In a recent speech, Attorney General Barr decried “illegitimacy,” “licentiousness,” and “the wreckage of the family.”
In a speech at the University of Notre Dame a few weeks ago, one of the most powerful men in the nation declared himself a victim. Attorney General William Barr proclaimed that he and his fellow Catholics who are adherents of the “traditional Judeo-Christian moral system” are under attack by “militant secularists.”
“Secularists, and their allies among the “progressives,” have marshaled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”
In an article in the New Yorker, “William Barr’s wild misreading of the first amendment,” Jeffrey Toobin called the lecture “the worst speech by an Attorney General of the United States in modern history.” It was, he said, “historically illiterate, morally obtuse, and willfully misleading.” Noting that religion is thriving in the United States, Toobin explained that Barr is claiming “the mantle of victimhood in order to press for a right-wing political agenda.”
Barr described several laws and practices he regarded as assaults on religious freedom. But what he really wants, Toobin noted, is a free pass for businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Like Betsy DeVos, Barr would also like the government to subsidize religious schools.
Barr Wasn’t Advocating Religious Liberty for All (Including Atheists), But Only for Ultra-Conservative Catholics
Within days, Faithful America, “the country’s largest online community of Christians putting our faith into action for social justice,” filed a complaint against Barr. The complaint, sent to the Department of Justice, noted that:
“What was presented as a defense of religious liberty for all Americans quickly became an attack on the religious freedom of everyone except conservative Christians.”
Barr did not even win the embrace of all Catholics. Some of his own Catholic justice department employees were dismayed. Liberal Roman Catholics, such as Fordham University theology professor C Colt Anderson, said that Barr was demolishing the wall between church and state.
Why Unmarried Americans Should Be Particularly Concerned by Barr’s Agenda
Barr ended his speech by vowing that as long as he was Attorney General, he would lead the efforts against the secularists. There are several reasons why unmarried Americans should be particularly wary of Barr’s agenda.
1. Barr Is Especially Brutal Toward Unmarried Parents and their Children
After claiming that secularism and moral relativism are on the rise, Barr described what he saw as the grim consequences of that ascendance. Here are the first few paragraphs:
“Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground.
“In 1965, the illegitimacy rate was eight percent. In 1992, when I was last Attorney General, it was 25 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. In many of our large urban areas, it is around 70 percent.
“Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic.”
All this moral chaos, he later adds, is what we have brought upon ourselves. These societal ills are “the overall social costs of licentiousness and irresponsible personal conduct.” The proper antidote to “illegitimacy,” Barr insists, is “sexual responsibility.”
The problems?
First, Barr is sliming the children of unmarried parents by calling them “illegitimate.”
Second, in the world according to Barr, unmarried parents who have children are not doing so because they want them. Instead, they are sexually irresponsible and licentious.
Third, to Barr, having children without being married is not a way of creating family, it is a leading cause of “the wreckage of the family.”
Fourth, he is engaging in the marriage fundamentalist practice of associating all sorts of social problems with families headed by parents who are not married. (These are very popular claims. I’ve critiqued them, and pointed to other critiques, in this collection of articles and in this very brief book.)
2. Barr Mocks Collective Action and Wants Us to Just Focus on Our “Personal Morality” Instead
In Attorney General Bill Barr’s worldview, “collective action to address social problems” is not a virtue. It is itself a problem. He doesn’t think we should be trying to “signal our finely-tuned moral sensibilities by demonstrating for this cause or that.” What we should be doing instead, he tells us, is “focusing on our own personal morality.”
Barr is not about to eschew far-reaching social action himself. He is at the helm of the department tasked with enforcing the laws of the land as they apply to some 329,000,000 Americans.
3. That Wall that Should Exist Between Church and State Is Especially Consequential for People Who Are Not Married
Barr wants to tear down the wall between church and state; some of us at Unmarried Equality would like to see it reinforced. I, for one, would like the federal government to stop providing benefits and protections only to people who are officially married. If religious groups want to celebrate marriages, that’s up to them, but marriage should not be a criterion for eligibility for federal perks and protections.
4. Unmarried Americans Tend to Be Less Religious
Barr has a big problem with people who are not religious. Among the religious, he favors people like him – conservative Catholics. Unmarried Americans are less likely than married Americans to be religious. And, people who are atheists or agnostics are less likely than Catholics to be married. They are also less likely to be married than evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Mormons, or Jews.
I think there are other reasons to be wary of Barr, but I have focused here on the ones of particular concern to Americans who are not married.
[Notes: (1) The opinions expressed here do not represent the official positions of Unmarried Equality. (2) I’ll post all these blog posts at the UE Facebook page; please join our discussions there. (3) For links to previous columns, click here.]
About Bella DePaulo
