tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/family-values-18189/articlesFamily values – The Conversation2023-12-15T13:21:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191022023-12-15T13:21:42Z2023-12-15T13:21:42ZAs Russia ramps up ‘traditional values’ rhetoric − especially against LGBTQ+ groups − it’s won Putin far-right fans abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565358/original/file-20231212-30-f7gmu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1022%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian riot police detain gay rights activists during World Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in St. Petersburg in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-riot-police-detained-gay-rights-activist-during-news-photo/1144257220?adppopup=true">Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With LGBTQ+ rights <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/">continuing to expand</a> across much of the world, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has doubled down on restricting them – and a new ruling has made the future even more uncertain for Russian LGBTQ+ groups and individuals.</p>
<p>The LGBTQ+ “movement” is “extremist,” and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/30/1216159464/russias-bans-lgbtq-activism-supreme-court-gay-lesbian-transgender-extremist">its activities will be banned beginning in 2024</a>, according to a ruling a justice of the <a href="https://www.currenttime.tv/a/lgbt/32707868.html">Russian Supreme Court</a> handed down at the close of November 2023.</p>
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<p>This newest decision builds on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/30/russia-passes-anti-gay-law">10 years</a> of legislation pushed forward by President Vladimir Putin’s government in the name of “family values,” largely focused on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-parliament-passes-law-banning-lgbt-propaganda-among-adults-2022-11-24/">limiting LGBTQ+ activism</a> and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/russian-constitution-change-bans-same-sex-marriage">same-sex unions</a>. With theological support from <a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/4-november/news/world/russian-orthodox-church-backs-anti-lgbt-legislation">the Russian Orthodox Church</a>, Putin and his supporters portray Russia as <a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/putins-other-war/">a bulwark of “traditional values</a>.” This trend is poised to only increase in 2024, with Putin’s decree that it is the “<a href="https://region15.ru/columnist_article/semya-krepost-gosudarstva/">year of the family</a>.”</p>
<p>That vision appeals deeply to many conservative Christians outside Russia, as well. As <a href="https://cssh.northeastern.edu/faculty/sarah-riccardi-swartz/">an anthropologist</a>, I have spent years studying Russia’s family values rhetoric and its appeal to allies abroad – particularly <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823299515/between-heaven-and-russia/">Russian Orthodox converts in Appalachia</a>.</p>
<p>Traditional values have become a fixture in <a href="https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/traditional-values/kristina-stoeckl-russia-traditional-values/">far-right movements around the world</a>, some of which see Russia as a model of the future they desire. In Russia and beyond, many conservative Christians in these movements have focused on LGBTQ+ populations, whom they portray as threats to their vision for society – and are not deterred by antidemocratic politics, if its figures <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/10/donald-trump-and-the-religion-of-white-nostalgia.html">voice support for their social goals</a>.</p>
<h2>Church and state</h2>
<p>In Russia, traditional family values have historically been linked to patriotism, Russian ethnic identity and service to country. These ideas were supported from the 1970s onward by <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/07/90088/">writings from a young priest-monk named Kirill Gundyaev</a>, who became head of the Russian Orthodox Church, or ROC, in 2009. </p>
<p>Though three-quarters of Russians say they attend church services <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/02/10/russians-return-to-religion-but-not-to-church/">once a year or less</a>, the ROC remains culturally influential. During Putin’s nearly 25 years in power, he has often tapped into the church’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-022-00123-2">rhetoric about traditional values</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315560991">to advance his social and political goals</a>. In particular, Russian leaders often portray much of Europe and the U.S. as threats to the traditional family.</p>
<p>Attempting to justify the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, for example, Putin and Kirill have both <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-new-strategy-laying-claim-to-traditional-values-11671253263">appealed to conservative ideas about religion and gender</a>, arguing that Russia’s offensive stems from a need to protect itself from liberal values.</p>
<p>The West has “been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature,” Putin said <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html">in a February 2022 speech</a> about the war. Kirill, meanwhile, has portrayed the invasion <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html">as a spiritual battle</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a white beard, in black and white priest's clothing, stands next to a balding man in a black coat and tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565363/original/file-20231212-23-6oh1mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill attend a wreath-laying ceremony on Red Square in Moscow on Nov. 4, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-pool-photograph-distributed-by-russian-state-owned-news-photo/1763798649?adppopup=true">Mikhail Metzel/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Beyond borders</h2>
<p>Many of Putin’s ideas about tradition resonate with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/us/christian-nationalism-politicians.html">far-right American Christians</a>, including <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823299515/between-heaven-and-russia/">the Appalachian Orthodox converts’ communities</a> I worked with, who think they are <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/true-christians-arent-persecuted-us-they-run-it-opinion-1801877">being persecuted</a> <a href="https://wp.nyu.edu/crm/2022/03/31/the-revealer-podcast-for-putin-god-and-country-american-converts-to-the-russian-orthodox-church/">for their views</a> about gender and sexuality.</p>
<p>While the language of family values resonated with right-wing voters during and since the Trump presidency, values rhetoric has a much longer history among the American Christian right. During the 20th century, anthropologist <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu/anthropology/bio/sophie-bjork-james">Sophie Bjork-James</a> has noted, <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/templeton-press/9781978821842/">these arguments took off among white Protestants</a> over fears about race, economic instability <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875802947/days-of-discontent/#bookTabs=1">and feminism</a>. </p>
<p>After World War II, as Americans grappled with the looming threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/how_religious_liberty_replaced_family_values_in_framing_the_conservative_movement_partner/">family values</a> became <a href="https://www.harvard.com/book/9781439131343_the_evangelicals_the_struggle_to_shape_america">a key part of patriotic rhetoric</a> that contrasted the “red threat” of the Soviet Union with a supposedly God-fearing, blessed America. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20618754?seq=26">Family values politics</a> inspired the creation of conservative groups like the Moral Majority and the Family Research Council as reproductive rights and fledgling gay rights intensified their concerns.</p>
<p>Though focused on promoting American Christian values, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3149132">the movement looked abroad</a> for connections and support. <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/unexpected-relationship-between-us-evangelicals-and-russian-orthodox">Relationships forged</a> between the Roman Catholic Church and the ROC, as well as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the ROC in the early 2010s, helped spur on <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-u-s-christians-who-pray-for-putin/">the types of traditional values movements</a> seen around the world today. Increasingly, these groups have focused on LGBTQ+ populations, portraying them as alien to traditional values. </p>
