Conservatives have long invoked family values to promote wedge issues and win elections, but the implications of family values on our politics and society run far deeper than campaigns and elections. In the new video that the Rockridge Institute is releasing today, George Lakoff examines the extraordinary influence of James Dobson on parenting in America. He also discusses progressive and conservative conceptions of family values, and why progressives must overcome the conservative dominance of this subject.
For far too long, organizations that advocate a conservative family model, most notably Focus on the Family, have grown in strength and influence. Few progressives have found effective ways to challenge them, or even recognized the need to provide a progressive account of family values. (Moms Rising is one recent move that looks promising.) We hope that this new video will help to spark discussion among progressives about what the family means to us and how we can become advocate for policies that serve our vision of family values.
We would like to thank Tim and Michael of Made Green Sustainable Filmmaking for all of the work that they contributed to this video. Their ideas, skill, and diligence helped to create something that we hope you will find informative and useful.
After you watch the video, you can click the "share" button on the video, if you would like to send a link to a friend. Alternatively, you can go to the video on YouTube and use the information that YouTube provides to link to or embed the video on your blog or website.
I welcome your suggestions for organizations and websites that might be interested in this video as well as your ideas for future videos.
Written by Evan Frisch, an employee of the Rockridge Institute, who blogs as evan_at_rockridge at the Rockridge Nation blog, where this is cross-posted.