by the time these kids get to adolescence they have been so isolated that they aren't prepared for any life but the odd one in which they've grown up --- which in patriarchal social arrangements is the point. The girls are raised to see themselves as solely designed to serve men and give birth. And that's what they do.

Eventually I started to avoid the show after watching an episode that featured them socializing with another like-minded extra-large family from Tennessee. Mom said they had to keep a strong eye on the teens because they might get "feelings" if they spend time with one another. It was clear to me then that they were basically keeping their kids in prison until they entered a church sanctioned marriage. All that good cheer suddenly seemed brittle and sad. And more than a little bit scary.

Oh, and by the way, the Christian Reconstructionists/Quiverfull people really do believe in Christian fundamentalist Theocracy. If they were ever to achieve real political power, they would legislate this way of life. Indeed, their allies are working hard to outlaw abortion and birth control by any means necessary, which would be an excellent practical step toward their goal.

Jim Bob Duggar is a former elected politician who served in the Arkansas house of representatives. He has not ruled out running for office again.
Rick Santorum is running and these people clearly believe that he is one of them. And it's the female side of this movement that loves him the most. But then I've always observed that the emotional part of religion -- the ecstatic part --- always manifests more in the women. And why not? Where else can they get that feeling? Even the most fertile of them can only give birth once a year.

The men go out in the world and they have agency and freedom. The women have Jesus and their children. And now they have Rick Santorum.

And to those of you who think that this is all a fringe movement with no real political clout beyond a sad, half-baked presidential campaign, think again:

Even as a national debate rages over contraception insurance, tens of thousands of low-income women and teenagers across the United States have lost access to subsidized birth control as states slash and restructure family planning funds.

Montana and New Jersey have eliminated altogether their state family planning programs. New Hampshire cut its funding by 57 percent and five other states made more modest program trims.

But the biggest impact, by far, has been in Texas.

State lawmakers last fall cut family-planning funds by two-thirds, or nearly $74 million over two years. Within months, half the state-supported family planning clinics in Texas had closed.
Where do you suppose all this anti-birth control energy came from?

Update: Elias Isquith riffed on the same article today and makes this important observation:
[T]here was one quote in particular in the piece that caught my eye. It reminded me of Corey Robin’s oft-repeated claim that conservatism has historically been about power struggles in the private rather than public sphere, and it’s opposition to the loss of dominion in the former rather than the latter that truly animates — defines, even — the Anglo-American Right. Check out how one of the two songstresses above describes Santorum’s manifest superiority:

When the Harris sisters’ song, “Game On,” got wide attention on the Internet this month, it made them minor celebrities in conservative circles. People sing along to the words, “We’ve finally got a man who will stand for what is right.”

“If he can run his household, he can run the country. Amen!” Haley Harris, 18, told the Mandeville crowd.


Robin wrote about John Adams' famous exchange with his wife, who asked that he "remember the ladies":

He leavened his response with playful banter—he prayed that George Washington would shield him from the “despotism of the petticoat” Adams was clearly rattled by this appearance of democracy in the private sphere. In a letter to James Sullivan, he worried that the Revolution would “confound and destroy all distinctions,” unleashing throughout society a spirit of insubordination so intense that all order would be dissolved. “There will be no end of it.” No matter how democratic the state, it was imperative that society remain a federation of private dominions, where husbands ruled over wives, masters governed apprentices, and each “should know his place and be made to keep it.”


This is where the religious fundamentalist and the ideological conservative make their common cause.


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