Program Details
So what makes a family? Is it a shared last name and a place at the head of the table for Dad? Or is it a bond that doesn’t involve a marriage license? Kanab, Utah has adopted a resolution defining the natural family, and as a result people within the state—and even the nation are focusing on Kanab. The Utah NOW team traveled down South to get answers, and to flush out the bigger issue, what makes a family?
In our “Speak Out Utah” segment we debut a new editorialist, Enid Greene, talk show host on AM820 and former U.S. Representative.
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* Fatherwork.BYU.edu Learn about generative fathering. Fatherwork provides stories, ideas and activities to encourage generative fathering, which this site defines as attaining a favorable balance of creativity, productivity, and procreation over stagnation and self-absorption. * WhatsUpWithKanab.com What’s Up With Kanab?!? believes the family resolution flies in the face of hundreds of years of an American tradition that celebrates privacy, diversity, and the freedom to determine the course of one’s life. Read articles, blog or even sign a petition to ask the city of Kanab, Utah to overturn resolution. * SutherlandInstitute.org The Sutherland Institute is an independent, non-profit, public policy group that seeks lasting solutions to community problems. With a primary focus on education, poverty, and family, they recognize the family as the fundamental unit of society. * ContemporaryFamilies.org The Council on Contemporary Families is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the national conversation about what contemporary families need and how these needs can best be met. * Read The Natural Family: A Vision for the City of Kanab (.pdf) * Read Sutherland Institute’s Resolution on the Natural Family (.pdf) Utah NOW is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.
Transcript
[Doug Fabrizio, Host]
There’s a big issue making its way through the small Southern Utah city of Kanab. Residents and business leaders are adjusting to the fallout over a resolution passed by the city council in January…. It’s mostly a statement that expresses support for an ideal version of the American family.
Some support the ideas behind the resolution – others have called it small-minded and exclusive.
People throughout the country – meantime - are working out the questions raised by Kanab’s statement – how important is a family to the structure of any society, is the family in jeopardy – and by the way – just what is a family…
[Fabrizio]:
Good evening…and welcome to Utah NOW.
If you’re in Kanab Utah there are really two things going on with the recent controversy over a city-council resolution that defines the natural family.
There’s the resolution itself – the political or social statement it makes - you know - what it actually says about the family - and then there’s the effect of the resolution – what this at-times fierce debate over a statement of principle has done to this small town in Southern Utah…
[Narrator]:
Every year the Kanab city lion’s club holds an Easter egg hunt… it gives you a chance to get a glimpse of the makeup of this small Southern Utah community – at a glance - a collection of traditional families… Family is an important watchword for the city leaders – in January at the mayor’s urging – the Kanab City Council became the first local government to adopt a resolution drafted by the conservative Sutherland Institute. The resolution does more than just support the notion of a natural family – it defines it.
[Kim Lawson, Mayor, Kanab, Utah]:
Kanab has always been based upon those traditions, and that is our heritage. That is what makes Kanab strong and attractive to most people who come here today. Because of the jeopardization of the family unit, and because of the intrinsic values of marriage and of the natural family as the fundamental unit of society in the resolution, that’s why I forwarded the resolution to the city council.
[Narrator]:
But the language in the pronouncement has ignited a controversy – in Kanab and elsewhere. The resolution stakes out the family as the fundamental unit of any society and in somber terms it lays out the standard.
It reads - "We envision a local culture that upholds a marriage of a woman to a man, and a man to a woman, as ordained by God. We envision young women becoming wives, homemakers and mothers, and we envision young men becoming husbands, home-builders, and fathers.
Matt Livingston, a Kanab High School Senior – was just one of the Kanab City residents to react to the resolution.
[Matt Livingston, Columnist]:
I think moral support, kindness, love, respect for each other - I think that’s what you define your family upon…I don’t think he really looked at the way single mothers and people like that would respond to this thing. I don’t think he really saw they would take offense.
[Narrator]:
The controversy has focused a lot of attention on a community that relies on tourism for its economic health. There have been cancellations and calls for boycotts – the city paper and Tourism Board have received hundreds of emails.
Victor Cooper owns ‘The Rocking V’ on Main Street. He’s trying to sooth angry travelers by creating window decals that emphasize everyone is welcome in the city.
Cooper says the resolution has forced residents to take sides.