<p>Russian political figures and the ROC <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2020.1796172">have participated in local and global organizations</a> that promote traditional family values, including <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-confress-families-antigay-moscow-oligarchs-bush/27741199.html">the World Congress of Families</a> and some home-schooling networks formed in the U.S. Some far-right figures involved in such groups <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/315812/war-for-eternity-by-teitelbaum-benjamin-r/9780141992037">promote “traditionalism</a>”: <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/04/22/inside-steve-bannons-war-eternity">an anti-modern philosophy</a> that focuses on social, sexual and racial purity.</p>
<h2>From culture to authoritarianism</h2>
<p>Cold War-style language that U.S. politicians once used to criticize the Soviet Union has now been inverted: Many right-wing American Christians who believe their country has lost its traditional religious heritage and is headed toward Marxism see the West as the new “red scare.” For some who criticize <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/woke-communism-red-scare/">the West as “woke</a>,” contemporary Russia is a better social model and an <a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/putins-american-comrades-and-our-post-truth-moment">arbiter of traditional morality</a>.</p>
<p>Yet anti-LGBTQ+ policies, family values rhetoric and the notion that Russia is “traditional” are not simply part of the new global culture wars. Rather, they are part of what I call <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823299508/between-heaven-and-russia/">reactive world-building</a>: radicalized groups working toward what they see as a Christian, pro-family future with authoritarian politics at the helm. </p>
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<span class="caption">An activist holds a placard during a ‘March for Family’ amid the World Congress of Families conference in 2019 in Verona, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-family-activists-hold-a-placard-during-a-march-for-news-photo/1133984373?adppopup=true">Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812291919">The language of the Christian right</a> has consistently emphasized obedience to hierarchical authority. In my own work on far-right American converts to Orthodox Christianity, I have met people who support <a href="https://tif.ssrc.org/2022/01/21/the-affective-allure-of-authoritarianism/">antidemocratic politics</a> if they believe it can <a href="https://canopyforum.org/2021/08/10/seeking-a-sovereign-for-the-end-of-democracy-monarchism-and-the-far-right/">deliver the kind of culture they want to see</a> – <a href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/the-hybridity-of-rural-fascism">and even individuals who call themselves fascist</a>. Some express interest in moving to Russia, with <a href="https://movingtorussia.substack.com/about">American Orthodox convert priest Rev. Joseph Gleason</a> offering a public example.</p>
<p>Under Putin, family values are used as a way to advance post-Soviet Russian power and control globally. That might come as a shock for American allies – although given some <a href="https://gorthodox.com/en/news-item/russian-parliament-consults-americans-moving-to-russia-receives-media-attention">far-right compatriots’ interest</a> in moving there, perhaps not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Riccardi-Swartz previously received funding from the Henry R. Luce Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the Louisville Institute. </span></em></p>Far-right American Christians once viewed Soviet culture as a menace to their values. Today, some authoritarian-leaning admirers wish their country were more like Putin’s Russia.Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Assistant Professor of Religion and Anthropology, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1767222022-02-16T14:43:42Z2022-02-16T14:43:42ZWellbeing: how living well together works for the common good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446757/original/file-20220216-13-g8tuhn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C4%2C2959%2C2694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/happy-people-hand-drawn-seamless-pattern-223297990">Franzi/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The World Health Organization (WHO) describes <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response">mental health</a> as “a state of wellbeing in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.</p>
<p>In its definition, the WHO emphasises the importance of environment and community for mental health and wellbeing, and that they should be promoted and protected. But the fact remains that mental health and wellbeing are mostly seen as states of individuals. </p>
<p>A different view might start from a sense that wellbeing is social: people need social connections to thrive. But it also means recognising that social institutions and organisations systemically affect <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25595022?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_">health and suffering</a>. Institutional racism and sexism, for example, contribute to suffering in both direct and indirect ways.</p>
<p>Health and illness are at once deeply personal and affected by the social situation of the sufferer. In other words, depending on their circumstances or their place within the society, some people are distinctly at a disadvantage. Being poor, for example, puts people’s health at risk in a multitude of ways. </p>
<p>My work explores the concept of wellbeing in different cultural settings across the world. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108935616">my latest research</a>, I reviewed work by anthropologists who consider the importance of conviviality and care in the communities they study. </p>
<h2>Community and conviviality</h2>
<p>Conviviality refers to the art of living well together. Researchers see it as particularly important for understanding how people in certain small communities strive to live well when state institutions and other organisations are a relatively remote presence in their lives. </p>
<p>Many Amazonian peoples, for example, strive to live well by caring for others in their community, by sharing resources and cultivating particular emotional conditions <a href="https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau5.3.010">such as tranquillity</a>. Close and intimate bonds are created through sharing food; <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.00007">one becomes kin</a> by eating together, or estranged by eating apart. </p>
<p>Until a few decades ago, when many Japanese houses did not have a bathroom, neighbourhood communal baths were abundant. <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/7939">Even now, bathing</a> with friends or family members is not unusual, with the communal bathhouse offering a much-needed space for socialising and reconnecting.</p>
<p>Living well with others requires skilful effort <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-quest-for-the-convivial-city-how-do-ours-fare-90004">in modern cities</a>, especially, perhaps, where neighbourhoods are made up of people of different backgrounds. It also entails figuring out how to live with other species – from animals and plants to even the microbes <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211026124318.htm">living in our gut</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Three people working in a communal garden on a sunny day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446760/original/file-20220216-20-kjfdr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Working together for the greater good brings mental health benefits for everyone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/team-multicultural-workers-caring-plants-vegetable-1897609477">BearFotos/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Care makes us who we are</h2>
