All Policy is Family Policy

All policy ought to be geared toward a world where families can form and flourish.

Frank DeVito is an attorney currently serving as counsel at the Napa Legal Institute. His work has previously been published in several publications, including The American Conservative, The Federalist, The Claremont Review of Books, and First Things. He lives in eastern Pennsylvania with his wife and children. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily his employer.

Aristotle claims in Book I of the Politics that man is not a creature meant for isolation, but is by nature a social or political animal. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the “family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society . . . the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.”

These two fundamental truths — that the human person is not meant to be alone but in community and that the first community in which man exists is the family — form the foundation of the case that must be made for re-establishing family policy as the political priority. Without families that are intact and stable, that beget and educate children, and that together form larger communities, there is no possibility of a thriving society. All politics should aim at the good of the family, for the good of society.

Yet, “family policy” has become a niche area where social conservatives, mostly Christians, are expected to talk about abortion, marriage laws, and perhaps child tax credits. However, if politics is about the good society, and societies are necessarily made up of families, all policy ought to be family policy. To the extent we fail to articulate political policy positions in their relation to the good of the family, we miss an opportunity to reframe political issues in a good and much needed way.

Conservatives need to get better at messaging and telling stories. Katy Faust, founder and president of the excellent nonprofit Them Before Us, is a perfect example of reframing policies through compelling messaging. Faust has spent years fighting to explain that IVF hurts children because those lab-created children will never know their biological parents and that same-sex “marriage” hurts children by intentionally depriving them of at least one of their biological parents.

Faust’s work has been an amazing effort to reveal that opposition to these issues are, at their core, about opposing policies that favor the stronger person (the adult making the choice) over the weaker person (the child who has no choice). Such messaging work is necessary to reframe social conservative positions as objectively good and necessary for families and children, rather than mere preference and advocacy for personal religious beliefs.

I recently came across the American Family Project, a DC-based nonprofit with the following bold and laudable mission statement:

What the country needs is a programmatic legislative agenda recognizing the family, the union of husband and wife for their mutual benefit and the procreation and education of children, as the single greatest contributor to the cohesiveness of our social order and the nation; more important than GDP growth or power projection overseas.

Indeed, the most important priority for the nation to thrive is strong, stable families. These family units, properly supported by good policy, raise the next generation of leaders, workers, and citizens. As goes the family, so goes the nation.

How can we make family policy great again? How can we avoid making this a niche issue for a few Christian legislators, think-tanks, and magazines to discuss amongst themselves? Can we bring family policy into the mainstream discussion? Of course, it starts by articulating the first principles: without strong families, there can be no healthy society.

In terms of messaging particular policies, conservatives need to broaden the scope of the conversation and introduce into the public square the concept that family policy does not mean merely a few social conservative pet projects. All policy is family policy.

Though conservatives do not tend to talk this way, they should. Foreign policy is often discussed somewhere between “stop spending American dollars on endless forever wars that do not serve the American interest” and “make the world safe for democracy.” Even foreign policy should be rearticulated around the family.

If America restrains its foreign policy, members of the armed forces will only be deployed in situations where there is a real American safety interest. That allows families to once again consider it prudent and patriotic for their children to join the military. It is hard to ask families to sacrifice their children for military service when those children are being sent to fight the wars of other nations, wars that many families do not believe America should be involved in at all.

An America that is strong but is not the world police force is a safer place to raise families. A strong military defense coupled with foreign policy restraint means foreign enemies keep their distance but are not provoked to escalate needless conflicts. Wars are also expensive. Fewer wars is better for the budget, which needs to be seriously addressed if we are to pass on a solvent nation to our descendents.

The border crisis is another clear example of family policy. An open border, coupled with an out-of-control asylum process, has flooded this country with unvetted non-citizens. This is not the way to create a society that promotes the creation of strong, stable families. When a Venezuelan prison gang is able to use the asylum system to come to America and quickly grow a gang presence in at least sixteen states, terrorizing citizens and taking over apartment complexes, there is a dire problem.

We cannot have gangs and other unknown people illegally crossing our border and occupying our nation. To make a safe place for American families to thrive, to build community, to raise children, we need control over who comes into the country. At the end of the day, not only is the border a family policy-issue — it is a pro-life one.

“All policy is family policy” is not just a tool to reframe current GOP policy positions, but ought to be a lens through which we should reconsider every aspect of policy. Everything from tax and budget priorities, to immigration, foreign policy, manufacturing, trade, and tariffs should be viewed with an eye towards what it will mean for the American family and the raising of children. Our very existence as a society and a nation depends on the extent to which we prioritize a culture where people want to form stable families and are able to do so.

America needs to use its wealth and power for the primary purpose of its government: to promote the common good. The best way to promote the common good is to enact policies that foster a society where families can form, remain stable, raise and educate children, and thrive as the primary unit of a healthy community. Conservatives need to revisit every area of policy in light of the family. All policy is family policy, so all policy ought to be geared toward a world where families can form and flourish in peace.

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