[Victor Cooper, Owner, The Rocking V]:
If you believe that a family, a large family is it, and that is the true way, and a man and a woman is the only marital unit you recognize…that’s your personal belief. But when you put the name of the city of Kanab on that document and stamp it, you’re in a different category. And that’s what they’ve done, and I think it’s a huge mistake.
[Lawson]:
As I read the natural family resolution I saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. Obviously those with different mores and backgrounds and value systems did. The thing that’s disconcerting to me is that this is for Kanab, Utah. I realize the universal aspects and implications that people draw from this, but really I am not interested and do not have a responsibility other than to those of Kanab, Utah.
[Cooper]:
I think it’s not the city’s job to tell us, you know, even what their ideal of what family really is. Their job is to see that we have proper sewer, that we have curb and gutter, that city services are provided. And this town has a long way to go in that area. And I think a lot of us, my wife and myself included, say, “Do your job! Work on what you’re supposed to work on!”
[Livingston]:
A few city council meetings ago, one member stood up and said he didn’t care if every member of Kanab, every citizen, asked him to rescind this he would keep his vote. And I think that’s where the city council is a little bit confused. I think they’re confused first about what this proclamation is saying and second their commitment to this community which is to represent the citizens which elected him.”
[Lawson]:
As far as espousing and continuing and reestablishing the family proclamation, I would do it again, yes. Without hesitation. Because it is non binding, it is an ensign, it is a standard, it is an ideal, it is a vision…and people can accept or reject that.
[Fabrizio]:
For his part Paul Mero says the residents of Kanab should be proud that they are standing for something. Mero – is president of the conservative Sutherland Institute – and a co-author of the natural family manifesto – from which the city council resolution was drafted. Mero says the resolution is a public policy document that states what he says is the obvious – that there are social costs related to the breakdown of the family. Earlier we spoke with Mero – he said the debate in Kanab is a reflection of a larger national question about the condition of the American family...
[Paul Mero, President, The Sutherland Institute]:
I just firmly believe that family structure is infrastructure and local governments ought to address this broad idea of family structure, especially as it regards the social costs relating to the breakdown of family structure.
[Fabrizio]:
You talk about social cost. What is it you were saying when you drafted the manifesto and the resolution? What is it in particular that really caught your eye, that made you think, we need to make a statement about this?
[Mero]:
Yeah, maybe the key to understanding the resolution or the motive behind it in policy terms is just the growing welfare state. It's assumed now that if my family has a problem then government will step in and use you and your tax dollars to help solve my family's problems. And the merits of that can be debated one way or another, but the reality is that the welfare state and that obligation using government coercion to take care of our neighbors rather than using voluntary civil society to take care, that that obligation through the state means that we have to take a look at family structure and the breakdown. There are social costs related to it. You have single mother households, and in the aggregates, statistics show that they struggle and that the rest of us pay the price for that struggle. Now, that's not a comment on whether that's good or bad, it's just saying it's a reality.
[Fabrizio]:
So why not comment on whether it's good or bad? Why not say, this is right, this is wrong? This is right behavior, this is wrong behavior. And I’m talking about the things that would be excluded from the natural family. As you draw it up, gay unions, for example, people who Get married who choose not to have children, they would be outside of the natural family, people who choose not to marry. There are groups that wouldn't be. So why not say this is wrong, this is right?
[Mero]:
Because it's not about right and wrong. In policy terms it's about better or best or worse and worst. Public policy really doesn't deal in the rights and wrongs of issues. It really deals in what's better or best for the greater good of society. And so that's why we don't get into the -- the resolution doesn't get into who is right, who is wrong, who's bad, who's good.
[Fabrizio]:
But you have to confess that's how people are taking it. People are reacting to it as this feeling left out of this world view of family when they regard themselves as legitimate families. Do you regret that?
[Mero]:
What I regret is the difficulty that people have in separating public policy from their private lives. I wish I could communicate better that concept, but that's exactly what's happening. The resolution was sent to elected to officials, not to private households. It wasn't saying your household needs to be this way or that way. It was sent to elected officials because it's public policy, and it was asking elected officials to consider the social and community impact of the breakdown of the natural family structure.
[Fabrizio]:
So you say that the American family, the family social structure is in danger. Do you think that's the case?
[Mero]:
Yeah, I do. Especially outside of Utah. You know, in Utah we still have 63% of all households with two-parent male-female families. You know, that's astounding in this day and age. Utah is doing something right and we just think that reinforcing that good example by considering and then passing this resolution would be a great thing.