<p>In my own research with <a href="http://anthro-age.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/anthro-age/article/view/83">older Japanese people</a> in the city of Osaka, I observed that although caring for ageing relatives is still a strong family value, many older people were worried about growing increasingly dependent and a burden on their children.</p>
<p>They were active in providing care themselves, and looking out for one other in all kinds of ways, from arranging a visit to the dentist to recommending a hairdresser. It became clear that various forms of care worked in interconnected ways: looking after elders and children required looking after mothers, who were often the carers for both. Care, I concluded, is at its best in circulation, continually being “<a href="https://theconversation.com/teens-with-secure-family-relationships-pay-it-forward-with-empathy-for-friends-164298">paid forward</a>” between people in numerous ongoing relationships.</p>
<p>Conviviality and care draw our attention to the fact that wellbeing is not only social, but deeply relational. It is not simply what an individual feels about their life, somehow enclosed within a body. It plays out in the relationship with one’s surrounding environment: with materials, with tools and technologies, with human and non-human beings.</p>
<p>The way we think about these relationships affects others and their wellbeing and health, which in turn reflects on us. Witnessing the suffering of others, for instance, or living in a deteriorating environment, is likely to affect us negatively.</p>
<p>It is not inconceivable that our current <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/357710/next-global-pandemic-mental-health.aspx">mental health crisis</a> is intertwined with our witnessing of <a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-and-mental-health-are-likely-to-get-worse-in-a-warming-world-169547">large-scale suffering and neglect</a> of humans, nonhumans and the natural world. Treating mental health as internal, or as pertaining only to the individual, may be inadequate for addressing these kinds of issues.</p>
<h2>We not I</h2>
<p>How then to think about wellbeing in the context of environmental crisis and rising inequalities? We need to start treating wellbeing as a process of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/process-of-wellbeing/2B13755C28A5F785C47C70795AA509ED">connecting with others</a> – or even a form of “commons”. </p>
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<p><a href="https://iasc-commons.org/about-commons/">Commons</a> refer to resources used <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9655.13183">collectively and shared</a>, like water. Similarly, the emotional or “affective” resources (such as resilience, friendship or care) that promote wellbeing do not merely pertain to individuals, but emerge in relationships, spaces and communities. Unlike scarce resources such as trees or urban spaces, wellbeing and the qualities that underpin it are not finite. Like the care between generations of Japanese families, they thrive in circulation. </p>
<p>A good example <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/cj-2016-0001/html">is hope</a>. Being faced with hopelessness can be trying, while surrounding ourselves with optimistic people might make us more hopeful. In this sense, affective states like optimism can be contagious. Who we surround ourselves with matters. Perhaps it’s time to think of wellbeing as a commons that we must cultivate together: the more it thrives for others, the more it benefits us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iza Kavedžija's research has been funded by the AHRC. </span></em></p>Wellbeing is not just an individual thing, it plays out in relationships with people and animals and even plants and our environment.Iza Kavedžija, Assistant Professor in Medical Anthropology, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692752021-10-21T13:37:41Z2021-10-21T13:37:41ZMilitary postings put strains on Nigerian families: here’s what some told us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425754/original/file-20211011-28-ircxoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soldiers gesture while standing on guard during Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's visit to the Maimalari Barracks in Maiduguri on June 17, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Audu Marte/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Nigeria, military personnel are deployed for internal operations to combat terrorism, armed banditry, kidnapping and other forms of insecurity. This means frequent relocations, and sometimes even international assignments, brings consequences to the families of personnel.</p>
<p>However, there is scant information in Nigeria on how families manage their family, work and time with a breadwinner who is frequently absent.</p>
<p><a href="https://ibadanjournalofsociology.org/IJS/article/view/135">Our study</a> probes the strains and benefits associated with military postings on their families.</p>
<p>Using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and key informant interviews, we obtained data from officers, non-commissioned officers, wives and children of deployed officers in the Nigerian army.</p>
<p>The participants for the focus group discussions consisted of a total of four officers, six other ranks, five wives and five children who willingly took part in the group discussion. A total of four focus group discussions were conducted with six people in each session. </p>
<p>Oral interviews were conducted to complement the focus group discussions data. These participants were interviewed to obtain in-depth information about their experiences, interactions and opinions on the research focus.</p>
<p>The Nigerian military strength was about <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NGA/nigeria/military-army-size">223,000</a> as at 2018. Although the sample for the research was small, we believe the study provides insights into the contextual strains that families encounter. </p>
<h2>Posting benefits and downsides</h2>
<p><a href="https://army.mil.ng/?p=3729">Military postings</a> are regular exercises carried out within the Nigerian army to reinvigorate the system for greater performance. They are also done as part of peace operations nationally and internationally. The length of postings range between six months and two years depending on the mission. </p>
<p>Our findings indicate that military officers preferred international peacekeeping missions to national postings, because they expected to be treated better and earn foreign currency. Participants also reported language and culture gains. </p>
<p>On the negative side, they reported the risks of loneliness, neglecting their homes, infidelity, unmet emotional needs, and worries about their children’s education and behaviour.</p>
<p>Posting in the army – being sent away from home – gives officers valuable military experience and may lead to promotion. A female army colonel we interviewed said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have the advantage of learning the traditions of that particular place and you are able to associate with “new environment”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But deployments take a toll on families as soldiers seldom return to their original base after prolonged posting. And postings are often unplanned.</p>
<p>The family as a system must manage both the absence and the presence of a member. That can be an emotional strain. A major said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then the issue of not being there for the family will also come up. And in that case, you will be at the mercy of God except the wife has been trained and such a woman is very responsible and industrious, or she has good neighbours … at least, if she lacks, she could get things from the neighbours.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A spouse may also have established a business in their former place of posting before the new posting came, and runs the risk of losing the business and customers. Even if the new posting affords new business opportunities, it may take time to build a community of clients. </p>
<p>Some spouses who decide to stay at home and manage their businesses risk communication problems with the absent spouse. </p>
<h2>Care of children</h2>
