Via Orcinus:
Lawmakers look for ways to keep moms at home to strengthen families
Task force blames breakdown of traditional family for social ills
Rep. Steven Thayn and his wife, Sherry, raised eight children on their family farm. She stayed home, and they home-schooled several of their children before eventually sending them to local schools.
Thayn said more two-parent homes and fewer working mothers could be both a social and economic boon. The Emmett Republican sees the breakdown of the traditional family structure as the root of societal ills such as drug abuse, crime and domestic violence.
That's why, as chairman of the Idaho House of Representatives' Family Task Force, he and others are considering controversial solutions such as repealing no-fault divorce laws and finding ways to encourage mothers to stay home with their children.
Thank you, Rep. Thayn! The breakdown of society is all women’s fault, eh? Not the fault of the stupid white men who’ve been in charge of everything since, oh, well, forever? There are women clamoring to stay in bad marriages, eh? If only women couldn’t get divorced everything would be so much better, eh? Hey, Rep. Thayn: fuck you.
But it gets better:
The six-member task force was convened this year by Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney and has been meeting with the lofty goal of finding solutions to what they see as the decline of the Idaho family. Controversially, the group is using the typical family of 1950 as its benchmark, though Thayn says it's simply a baseline and not a suggestion that families were perfect in 1950.
I’m sure it goes without saying that their benchmark “typical” 1950s family is white. I think the black or Native American family experience in 1950 was considerably different from what these Idaho legislators are investigating. Just a guess.
I always wonder when this mythic yesteryear was, where women happily lived in servitude to their husbands and families. Memo to Rep. Thayn: “Leave It To Beaver,” “Donna Reed” and “Father Knows Best” were television shows! They were fiction! It wasn’t real.
I love men, and I especially love men who love for women to be free to pursue their lives as they see fit. I do not love the regressive legislators who are convinced we women would be happier and the world would be better off if only we did what we were told.
Face it, Reps. Thayn and Denney, the genie’s out of the bottle. Deal with it. Women will go back into the kitchen when it’s their choice, not some legislated mandate by a bunch of whiny-ass men who want their dinner on time. And I hope the good voters of Idaho know enough to drum these knuckle-dragging troglodytes out of office first chance they get.
[UPDATE]:
From Jack, in Comments, a few residents of Idaho have made their displeasure known with some strongly worded letters to the editor.