[Fabrizio]:
How much, Paul Mero, is this motivated by efforts around the country to get gay unions passed? How much of this is a reaction to that in particular?
[Mero]:
I know critics will say otherwise, but nearly zero.
[Fabrizio]:
Really?
[Mero]:
Yeah. You know, again, I just don't know how more plainly to say this. There are social costs related to the breakdown of the family. And by the breakdown of the family, the breakdown of family structure, in the aggregate, empirical evidence is overwhelming showing that when you have a male-female, two-parent household, communities are better, women are better, and children are better.
[Fabrizio]:
Let me ask you this, finally. How do you define success, the process of writing the manifesto, drawing up a resolution, passing it out to communities throughout the state? How do you define success, when does it work, in your mind?
[Mero]:
Success occurs when there is a full debate on the resolution and the ideas underlying the resolution. Our institute exists for that complete constructive dialogue. Sometimes it's difficult, you know, sometimes everybody gets a little edgy, including me. But success is measured by a constructive dialogue and a broadly constructive dialogue.
[Fabrizio]:
Okay. Paul Mero, thanks very much.
[Mero]:
Thank you.
[Fabrizio]:
If you go beyond the natural family document itself – beyond the particulars of any one community – you begin to see how big this question is – and how much is at stake for American culture.
Just what is the importance of the family in the social structure of any community and what happens if you begin to draw the boundaries more broadly…
Joining us now is Kim Korinek – she’s an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Utah. Her work deals with the issues of marriage and family… Professor welcome… Also with us is David Dollahite… he’s a professor of Family Life at Brigham Young University…. And David Dollahite welcome to you…
[Kim Korinek, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Utah]:
Thank you.
[David Dollahite, Ph.D., Professor, Family Life, Brigham Young University]:
Good to be with you.
[Fabrizio]:
Let me get you both to start off by reacting to what you're hearing in the controversy of Kanab, how this -- what this says, I guess, about how this issue is playing out and in Utah and around the country. Professor?
[Korinek]:
I would say, first of all, that I’m not surprised at all at the controversy that it has created I think if you look at the diversity of family forms and the natural family that's proposed and the resolution really represents about one-tenth of the population at large. It's not surprising to me that people are reading this as maybe an assault or an insult on different types of families.
[Fabrizio]:
Did you expect that?
[Dollahite]:
Uh-huh, yeah. I think it shows how sensitive and complex familiar issues are, that everyone feels very strongly about your own family and families in general and in the culture we now live in there is a lot of diversity of family life and a lot of diversity about family life and it's deeply held.
[Fabrizio]:
I want to ask you your impressions about the history of family, I guess. It seems as though the image that the mayor has of family, mom, dad, kids, is this in fact the traditional image of family historically throughout the history of human civilization, for example?
[Korinek]:
I would stay that it captures maybe a small segment of time and if you look at U.S. history and particularly add to your description it's not just mom and dad and kids but I think it does advocate for a pretty strict division of labor in that household, more of a bread winner father and a mother that stays home and takes care of the kids. And that is characterized a limited portion-- of the population and segment. There's been a lot of diversity in how people form families in the U.S. and across the world and a lot of that is not -- it's impacted by the outside forces in society. Economic pressures, changes in the culture, and I think it captures a pretty limited time period and segment of the population.
[Fabrizio]:
How do you see it?
[Dollahite]:
I see that the vast majority of human beings throughout all history and all cultures have wanted to have children, have wanted to have a close membership with a member of the opposite sex. I think it's been the vast majority of humanity has had a mother, father, child family and, yes, in terms of many cultures have extended family connections are much more important than the American families more nuclear. And the state of Utah is fairly unique, traditional. I think 60% of the families in Utah are based on the marriage of a man and a woman and that marriage welcomes children and they feel very strongly about marriage, very strongly about the importance of having a society built on the fundamental foundation of marriage between a man and a woman. So I think it's much more prevalent, I think certainly there are more alternative families coming now, but I think the vast majority of people still want to marry and have children and hope to have a long-term committed marriage.
[Fabrizio]:
What what's the trend, do you think? Is it away from a tradition the image of family? Because clearly the people of Kanab, the city council people and the mayor were reacting to something. What is the trend that you see?
[Korinek]:
There's certainly a trend and an increase in single parenting, both single father and single mothers as parents. There's an incredible increase in the percentage of women that are working outside the home when they have young children so relying upon different family members, on paid child care. So that is definitely a trend that is occurring. I would differ as to whether that is the source of all of our social problems or if it's those adaptations are in part a result of social changes.