<p>The study revealed some concern about military barracks as an environment for children. Drug use and unsafe sexual practices were mentioned. One participant said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Leaving your family behind with your wife poses a big challenge because your wife alone will not be able to take care of the children you left behind especially the male child. In this barrack, boys in their tender ages smoke India hemp … Again, educationally, posting could bring setbacks to the education of the children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another participant mentioned the case of a man whose wife had died while he was posted to another location, leaving their children in the care of neighbours. </p>
<p>Most respondents cited the absence of the father and non-fulfilment of his role as a disciplinarian as the reason for a rise in problem behaviour among children in the barracks. This has created a stigma – “barracks boys” are seen by those outside the military as uncultured because their absent parents haven’t socialised them correctly.</p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>The disruptions and strains which can result when army personnel are deployed away from home need a systemic solution.</p>
<p>The first part would be strict adherence to the army manual’s rule governing posting of officers. This would help to create stability in the home and reduce negative effects on families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oludayo Tade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Nigerian military needs a systemic approach to solving family disruptions and strains often caused by personnel deployment away from home.Oludayo Tade, Communication/Security Consultant, Sociologist/Criminologist/Victimologist and Facilitator, University of IbadanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1419612020-08-26T12:21:04Z2020-08-26T12:21:04ZWhat makes Donald Trump and John Wayne heroes of the Christian Right?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354414/original/file-20200824-22-sxb1sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C52%2C3808%2C2467&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters in Miami in January 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2020-Trump/6b51aead35e049ccbda4d9999463d9da/25/0">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>White evangelical support for Donald Trump has long <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-christians-support-trump/613669/">puzzled observers</a>. To many, it seems <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/10/in-revering-trump-the-religious-right-has-laid-bare-its-hypocrisy">hypocritical</a> that Christians who have long touted “family values” could rally around a thrice-married man who was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12">accused by several women of sexual assault</a>. Scholars have commented on his <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169579">crassness</a>, defined by historian <a href="https://www.wisdompage.com/mossbio.html">Walter G. Moss</a> as “a lack refinement, tact, sensitivity, taste or delicacy.” Others have observed how he has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/trump-abandoned-civility-republican-party">broken rules</a> of civil political engagement. </p>
<p>But in my research on evangelical masculinity, I have found that Trump’s leadership style aligns closely with a rugged ideal of Christian manhood championed by evangelicals for more than half a century.</p>
<p>As I show in my book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495731">Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation</a>,” conservative evangelicals embraced the ideal of a masculine protector in the 1960s and 1970s in order to confront the perceived threats of communism and feminism. </p>
<p>Believing that the feminist rejection of “macho” masculinity left the nation in peril, conservative white evangelicals <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2017/01/17/donald-trump-and-militant-evangelical-masculinity/">promoted a testosterone-fueled vision of Christian manhood</a>. In their view, America needed strong men to defend “Christian America” on the battlefields of Vietnam and to reassert order on the home front.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354442/original/file-20200824-24-e1zn4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor John Wayne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/headshot-portrait-of-american-actor-john-wayne-dressed-as-a-news-photo/3225931?adppopup=true">Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Culture has played a critical role in shaping and sustaining this rugged vision of Christian manhood. In fashioning their masculine ideal, evangelicals have drawn liberally on Hollywood heroes – on mythologized warriors like Mel Gibson’s William Wallace in the movie “Braveheart” and on the heroic cowboys and soldiers played by <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495731">John Wayne</a>. </p>
<p>Reflecting the onscreen heroism portrayed by men like Gibson and Wayne, this masculine ideal condoned violence in the pursuit of righteousness and justified a vigorous, even ruthless <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/its-true-christians-should-be-tough-like-jesus">assertion of power</a>. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">exit polls revealed</a> that 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a number <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/november/trump-elected-president-thanks-to-4-in-5-white-evangelicals.html">higher than</a> any other religious demographic. </p>
<p>I argue that the language evangelicals used to defend their support for Trump suggests that they were not <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-stain-themselves-and-their-party-by-sticking-with-trump/2016/03/16/ac7b4d2c-ebae-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html">betraying their values</a>, rather that Trump embodied well the rugged and even ruthless ideal of evangelical masculinity. </p>
<p>“I want the meanest, toughest son of a you-know-what I can find,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/trumps-celebration-of-an-exclusionary-vision-of-freedom/532575/">explained Robert Jeffress</a>, pastor of First Baptist Dallas. In their book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Donald-Trump-Spiritual-Biography-ebook/dp/B071KYZCBL">The Faith of Donald J. Trump</a>,” Trump’s evangelical biographers David Brody and Scott Lamb concurred: Trump would “protect Christianity”; he would be their “ultimate fighting champion.” </p>
<p>With his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/politics/trump-approval-rating-biden-speech.html">poll numbers flagging</a>, maintaining white evangelical support is critical to the president’s reelection efforts. </p>
<p>That support is likely to hinge not on his presumed morality or Christian virtue, but rather on <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/will-trumps-weakness-threaten-white-evangelical-support/">his ability to project rugged strength and masculine power</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>How I do my work</h2>
<p>As a historian, I approach evangelicalism not as a set of abstract theological beliefs, but rather as a historical and cultural movement. </p>
<p>In order to understand American evangelicalism, I surveyed popular evangelical teachings on masculinity, sexuality and family values as revealed not only through sermons but also through Christian radio, film and the Christian publishing industry. </p>
<p>Collectively, books on <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Wild_at_Heart_Revised_and_Updated.html?id=mhbQ4DNT-I8C">Christian</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Bringing_Up_Boys.html?id=AuWdYvNiekYC">manhood</a> have millions of copies, sending the message of an aggressive, testosterone-driven ideal of Christian manhood and affirming the new evangelical identity. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>The relationship between <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/326799.html">evangelical consumerism</a> and formal religious authorities is a fruitful area for further research. More work, too, can be done to explore how <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-i-discovered-true-masculinity/">conflicting ideas of Christian manhood</a> coexist within white evangelical communities and how conceptions of Christian masculinity vary across racial divides.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>I am beginning work on a project that is in many ways a counterpoint to Jesus and John Wayne, tracing the cultural and political ramifications of evolving ideals of white Christian womanhood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Kobes Du Mez received research funding from the Louisville Institute to complete this book project.
