The Vow Bachmann and Santorum Took

You probably have heard about it. It's a vow to go along with a rather extremest traditional-patriarchal-marriage guys in Iowa, and Bachmann signed it. Santorum appears to have agreed to it, too.

The initial version of the vow started like this (click on the pfd on that page):

Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order – as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture, by Classical Philosophers, by Natural Law, and by the American Founders – upon which our concepts of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend.2
Enduring marital fidelity between one man and one woman protects innocent children, vulnerable women, the rights of fathers, the stability of families, and the liberties of all American citizens under our republican form of government. Our exceptional and free society simply cannot endure without the transmission of personal virtue, from one generation to the next, by means of nurturing, nuclear families comprised of sexually-faithful husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. We acknowledge and regret the widespread hypocrisy of many who defend marriage yet turn a blind eye toward the epidemic of infidelity and the anemic condition of marriages in their own communities. Unmistakably, the Institution of Marriage in America is in great crisis:
 Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African- American baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President.3

Well, you can imagine how well that disgusting reference to slavery as being beneficial to African-American families was received. So the new version of the vow removed the slavery reference.

But all the rest of the fun was left untouched! Thus, we are told that women will be protected by not letting them become subject to the shariah law! And by not being allowed to participate in military combat roles! Protection of the innocent fruit of conjugal relations AND of women requires fighting abortion, which is lumped together with such evils as sexual trafficking. Also, tax policies, welfare policies and divorce laws must be changed to protect the traditional patriarchal marriage. That will protect innocent women and their fruits, too.

Then there is this bit about those marital fruits:

Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial
health and security. 20

It must be code! What on earth does robust childbearing mean? Tough giant women squatting down to give birth while hoeing the potato fields? I doubt it. It probably means that women should be encouraged to have many children. Some writers have suggested that this is code for the Quiverful movement which requires women to maximize the number of children they can deliver. What the women themselves think does not matter.

Indeed, this is the problem of everything in this vow if you read it carefully. Women are resources to be protected, just as children are to be protected. The protection, however, is not supposed to come from laws and the government (which the vow wants to see much diminished) but from....?

hmmm