[Fabrizio]:
Maybe the question is better put: not just trend, but is the family in danger? How do you see that question?
[Dollahite]:
Well, marriage has been in steep decline for the past four decades and a lot of data indicate that a lot of people are having a lot of family challenges, a lot of kids are struggling, a lot of – the Kanab resolution was trying to set out an ideal that kids tend to do better in two-parent married families and the data are overwhelming in support of that. There are hundreds of research studies done by folks that are just trying to understand the social world, and the data indicate that kids on average do better if their parents are married and stay married and that that's -- from my perspective having an ideal, that society ought to, that children and youth and adults ought to try to strive for a long-term marriage as the basis of the family and as a basis of society is a very healthy thing.
[Fabrizio]:
Do you think that when you talk about the structure – I mean, how important is – you say I think that maybe this is too simply thought. That it's more than just we're not looking deeply enough at what may be the problem. Do you think that's right?
[Korinek]:
I think so. I mean I think we need to look at what's going on outside of families and what are the sources of the strains that many families are experiencing. The fact, that it's very difficult for any one individual to earn a living family wage for a family so that has led people to work the 60-hour workweek instead of the 40-hour workweek, it's brought women into the work force. So I think our ideals within the family have changed significantly. There is more of an emphasis on negotiating roles and more differences, more tensions, and defining those rolls within family as opposed to having a pre-established set of ideas. I think thinking about those outside social pressures on families are part of the sources of problems that are pulling families apart, and that may maybe looking at public policies that have not adapted as quickly as they could to help families through conflicts that lead to divorce, through problems that lead to children's delinquency and that sort of thing. So thinking about family life, family medical leave that that's unpaid leave in the United States as in many countries people are able to take time off of work to take care of families. So thinking about how public policies do impact what goes on in families and social transformations.
[Fabrizio]:
Do you agree this is a little bit more complicated than the way it's being stated in a resolution and I wonder if you find the natural family resolution in Kanab helpful in this conversation.
[Dollahite]:
I think Kim’s right. There are a lot of stresses on family life, a lot of pressures, a lot of challenges. Families face many more of these than perhaps in the past. In my view at least there's nothing better than a strong marriage and a happy family to help people to face those stresses. And it's certainly true that many families struggle with issues coming from outside of the family. Unemployment, you know, major changes in the economy certainly affect families. But from my perspective it is the business of law to set up ideals. We say that, for example, if you want to encourage homeownership then you do things in the tax structure to try to encourage people to try to work hard to afford their own home because the evidence shows that tends to be helpful for families. I think it's the same way in social policy. Having laws and policies that that have an ideal and the resolution focuses on a marriage between man and woman as the ideal, I think it's good to have those ideals in states and cultures where same-sex marriage is now legal, those societies now teach fairly confused and I think flawed view of what marriage and family should be. And little kids in elementary school are being taught about family forms as if there's no difference between ...
[Fabrizio]:
If you have an ideal, what's the point of an ideal if it's not a reality? Just laying out an ideal if it doesn't really reflect what's really going on. And clearly in Utah society, I would expect in American society that the vast majority do belong to this idea of the natural family. But what happens to those outside of that, at least in the conversation about how we get them engaged in society?
[Dollahite]:
Well, the data suggests that people that are not married on average that the vast majority want to have a happy marriage, even those that have not had a successful first marriage, most don't want to stay unmarried they want to try again, they want to be married. So I think the ideal is something that most people actually have as an ideal and I think it's good for society to hold that ideal so that people will work hard to try to move that direction.
[Korinek]:
I think we need to talk about some of the sort of glaring over when we talk about averages between married and single and divorced people. I think if we look at a bad marriage it's worse for children to be growing up surrounded by conflict, by violence, by abuse between their parents. That has worse -- that has more negative outcomes upon those children than to go experience a divorce and maybe live with parents who are more cordial even though they're separated. So I think not just talking about the averages, and I think that the ideal in talking about the ideal it's very difficult to do that without marginalizing it and placing the ideal at the top of a hierarchy and the people who I believe the text of the resolution that this is sort of -- this natural family is the sort of focus or the foundation of the common moral good. And I think that by implication says that people are sort of creating social problems and are inferior when they're maybe struggling for reaching that ideal but they haven't reached that. And I think the negative vocabulary and the negative imagery that it brings up only creates more problems for those families.
