Ann McLane Kuster Quotes
I believe in less government interference in people's personal lives, including whom to marry, when and whether to bear a child and how to raise kind and compassionate children.
Kuster, Ann McLane. "The 'War on Women' Is Real." HuffPost, 26 Apr. 2012.
In 1905 President Roosevelt supported a Pure Food act. Business interests opposed it with such arguments as:
This was an amazingly controversial quotation. At first glance it seemed like a typical position that a very conservative, anti-government politicization might take—the government should not interfere with a parents bringing up their children. However, there was a more ominous part of the quotations. While everyone in America would certainly agree with Paul that the Government does not “own” the children, there are few who would agree with the point that follows—that the Parents “own” the child. Paul reveals the normally hidden aspect of his politics—that he is highly influenced by the extreme, Biblical Literalist Fundamentalist Christians and Jews. In the Old Testament, the Father really did OWN the child. The latter was his chattel. A father had the legal and duty-bound power of life and death over his children. Most American Christians and Jews have long since abandoned the literal biblical notion of children being owned by a father and today see a child as a person who can sometimes need the protection of the state just like any other citizen. And there are occasions where the child must be PROTECTED from the parents who may be acting within their fundamentalist notions of Biblical rights and duties, but not with their civil rights and duties. Ownership, of a child is not one of the modern civil rights of parents.
Ann L. McLane Kuster is an American politician, author and attorney serving as the U.S. Representative for New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a lobbyist and nonprofit consultant from Hopkinton, New Hampshire.
