That Sound You Hear Is My Mirthless Laughter Reverberating Through the Multiverse

[Content Note: Misogyny; Christian Supremacy.]

He seems neat:

A so-called "historian" who Glenn Beck hired to teach at his online university insisted this week that women had originally been denied the right to vote "to keep the family together," and for the good of "the entire culture and society."

On the Thursday broadcast of Wallbuilders Live, David Barton explained that biblical principles — and not sexism — were behind not allowing women to vote prior to 1920.

"So family government precedes civil government and you watch that as colonists came to America, they voted by families," he said. "And you have to remember back then, husband and wife, I mean the two were considered one. That is the biblical precept… That is a family, that is voting. And so the head of the family is traditionally considered to be the husband and even biblically still continues to be so."

Barton argued that in the time since the women's suffrage movement succeeded in the United States, "we've moved into more of a family anarchy kind of thing."

Which, y'know, might be an indication that the whole "keeping the family together" by treating women as property of their husbands wasn't working out so well for women.

Barton then went on to note that the reason for denying women the vote wasn't misogyny; oh no of course not. It was just a good old-fashioned respect for the family unit: "[T]he bigotry we're told they held back then, they didn't hold."

So, if it indeed wasn't misogyny, and women were satisfied with this arrangement in which families were "kept together" by denying women agency and political influence, I wonder why it is that Barton imagines that giving women the vote "weaken[ed] the family" and harmed "the entire culture and society."

I guess we just don't understand politics! Silly women.

In conclusion, Barton asserted that denying women the right to vote was necessary for "a strong culture, a strong society, and it was based on a strong family that preceded government. And they crafted their policies to protect a strong family."

So, it's not misogyny, but the only solution to stopping this complete breakdown of the family—by which he means women's autonomy, marriage equality, no-fault divorce, reproductive rights, and the usual aggressions on white male ownership of people—is denying women the vote. Cool math, bro.