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PSC candidate’s wife says she chose ‘homemaker’ job

By Debbie Ingram

Published: July 10, 2008

Jennie Chancey supports her husband’s bid for public office, but from a biblical and historical perspective, she doesn’t think she necessarily has the right to vote for him.

Instead of “one man, one vote,” she believes in “one household, one vote.”

Among her writings on her Web site, Ladies Against Feminism: “Should women vote? Yes! Here’s the point: Every woman does vote, whether or not she physically pulls the lever or puts the paper in the box. A wife casts her vote every time she discusses the issues of the day with her husband.”

Some women might prefer a more tangible sign of their vote.

Jennie Chancey is married to Matt Chancey, who faces Twinkle Cavanaugh in the GOP runoff Tuesday in the Public Service Commission president race.

Jennie Chancey clears up her views by saying she does vote.

“I don’t oppose women voting,” she said. “All I am taking is a historical viewpoint. I am not a revolutionary saying, ‘Let’s go back.’ I am just saying let’s stand back and think.”

Matt Chancey gives voters cause to stand back and think also, based on the manner in which his name is thrown around numerous religious blogs and Web sites.

Chancey is associated with Doug Phillips of Vision Forum Ministries, and a leader of the patriarchy movement, which embraces the biblical teaching that men lead the households and women take a more submissive role.

Jennie Chancey manages a busy household consisting of eight children. She homeschools the oldest four.

Chancey says he is “good friends” with Phillips and has been for some time. He says he does not believe in everything Phillips believes. Some of the Chanceys’ writings are published on the Vision Forum Web site.

Jennie Chancey concluded one article with: “I am simply overwhelmed with gratitude for a husband who cherishes my role and does not seek to pull me out of it to supplement his income or take over his God-given role. I am a blessed woman ...”

And, Matt Chancey says, a strong woman.

“My wife is a homemaker,” he said. “If you practice this, you are dubbed weird. What is weird is, most people drop their kids off at daycare every day. It is not weird to be a homemaker. A woman can be whatever she wants to be, except a homemaker. People say, she is ‘only’ a homemaker, or ‘she doesn’t work.’ I am married to a working woman.”

Jennie Chancey does not believe in the divided household idea, whereby she and her husband could vote differently on an issue, thereby canceling each other’s vote. Just as politicians are elected as representatives of the people, Chancey views her husband as the decision-maker in the household, but that doesn’t mean her views aren’t heard.

“I am totally for women having an opinion. My husband and I talk constantly about the issues. I am not that family doormat. The issues we approach are from a very scriptural viewpoint,” she said.

Chancey, who co-wrote the book “Passionate Housewives Desperate for God,” thinks it silly that her writings could affect her husband’s bid for office, but Troy University-Dothan political science professor Richard Martin says the spouses of candidates do affect voters’ views, depending on how different they are and how vocally they are expressed.

“In most instances, the intensity of the effort — and if the effort meshes with the general public attitude — is what matters most. And it is different in different regions,” Martin said.

“In this part of the state, if there is a strong emphasis on biblical, the spouse might get more attention than in other parts. It could be positive. It could be negative.”

Martin said voters want to know if the candidate is able to separate personal opinion from work. Is Chancey open to women in the workplace?

He says yes, since he has worked under women, over them and beside them for years.

The candidate in Matt Chancey asks what their personal lifestyles has to do with sustainable energy and regulating public utilities.

While their ideas are not mainstream, Martin said the Chanceys’ views do not have to align with the general public.

Jennie Chancey said her views are not that far from constituents’.

“This is really a mainstream way of looking at things — especially in the South where men open doors for women,” she said. “You can call me ‘old-fashioned’ if you like. It all depends on how you define mainstream. If mainstream is homosexual marriage, then I am more than happy to be labeled old-fashioned.

“If telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers is mainstream, then I am most definitely old-fashioned. I don’t like the feminist movement dictating to me what is mainstream and what is acceptable for me as a woman.

“Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path. It’s highly ironic to me that I am encouraged to think for myself unless I think differently from mainstream feminists,” she said by e-mail.

Reader Reactions

Posted by ( Grace ) on July 14, 2008 at 7:05 am

“Only some freaky fundie right wing nut job would even utter that women shouldn’t vote. Or that working is a sin.“

This isn’t necessary; I agree with Cynthia on that.

Jennie, by and large, thinks women shouldn’t vote, unless they are the head of their household through widowhood, and perhaps even incapacitation of the husband, but I’m not sure on that one. She believes in one household, one vote, and that should go to the man.

In this day and age, to teach that principle to wives is asking for trouble, because Jennie is allowed to vote, and could double her household vote, and if they have children over 18 living with them it could be tripled, quadrupled, etc..

So I have to ask why, if she is permitted by law to vote, that she doesn’t, because this belief played out in huge numbers nowadays means probable loss of elections for them. And the only answer I can come up with is she really believes it would be a sin for her to cast a vote. Even if she does just what her husband tells her to do.

On working, it is working outside the home that is the sin. Jennie believes women should work, but for wives to be employed outside the home means they are blaspheming Scripture, because she is sure all women who do this are neglecting their husbands and children. I disagree.