</span></em></p>A historian explains the impact of culture and American Hollywood heroes such as John Wayne who have helped fashion the ideal of a masculine Christianity.Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Professor of History, Calvin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824572017-08-17T16:30:36Z2017-08-17T16:30:36ZNew research pokes holes in the idea that men don’t look after their kids<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182074/original/file-20170815-16750-dkx6kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men who had to take responsibility for younger siblings growing up were not concerned about conforming to dominant ideas about manhood.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has one of the highest rates of absent fathers in sub-Saharan Africa. As many as 60% of children in the country under the age of 10 don’t live with their <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/3337/2013febFamily%20Policy.pdf">biological fathers</a>, the second highest rate of absence in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3710932/#S3title">sub-Saharan Africa</a> after Namibia. This compares to one third in the <a href="http://www.fatherhood.org/fatherhood-data-statistics">US</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa’s statistics are influenced by the history of migrant labour. Expropriation of the land of black Africans by colonial authorities, coupled with the levying of taxes, forced men (and later, women) to move to the growing cities to earn an income, while their wives and children stayed in the rural reserves or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3710932/#S3title">“homelands”</a>.</p>
<p>But there are other factors at play too. These include gender norms about childcare and the different roles attached to fathers and mothers. These norms also generally lead to men – even if they are physically present – making minimal contributions to unpaid care and household work.</p>
<p>A large volume of research – including the Centre for Social Development in Africa’s <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/csda/Documents/Absent-fathers-full-report%202013.pdf">“ATM Fathers”</a> – has shown that among both men and women, fathers are widely considered as primarily being responsible for supporting the family financially. These attitudes frequently lead men – or enable them – to sidestep non-financial care responsibilities. </p>
<p>But in a context of <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/jobs-not-grants-only-way-out-of-poverty-says-pali-lehohla-20170807">widespread unemployment</a>, inability to earn an income and fulfil the “provider” role often leads men to <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/csda/Documents/Absent-fathers-full-report%202013.pdf">abandon their children</a>. This leaves women with the double burden of being the sole breadwinner as well as the person primarily responsible for unpaid care and household work. This, in turn, reinforces gender inequality as women have less time to pursue market work, education, leisure and civic life, and are expected to sacrifice their own interests for those of children.</p>
<p>But there are men who choose to be involved fully in the care of their children despite economic difficulty. We have done research into the reasons for this involvement, and the different forms that it takes. The <a href="https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/338575">initial research</a> has been done by <a href="https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/342417">Masters students</a> Manon van der Meer and Hylke Hoornstra, and forms part of my PhD which is due to be published early next year. We also examined men’s attitudes towards gender, and how they define their masculine and paternal identities in the context of caring for children. </p>
<p>We found that a significant number of men are doing this in progressive ways - ‘doing’ fatherhood and manhood in ways that differ from the patriarchal archetypes that sustain gender inequality. Their examples point to the possibility of creating a more gender equal society.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>The first group of men we interviewed were fathers working in low income jobs in Johannesburg – mostly security guards and fast food restaurant staff. All were cohabiting with their partners and children. Almost all emphasised that providing for the family financially was central to their definitions of a good father. Given their low-paying jobs, they were constantly worried about their inability to do this which often led to feelings of inadequacy as a father.</p>
<p>But most men saw their father roles as encompassing more than just financial provision. Almost all spoke of a need to be available emotionally for their children, and to spend time with them. Most also had no problem with performing care work (such as changing nappies, bathing children, helping children with schoolwork) or household work (cleaning, cooking, laundry, and ironing). But importantly, most saw the mother as primarily responsible for this work, only stepping in to help when asked or required. This was frequently related to gendered ideas about competence: that women were naturally more suited to these tasks.</p>
<p>The second group of men we interviewed were receiving a <a href="http://www.gov.za/services/child-care-social-benefits/child-support-grant">child support grant</a> on behalf of their children. The grant is a means tested monthly cash transfer provided to low-income caregivers to support childcare, and has a value of R380 (around US$29). This group makes up only a fraction of those who get the grants – 98% are women according to data provided by the South African Social Security Agency. </p>
<p>Most of the men we interviewed in Soweto had applied for the grant because a female partner had passed away, or because their female partner was not a South African citizen.</p>
<p>Almost all the men were unemployed. Most put far less emphasis on providing financial support. They considered “being there” for their children – by providing love, guidance and protection – a key component of their masculine and paternal identities. </p>
<p>They frequently described taking care of their children, and not abandoning them or being otherwise neglectful, as central to what it means to be a man.</p>
<p>As with the first group, many in the second group also subscribed to dominant gender norms about who should do what in the household. Care and household work were viewed primarily as mothers’ or women’s responsibility. Nonetheless, almost all regularly carried out these tasks, even those who were either living with female partners or who could rely on the support of female relatives - thus revealing a discrepancy between their beliefs and how they behaved. </p>
<p>Most men in both groups spoke about the pressure to conform to social expectations and the sanctions imposed on them if they didn’t. Sanctions could take the form of disapproval when they were seen to be doing “women’s work”. Also, some men who received the child grant said they were seen as “undateable” by women they encountered at the local social grant offices. </p>
<p>All men said they experienced some form of pressure. But some seemed less bothered by it than others. This was particularly true of those who held gender-equal ideas about “male” and “female” responsibility. Men who had always done this work – for example those who were brought up by single mothers, or who had to take responsibility for younger siblings growing up – were similarly unconcerned about conforming to dominant ideas of what it means to “be a man”.</p>
<h2>Doing gender differently</h2>
<p>Fathers in South Africa are often denigrated for being un-involved and neglectful. But this research sheds light on fathers who, despite significant economic and social pressure, choose to remain involved in meaningful ways in the lives of their children, and to incorporate traditionally feminine behaviours and roles into their own masculine and paternal identities for the well-being of their children. </p>
