A Republican state legislator in Texas is proposing a bill that would incentivize home-buying, but only for heterosexual parents in the state who have never been divorced and who have four or more children.
The bill, authored by Rep. Bryan Slaton (R), would offer a 10 percent discount to parents on their local property taxes for every child they have. Caveats to his proposal, however, reveal that the bill is aimed at promoting far right, Christian nationalist values.
Slaton’s bill explicitly states that it only applies to couples composed of one man and one woman — and only if their children are born through narrowly-defined “natural” means.
Single parents would not be allowed to apply for the tax credit, and parents who have a child who was born before they got married would not be able to use that child to qualify for the benefits.
Parents with three or fewer children in their households would not qualify for the credit, and the bill forbids parents from applying if they have previously been divorced. Heterosexual couples who adopt a child after they are married can qualify for the tax reduction, but same-sex couples who do so cannot.
The bill would provide a 100 percent discount to married, heterosexual couples who have 10 or more children, as long as the children were born after the couple got married and neither member of the couple has ever been divorced.
Aside from being blatantly discriminatory, the bill has the potential to discourage people in abusive relationships from leaving their partners, as there could be significant financial consequences for doing so.
Slaton, a former minister who has authored several anti-LGBTQ bills during his time in the state legislature, has quoted passages from the Bible to promote the proposal. The bill “will start saying [to qualifying couples]: ‘Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply,'” he said in a tweet.
Slaton has also said that the legislation is modeled after laws in Hungary and Poland that benefit large families. Notably, both of these countries are currently led by right-wing, Christian nationalist governments.
This isn’t the first time that Slaton has promoted Christian nationalist ideals. One of his former interns, for example, has previously called for the public execution of drag show attendees.
Critics of the bill have noted that it comes as Texas is severely restricting options for people experiencing unwanted pregnancies — in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned abortion protections in Roe v. Wade last summer, the state has banned abortion in almost every circumstance.
“While this bill may seem like it’s just a friendly tax break for good, ‘all-American’ families, it’s actually yet another coordinated and thought-out attack on any type of family who doesn’t adhere to ‘right-wing’ values,” wrote Katie Garrity, a contributing writer to Scary Mommy, a parenting website.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.