[Fabrizio]:
Why are we so drawn to an ideal of the family? Why are we so compelled to this notion of the natural, of the ideal family, do you think?
[Dollahite]:
I think people want to be family and they're looking around in a society that's changing and pretty chaotic. They're looking around for some answers and anchors and family provides that and faith provides that for many families. In terms of the ideal I agree there are many families that are less than ideal, there are married families that are not ideal but I believe we ought to talk about the ideals about the way people relate to each other, the way they treat their children, the way they solve issues. That will not be the -- and to hold on to marriage as an ideal, then I think the society is in deep trouble.
[Korinek]:
I think there's problems with the ideal. I would say that if we look back and if we're talking about a traditional family that hasn't always been a perfect family, I think that the bread winner or homemaker family involved a division of labor that not everyone was happy with. We had a lot of problems with to domestic violence, we had economic dependency of women and they were not always happy with that arrangement. So I think the ideal is interesting because it's something we can debate about.
[Fabrizio]:
Okay. Thank you very much.
[Korinek]:
Thank you.
[Dollahite]:
Thank you.
[Fabrizio]:
And now – in our “speak out Utah” section – former U.S. Representative and radio talk show host – Enid Greene is trying to strike a balance between the ideal and the reality…
[Enid Greene]:
I've just returned from a neighborhood’s mass migration to the beach for spring break. Usually when I travel it's just my daughter and me but this time we were in a house with five other families. There's more than one divorce in our group and our particular caravan consisted of nine females, a three-year-old boy and one man that was worried people would mistake him for Warren Jeffs. Now, I love the ocean, but I’d go on this annual trip even if it was to Sugarhouse Park because it gives my daughter a chance to be part of a huge, albeit temporary, family with lots of kids and enough adults to keep track of everybody on their boogie boards and their trips to the local 24-hour doughnut shop.
One dad knows all the best tide pools, another backs our rented suburban into our tiny garage--because I’m afraid I’ll snap off the mirrors and he used to have a limo company. One of the moms is a real card shark but has the patience to teach the newcomers, and one aunt is the finest space engineer I’ve ever seen and always can find room for one more suitcase. Each of these families have challenges too, some pretty big ones, but each is coping and searching for solutions like all of us.
So besides being grateful for my daughter and me to be included, I’ve thought a lot about family this week, a lot. I believe in tradition the families despite my own divorce, but what should government do and not do to strengthen them. I think the government should give parents tax breads for their kids, and not tax people more when they marry, as the federal government did for years-- I think the Salt Lake City Council was right and Rocky Anderson was wrong when the Council figured out a way to extend health insurance to more people. I think that the legal definition of marriage between one man and one woman is appropriate despite my great great grandfather’s eight wives. But, with respect to my friend Paul Mero, I think the Sutherland Institute resolution being passed in Kanab has caused more pain than progress. Many of us who support traditional families don't have one. And we're keenly aware of what we're missing. I want my government to enact clear statutes that support marriage but I think the editorializing should be left to other groups in society—whether churches or think tanks. So I’ll still vacation in Kanab and still continue to think the traditional family as the ideal. But life is messy and doesn’t always work out like we plan, and official government pronouncements should recognize and respect that too.
I'm Enid Greene. Thanks for listening.
[Fabrizio]:
Finally tonight - time for a few comments…
On our program last week about immigration – Don Nash from Murray sent this:
“Let's face it, the Mexican people are here and they should not have to leave or explain their presence. The immigration issue is really about slavery…”
Jim Kirkland from Magna says…
“A Mexico with an economy on par with the U.S. would not only reduce the flow of immigrants, but would enable Mexico to buy more U.S. goods as a major trading partner and neighbor. Wasn't this the supposed promise of NAFTA?”
And Judith Williams of Orem says she agrees with Tom Barberi’s comments about undocumented workers – “They want to be a part of the united states,” she writes “yet (they) continue to wave their Mexican flags. . .they demand their rights. What rights? They aren't citizens so they have no rights.”
[Fabrizio]:
That’s Utah NOW for this evening…thanks for joining us…Remember you can join the conversation with an e-mail our address is UtahNOW@kued.org We may read your comments on air or even invite you to read them yourself. In the meantime - we’ll be back next Friday with another edition of Utah NOW… until then, I’m Doug Fabrizio.
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