<p>We hope that the research findings will inspire other men to “do gender” differently – for the benefit of their children and South African women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoheb Khan receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>About 60% of children in South Africa under 10 years don’t live with their biological fathers. But research sheds light on those who despite the pressures remain involved in their children’s lives.Zoheb Khan, Researcher, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714972017-01-26T16:28:33Z2017-01-26T16:28:33ZHow the US’s Christian conservatives got back in the political game<p>The demise of the Christian right has been prophesied on numerous occasions, but it’s never come to pass. Far from it: with the Trump administration taking shape, the movement is prepared to take power and exert influence at the top of government as never before.</p>
<p>This was not preordained. In one of the biggest gambles they’ve taken in years, the Christian right’s ageing leaders turned away from presidential candidates more aligned with their politics to strike a Faustian pact with the all-too-worldly Donald Trump. The bet threatened to split the movement, but in the end, it paid off, and Trump now owes Christian conservatives big for turning out and backing his campaign. And if his cabinet appointees are anything to go by, his administration is preparing to pursue an agenda the Christian right has been pushing for years. </p>
<p>Mainly but not exclusively comprised of <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2010/04/14/the-christian-right-and-us-foreign-policy-today/">white conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants</a>, the movement’s stated aims are to defend and advance values threatened by a rapidly transforming society, among them the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RP_GCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT16&lpg=PT16&dq=%22traditional+family%22+evangelical&source=bl&ots=NN2bQcBjM9&sig=NV8GoofQg77Nv0n1K8CM3Oy-nWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVjsHa2N3RAhVmLMAKHY23BesQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">traditional family</a>”, prayer in schools, small government, and fiscal conservatism. It stands opposed to pornography, promiscuity, abortion, LGBT rights, and the long-mooted equal rights amendment, designed to guarantee equal rights for women.</p>
<p>Rather than pursue its ends as an outside pressure group, the movement organised itself into a political force, getting behind the Republican Party in particular. Its leaders and footsoldiers helped secure Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential victory, and its agenda has played a key role in American politics ever since. Around 26% of the US electorate <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/01/27/faith-and-the-2016-campaign/">self-identify as white evangelicals</a>, and their votes are now a crucial part of the Republicans’ electoral coalition. </p>
<p>In recent election cycles, though, the connection between the movement and the party has frayed. While the presidency of conservative evangelical George W. Bush was a high point for the Christian right, no bona fide conservative Christian Republican candidate has attracted overwhelming support from the movement, which has no single recognised leadership or formal structure. </p>
<p>Instead, white evangelical Republicans have ultimately backed the candidate they felt had the greatest potential of defeating a Democrat. In 2008, <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Mike_Huckabee.htm">Mike Huckabee</a> was rejected for John McCain; in 2012, Catholic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-is-santorum-losing-the-catholic-vote/2012/03/09/gIQAyDud1R_story.html?utm_term=.33eb7f434ed7">Rick Santorum</a> and Conservative evangelicals <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzONeK1OwQ">Rick Perry</a> and <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/27/michele-bachmann-as-evangelical-feminist/">Michele Bachmann</a> were rejected for Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Both nominees were defeated by Barack Obama.</p>
<p>The same dilema was presented in 2016. Conservative Christian voters had to get behind a candidate who could defeat their longtime bête noire, Hillary Clinton, while remaining at least sympathetic to their views. As in previous races there were strong conservative evangelical candidates on offer, in particular Ted Cruz, who had a <a href="https://www.frcaction.org/scorecard">100% voting record on values issues</a> in the Senate and who won the straw polls taken at the <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/ted-cruz-wins-values-voter-summit-straw-poll">Values Voter Summit</a> three years in a row. </p>
<p>But for all his impeccable evangelical credentials, Cruz was and still is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/why-dc-hates-ted-cruz/426915/">enormously disliked</a> even by most Republicans for his perceived cynicism and grandstanding; John Boehner, former speaker of the House of Representatives, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/28/politics/john-boehner-ted-cruz-lucifer-stanford/index.html">described</a> him as “Lucifer made flesh”.</p>
<p>This left an opening for Trump, at least at the top of the movement. Despite his flamboyant lifestyle, dubious business background and predatory misogyny, he was nonetheless backed by key figures within the Christian right who identified his potential surprisingly early on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.liberty.edu/media/1617/2016/january/PresidentFalwell-DonaldTrump-Introduction-00.pdf">Jerry Falwell Jr</a>, a key movement figure, summed up their rationale:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For decades, conservatives and evangelicals have chosen the political candidates who have told us what we wanted to hear on social, religious, and political issues only to be betrayed by those same candidates after they were elected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Realising this would be a two-way street, Trump courted the movement from the outset. </p>
<h2>A relationship with Him</h2>
<p>He positioned himself as a Christian, albeit one who had never found the need to ask God’s forgiveness. In his 2015 book <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Crippled-America/Donald-J-Trump/9781501137969">Crippled America</a>, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think people, are shocked when they find out that I am a Christian, that I am a religious person. They see me with all the surroundings of wealth so that they sometimes don’t associate that with being religious. That’s not accurate. I go to church. I love God, and I love having a relationship with Him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump made all the right promises: to restore, cherish and protect the nation’s Christian heritage, to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, and to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/how-trump-is-trying-to-put-more-money-in-politics/493823/">repeal the Johnson Amendment</a> which prohibits tax-exempt organisations from endorsing political candidates. <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/full-text-trump-values-voter-summit-remarks-227977">He told Values Voters</a> at their 2016 summit that: “There are no more decent, devoted, or selfless people than our Christian brothers and sisters here in the United States.”</p>
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<p>Trump also brought Christian right leaders formally into his campaign, setting up an <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-evangelical-executive-advisory-board">evangelical</a> and <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-catholic-advisory-group">Catholic</a> advisory bodies and filling them with movement stalwarts. Above all, he chose as his running mate Indiana Governor <a href="http://religionandpolitics.org/2016/10/10/the-christian-worldview-of-mike-pence/">Mike Pence</a>, a leading campaigner for value issues who describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order”.</p>
<p>Not everyone was pleased. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/donald-trump-has-created-an-excruciating-moment-for-evangelicals/?utm_term=.7939dbc98532">number of prominent evangelicals</a> worried that dallying with Trump would fatally damage the movement’s credibility, given his chequered past and his attitudes towards Mexicans, Muslims and women. This opposition grew with the release of the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-trump-tapes/503417/">Trump Tapes</a> revealing his predatory attitude and actions towards women. But none of this seriously diminished the resolve of Trump’s evangelical backers, who were content to <a href="http://time.com/4560074/religious-right-donald-trump-election/">stay the course</a> in pursuit of worldly power. </p>
