Family Foundation of Virginia

Time to get to know one of our enemies.

Jimmie Massie, who’s running for the 72nd District in the Virginia House of Delegates, was formerly a director of something called the Family Foundation of Virginia. Considering how influential in Virginia government they are, or are trying to be, it’s a shame so few are aware of who they are or what they do.

The short story is that they are a right-wing advocacy (nee lobbying) group whose “mission is to strengthen the family,” which seems to be by repeating the word “family” as often as possible. The long story is that they want to create a new governmental structure that legislates morality, intruding in every aspect of a person’s life, according to their ostensibly religious views (going as far as calling(pdf) interest charges a “clear violation of Biblical principle”).

What’s particularly funny is that when you read their issue stances, it reads almost like a libertarian group’s with at least two references to being free from “intrusive” or “excessive involvement in the lives of citizens.” Legislatively, it’s very different. They want to limit access to whatever can be deemed “obscene,” a position they’ve already lost many, many times in the courts. But they insist on actively fighting against an adult’s choice to access what interests him or her. They’ve declared jihad on pro-choice groups, which is not surprising. They push for what they call “school choice” which is nothing more than a radical program of slashing the money available for education by cutting taxes for those who remove their kids from public education.

Same-sex marriage has never been a major campaign issue until recently, when public opinion started to turn closer to approval. Inevitably it will become more and more accepted. Because of this, the Family Foundation has been trying to legislate pre-emptively for the future, with the successful passage last year of the horrifyingly discriminatory Marshall-Newman Amendment to the constitution which outlawed same-sex unions, denying a broad set of rights to gay people that straight people get to enjoy. However, it also had some effects many who voted for it didn’t understand. It restricts partnerships, even heterosexual, and individual powers of attorney, inheritance, insurance, etc. It has been widely speculated that by disposing of such powers, it opens the door to removing protection of unmarried people from domestic violence.

But their main focus now is an attack on what is called “no-fault divorce,” that is, the right for any partner in a marriage to terminate it. If the Family Foundation has their way, both partners must agree to the divorce. There are some exceptions, but so far they have only been for violent abuse. Based on their marriage discrimination amendment mentioned above, it is unclear whether they even believe in this exception (as their issue paper(pdf) on the issue makes no mention of exceptions) and that this was just a compromise. Since it has been shot down already, they’ve further compromised by including expanding the exceptions to include mental and verbal abuse, but it’s still nowhere near acceptable. The fact remains that they insist on legislatively removing freedom and trapping people in what could easily turn into loveless, unhappy marriages. They would even give the more financially well-off partner the sole dissolution power as the other would not have the means to procure a lawyer to find the necessary loopholes, in essence making one partner, usually the woman, a sort of hostage.

This is all radical, even theocratic, activism that must be stopped and stopped now before more of our freedoms are taken away.

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