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Nov. 16, 2022 - Straight White American Jesus
06:14
It's In the Code Ep. 28: Children Need a Family

We often hear Christians, cultural conservatives, and conservative politicians appeal to the family, and particularly the need for children to have families. Why do they say this? Would anyone disagree with it? When we crack the code of this language, do find more going on that the simple affirmation that children need and deserve adult caregivers who love them, care for them, and want them to thrive? In this episode, Dan argues that when we crack this code, we find that this sentiment is primarily about the family at all. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Axis Mundy Axis Mundy You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
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Hello and welcome to the series It's in the Code, part of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller.
I'm professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College, and I am the host.
And as always, as I say, this is a part of the larger podcast Straight White American Jesus, which is offered in partnership with CAP Center UCSB.
And I think all of you who listen, all of you who listen to the ads that I know we all love so much, but that revenue helps keep us going, all of you who are patrons and support us financially, all of you who email me with great ideas and comments and feedback on this series.
I've said before, I'll say it again, I'm going to keep the series going as long as people keep letting me know that it's communicating with them, it's resonating with them, and the ideas keep coming.
And you can reach me at Daniel Miller Swag, DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
Would love to hear you, love to hear the comments, love to hear the ideas.
As always, I apologize that I simply can't respond to all the emails I get, but I do try to respond to as many as possible.
And then finally, before diving in, we are just a few days away from our first live event in Denver this coming Friday night, the 18th.
Again, you can still check out live stream tickets if that's the way that you would like to do that.
If you're going to be in the area and you want to go in person, we would love to have you.
Great lineup.
We've talked about it a lot.
I've talked about it here.
We've talked about it in the weekly roundups and on the other weekly show.
And so I don't want to belabor all of that, but just to let everybody know that that is coming.
So diving into the topic for today, I want to take a look at a theme that touches on some of the issues, some of the other themes and issues that we've talked about in this series.
I think it's still distinct.
It also, I'm recording this episode right after the midterms.
It didn't turn out the way that many of us thought that they would, and I'm personally pretty relieved by that.
But in the prior episode, looking at a notion I think was relevant to the midterms, and this notion is too, this is a notion that we are going to hear about when we hear arguments about school boards, and we hear arguments about books that students should be reading, and it's going to come up on the campaign trail.
It comes up in discussions about Medical issues and different things.
It touches on so many topics.
But it's basically this notion.
And there are sort of two versions of it.
One is more coded and the one is sort of less coded.
The more coded version is just when people say, you know what?
Children need a family.
They need a family.
It's important to protect the family because children need a family.
OK?
The less coded message, of course, is that children need two parents.
And we'll get into this in the coding as we go along and untangling these, but those are the two main ideas that I'm thinking about.
Children need a family or children need two parents.
And if we hear the first claim, why do I say that that's the more coded one, children need a family?
Well, I say that because if you're not familiar with it, if you're not familiar with the cultural code that's being expressed here, if you're not familiar with the religious code that's being expressed here, it seems absolutely benign.
Who would disagree with that?
And I've had people, as always, this idea is not coming from me.
It's coming from others.
I've had others who hear this and get really upset.
I've had others, though, who say, man, I hear this all the time.
And like, it seems like a pointless statement.
Like, who would disagree with that?
Or my friends who disagree with me politically or religiously or culturally or whatever, they're always saying stuff like this, that children need a family.
And I'm like, who are you arguing with?
Nobody's ever said that they don't need a family.
It sounds Completely benign.
Who doesn't think that children need adults in their lives, caregivers in their lives, who love them, who care for them, who meet their needs, who want them to flourish?
Of course, children need families.
If that's what we meant by family, that's all we meant.
There'd be no problem.
There also wouldn't be a reason to run around saying children need families, right?
But when a certain kind of Christian says this, and folks, when you hear this, children need families, again, it's usually not just any random person saying it, it's usually going to be a Christian person saying it.
That isn't what they mean by family, and that's the issue.
When you start decoding this, it comes down to what kind of family is in view, and even more importantly, what that imagined family tells us about the whole vision of what society should be like, how it should be structured, how it should be set up.
That's what's at issue with this.
And that's why I say that that second formulation is less coded.
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