<p>In the end, white evangelicals came out to vote in greater numbers than ever before, and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">81% of them backed Trump</a> on November 9.</p>
<p>Trump clearly intends to return the favour, and is already appointing <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/6-interesting-facts-about-ben-carsons-christian-faith-138786/">leading</a> <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-religion-232150">religious</a> <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/23/trump-s-epa-pick-blends-conservative-christianity-with-anti-environmental-activism.html">conservatives</a> to key cabinet posts. As far as the organised Christian right is concerned, it doesn’t get much better than this. Their movement is back, bigger and bolder than ever. In <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/full-text-trump-values-voter-summit-remarks-227977">Trump’s own words</a>: “And you believe it. And you know it. You know it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Marsden receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Christian conservative leaders gambled on Donald Trump, and it paid off in spades.Lee Marsden, Professor of International Relations, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/460112015-08-12T20:34:26Z2015-08-12T20:34:26ZWhat really lies behind conservative opposition to same-sex marriage?<p>Prime Minister Tony Abbott has <a href="https://theconversation.com/abbott-delivers-to-the-conservatives-on-same-sex-marriage-but-at-what-cost-45977">effectively ended</a> any chance of same-sex marriage in this term of parliament. Public opinion in Australia is in <a href="http://www.crosbytextor.com/news/record-support-for-same-sex-marriage/">clear support</a> of same-sex marriage. So how have opponents had so much success in blocking change?</p>
<p>Prominent arguments against same-sex marriage have been based on history, tradition, human rights, and social scientific research into health and welfare. The role of religion in opposition has been less explicit.</p>
<h2>Religion, history and tradition</h2>
<p>The influence of religion on sexual politics in Australia is central to the current marriage debate. This government is the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coalition-celebrates-a-religious-easter-eight-of-19-cabinet-members-are-catholic-20140419-36xn4.html">most religious</a> in more than a generation. And the leading anti-equality lobby groups are all backed by religious organisations.</p>
<p>But in recent marriage debates, it has been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EHYwKfV7tY">supporters of same-sex marriage</a> who have been most explicit in enlisting religious support for their cause. Except for claims that marriage equality would impinge on religious freedom, religion has been conspicuously absent from anti-same-sex marriage arguments. </p>
<p>Silencing the religious basis of their politics is a logical strategy for same-sex marriage opponents. Australia is one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-australia-a-secular-country-it-depends-what-you-mean-38222">most secular</a> countries in the world. The fastest growing category of religious identification in Australia is <a href="http://blog2.id.com.au/2012/population/australian-census-2011/2011-australian-census-how-have-our-religions-changed/">“non-religious”</a>. So, arguments explicitly grounded in religious beliefs will have little traction.</p>
<p>Arguments based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/wong-bernardi-debate-puts-four-myths-about-marriage-on-show-44509">history and tradition</a> are also becoming increasingly untenable. Supporters of same-sex marriage only need to highlight recent changes in marriage – such as the removal of the colour bar and the acceptance of gender equality in marriage – to show that marriage is not a timeless, unchanging institution. These case studies show that changing marriage can be a good thing.</p>
<h2>Human rights and social science</h2>
<p>With religious and historical arguments becoming a liability, opponents to change have deployed the ostensibly secular language of family values and child rights in support of their position.</p>
<p>The recently formed <a href="http://www.marriagealliance.com.au/">Marriage Alliance</a> is a leading Australian anti-same-sex marriage lobby group. This week, it screened a controversial television advertisement which depicts same-sex marriage as an iceberg with the slogan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not as simple as you think.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Marriage Alliance’s TV ad.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://australianmarriage.org/its-not-marriage/">Australian Marriage Forum</a> published a similar advertisement in The Australian on Monday with the blunt headline:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s. Not. Marriage.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91545/original/image-20150812-18068-1eju7xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Marriage Forum</span></span>
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<p>These campaigns have a common two-fold strategy. They suggest that the status of opposite-sex families will be somehow changed by the acceptance of same-sex marriage. And they suggest that children’s welfare and rights will be negatively impacted by being raised in same-sex households.</p>
<p>In short, they are claiming that same-sex marriage is a threat to Australian family values and to Australian children.</p>
<p>The campaigns have emotional force because they raise big questions without providing answers. They also beg some other important questions. Whose family values? And the rights of which children?</p>
<h2>Whose family values and whose rights?</h2>
<p>In some respects, the focus on family values is a distraction. Lesbian, gay and bisexual people already form families and have children.</p>
<p>Continuing to ban same-sex marriage won’t prevent these families from forming. And allowing same-sex marriage in Australia will not introduce new relationships or new child-rearing arrangements. It would, however, provide public recognition and support for existing same-sex relationships and families.</p>
<p>The arguments about marriage equality undermining children’s welfare and rights are more insidious. The Australian Marriage Forum ad compares children raised in same-sex families to the <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/sorry-day-stolen-generations">stolen generations</a>, asking: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Which future prime minister will have to apologise to the Motherless Generation?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is despite social research not having provided <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-families-with-same-sex-parents-the-kids-are-all-right-42605">evidence</a> that children raised in same-sex households are less well-off than those raised in opposite-sex households.</p>
<p>By using the language of children’s rights, they are invoking powerful human rights discourse. However, gay parenting is clearly not in contravention of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">UN Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>. They are, in effect, proposing a <a href="http://www.family.org.au/journal/AFAJournalV32_No2_PRESS.pdf">novel human right for children</a>: the right to a mother and a father. This is a right that is impossible to guarantee. </p>
<h2>Children’s rights or parent’s rights?</h2>
<p>By invoking the language of children’s rights, the anti-same-sex marriage movement has opened itself up to critique. Its main organisational backers – Christian right lobby groups – have historically been some of the most trenchant opponents to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.</p>
<p>The Christian right opposed the children’s rights movement because, they claimed, it undermined the family. The aspect of the family that children’s rights undermines, in particular, is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/1999/28.html">parental control</a>. The Australian Marriage Forum ad reiterates that they oppose the “usurping of parental authority”. </p>
