At 2021 O.C.. event, JD Vance said divorces after unhappy, 'even violent' marriages 'didn't work out for the kids'
At a 2021 event hosted by a private Newport Beach high school, future Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said that after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, children suffered when their parents divorced, even when the marriages were unhappy or “maybe even violent.”
Vance, the author of the 2016 bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” told the crowd at the Orange County event that his grandparents did not divorce despite an “incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways,” and said that some couples now see marriage as a “a basic contract, like any other business deal.”
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace,” Vance said. “Which is this idea that like, well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally — you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them, and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.”
He added: “And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages. And I think that’s what all of us should be honest about. We’ve run this experiment in real time and what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”
Vance spoke at an event hosted by Pacifica Christian High School the year before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. David O’Neil, Pacifica’s head of school, confirmed to The Times that the school hosted Vance off campus as part of a community speaking series. He said the event was not a fundraiser.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-09/jd-vance-orange-county-high-school-pacifica-divorce-marriages-dave-min-scott-baugh