<p>There is a manifest tension here. The Christian right’s ostensible concern with child rights is subordinate to their agenda of maintaining parental authority. For example, they claim that same-sex marriage will inhibit parents’ ability to prevent children accessing information about sexuality and sexual health that might sit uncomfortably with their parents’ religious and moral values. </p>
<p>This example makes it clear that the arguments against same-sex marriage based on family values and children’s rights are only ostensibly secular. They are attempting to hide religious and moral arguments in the Trojan horse of health and human rights discourse.</p>
<p>Supporters of same-sex marriage do not hide the religious or moral basis of their campaign. They articulate their position as a moral case for social justice.</p>
<p>Religious and moral arguments on both sides of this debate should be made explicit. The religious foundation of the anti-same-sex marriage movement should come out of the closet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy W. Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Prominent arguments against same-sex marriage have been based on history, tradition, human rights, and social scientific research into health and welfare. The role of religion has been less explicit.Timothy W. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/438152015-06-25T11:54:45Z2015-06-25T11:54:45ZNew push to protect ‘family values’ is a brazen attack on human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86376/original/image-20150625-12998-13hh7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Get real.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=14352295993616663000&search_tracking_id=rgcofCWy_TF-4-akvWKw3g&searchterm=mother%20father%20child%20hold%20hands&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=199539548">Vinogradov Illya via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once again, the Human Rights Council has been hijacked to promote the agendas of states who are trying to undermine the very same human rights the UN is supposed to protect. </p>
<p>A recently circulated draft resolution on “<a href="http://www.ishr.ch/news/protection-family-resolution-increases-vulnerabilities-and-exacerbates-inequalities">protection of the family</a>” looks likely to be passed by the council, even though the text clearly plays into the hands of countries trying to make it legitimate to oppress individuals based on their gender or sexual orientation. </p>
<p>The states sponsoring and supporting this text subjugate women with national laws and fail or refuse to protect the basic rights of LGBT people, never mind offering them equality. And once again, these countries are cynically using the UN’s main human rights body to undermine international human rights.</p>
<p>There has long been a push to use the council to “protect the family” and to promote “traditional values”, but those efforts have been ratcheted up many notches over the past year. Despite those efforts being repeatedly exposed as cynical and pernicious attempts to undermine the rights of women and LGBT people, the current council session has already seen more steps towards this deeply political goal.</p>
<p>Protecting the family sounds like a perfectly benign objective; we like to think of families as safe and warm social units to be nurtured as much as possible. The problem, of course, is what counts as a family – and therefore, what exactly is being protected.</p>
<h2>All shapes and sizes</h2>
<p>These are not questions the backers of this resolution are keen to engage with openly. Families, of course, come in all shapes and sizes. They include heterosexual and homosexual couples with or without children, single parents, foster parents, grandparents, and endless other combinations of people. </p>
<p>This is a crucial and yet unanswered question in the text. Indeed, while the UN has institutional language that explains that families come in many different forms, the drafters of this resolution have refused to include those definitions in the text. The assumption they want to impose, of course, is that “the family” is a heteronormative unit of two parents and their (preferably biological) children.</p>
<p>One irony is that many of the states involved in drafting this resolution, despite being conservative Muslim or Christian countries or criminalising homosexuality, have many citizens who do not conform to these “traditional” notions of the family. Many of their citizens’ families have complicated divisions of labour, depending on grandparents, children or non-relatives to be primary carers while parents seek work far away from “the home”. </p>
<p>And all of the sponsoring states are host to single parents, who would not naturally meet these conservative criteria for family.</p>
<p>Even if those issues were addressed between now and the draft resolution being finalised there remains another seemingly insurmountable issue: the use of the family as a site for continuing abuses and subjugation of individual members.</p>
<h2>The sum of their parts</h2>
<p>On the surface, protecting the family looks like a good thing for human rights. Families of all kinds can provide social and economic structures and support to protect their members, protecting and upholding their individual rights. But that, of course, is not always the case. </p>
<p>Many countries’ laws ensure that the family perpetuates <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/IDF2015/backgroundnote.pdf">gender inequality</a> and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/women-decry-lebanon-domestic-violence-law-2014327115352486894.html">other human rights abuses</a> – and even outside of those states, there are families where abuses are rife and rights are undermined by that institutional structure. UN human rights experts have long pointed to the family as a site for violence against women and children, as well as continued subjugation of vulnerable individuals.</p>
<p>The question is which is more important: the family, or the individuals who make it up? The family’s existence wholly depends on individuals, but the reverse is not true. The UN Human Rights Council has a mandate to protect individuals’ rights, not the rights of social institutions, but that is of course irrelevant to states that view it as a forum for promoting their own agendas – particularly when those agendas seek to undermine the whole premise of individual human rights.</p>
<p>Plenty of other self-serving conservative moves have gotten through the council in recent years. During the council’s early years, from 2006, it was used as forum for Muslim states who wanted to limit freedom of expression by establising a so-called <a href="http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/AllSymbols/AFE565E9560973C9C1256C93004A41E0/$File/G0215272.pdf?OpenElement">right against religious defamation</a>. In 2009, Sri Lanka <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/27/us-srilanka-un-rights-idUSTRE54Q5XP20090527">managed to secure a resolution</a> enshrining its sovereign right to deal with domestic issues without interference – even though the “domestic issue” in question involved <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/sri-lanka-tamils-subjected-to-horrific-abuse-after-2009-civil-war-says-report">the slaughter of tens of thousands of Tamils</a> by Sri Lankan state forces. </p>
<p>More recently, attempts to protect human rights defenders have been derailed by oppressive regimes who successfully won the right to <a href="http://www.ishr.ch/news/human-rights-council-28th-session-adopts-5-resolutions-significance-human-rights-defenders">block any NGO</a> from participating in an HRC forum for any reason.</p>
<p>Little wonder, then, that the council is being used as pawn to shore up an absurdly specific and highly conservative definition of the family. It remains to be seen who will stand up to this mendacious effort.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosa Freedman receives funding from the British Academy and from the Society of Legal Scholars</span></em></p>A bloc of conservative countries is mounting a new push to enshrine “family values” in the UN’s Human Rights Council. What they really want is rather more sinister.Rosa Freedman, Senior Lecturer (Law), University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.