And she thinks wives can’t be serving two masters, so if a woman works outside the home, it is a sin for her to be under a boss’ authority. Again, I disagree. That concept is just simply not in Scripture. When Jesus said you can’t serve two masters, he was talking about serving God and money. But that goes for men, too. And we have to remember that we are all to be subject to multiple authorities—if in school, our teachers, our bosses, our law enforcement officers, the government, the elders at our churches, so Jesus could not possibly have meant that a person was to never have more than one authority in his life at a time. What He was saying is you can’t have more than one ultimate master, who is the despot, in your life, at a time.

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Posted by ( CindyGee ) on July 13, 2008 at 12:33 pm

“ The rest of the country is laughing at Jennie.“

And, “Cerebral”, that’s a shame. Everybody should be able to believe as they choose without being laughed at.
My only point was that if people do have views that are “out there”, they ought to be willing to let the voters know about them, should they choose to run for public office, BUT, such scrutiny (and even criticism or denouncement as being cultic) is not the same as ridicule.

That being said however, I’d like to point out that being a fundamentalist does not automatically equate to being an extremist nut or a cult follower. A fundamentalist, strictly speaking, is someone who believes the fundamental, historically orthodox doctrines and truths of his or her religion, without a lot of trendy, man-made innovations (such as the blessing of gay marriages or the idea that the Bible forbids female suffrage or mandates homeschooling), and it is ironic that the churches which are most often described as fundamentalist are usually those unorthodox churches and cults which have gained a reputation for being the nut ward of Christianity. The churches have brought this situation upon themselves, to a large extent, beginning in the 1980’s when the televangelists first started to gain a large following—many “fundamentalist” churches were happy to ride on their coat-tails, gaining new membars (and bigger Sunday collection plate hauls), even if it meant that they began to adopt some ideas that were NOT fundamental to historical Christianity; then in the 1990’s, Gary North and Phil Lancaster and the other bright young things in the Patriarchal/Agrarian/Dominionist movement got the Y2K disaster scare rolling, and many preachers and congregations bought into that, and when the televagelists fell to scandal and Y2K didn’t happen, the churches shared in the pop-preachers’ discreditation and as a consequence wore the resultant portion of egg facial.

But, the churches haven’t learned from the experience.

One look at the writings of Doug Phillips, Ovid Need (Jennie Chancey’s step-father, who calls Pope John Paul II an antichrist), Gary North, or Bruce Ware shows that they are certifiably outside of mainstream, historical Christianity, with their talk of arranged marriages, stoning people to death, letting women die from tubal pregnancies, etc, and yet their books are selling like hotcakes in “fundamentalist churches, especially throughout the South….. and still we who are mainstream, orthodox, fundamental Christians wonder why people outside the church are calling all fundamentalists and even all Christians into question?
I’d say that it’s NO wonder, no wonder at all. If we in the churches do not police our own, and call a cult a cult when we see one, we shouldn’t blame non-Christians for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

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Posted by ( Mike Keevert ) on July 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

WOW, thanks for the links Cindy. I went to the LAF site and contrary to Jennie’s assertions I DID read many of her articles. Again…WOW…seems Jennie is perfectly happy “barefoot and pregnant” and wants all other women to do the same. Is this 2008 or 1808?

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Posted by ( Cerebral ) on July 13, 2008 at 3:22 am

Only some freaky fundie right wing nut job would even utter that women shouldn’t vote. Or that working is a sin.

I have news for you: you don’t even have to have children if you don’t want them! And you especially shouldn’t be having eight whom you refuse a decent education to. That’s the crux of the whole fndie movement: lack of education, separation of the sexes, unequal rights and religious/superstitious extremism. The rest of the country is laughing at Jennie.

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Posted by ( CindyGee ) on July 12, 2008 at 9:24 pm

Another thing that’s slightly off-kilter here are Jennie and Matt’s rather transparent attempts to gloss over the controversy surrounding their views on suffrage—they attempt instead to make it appear that people are picking on Jennie because she chooses to be a full-time homemaker, and claim that the question at hand is one of whether or not women should be “allowed” the choice to be homemakers; they also imply that it all boils down to a choice between radical feminists who advocate gay marriage, and “old fashioned” girls who eschew the right to vote.

This is a deliberate attempt at obfuscation—NOBODY is “telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers”, and nobody but Jennie brought up homosexual marriage, or said that it is somehow mainstream.

Homemaking is still very much MAINSTREAM, and the concept of “one person, one vote” is likewise MAINSTREAM; conversely, in America today, the idea that suffrage should be limited to male heads of household — like the idea that homosexuals should marry one another or the idea that indentured servitude should be legal– is definitely NOT mainstream.

“Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path”, but when that path runs contrary to what most Americans consider normal and decent, and when when the person on said path is seeking to serve in a position of governmental authority, one can expect normal, decent folks to have questions about it.”

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Posted by ( CindyGee ) on July 12, 2008 at 8:14 pm

Well, Mike, it isn’t pretty, that’s for sure!
I’m the Cynthia Gee that “Lady Lydia” has been ranting about. I sort of helped start all this, when I commented on another Dothan Eagle story last week, and pointed out that Alabama voters deserved to know that Matt and Jenny Chancey hold some rather bizarre beliefs regarding women’s suffrage, women in the workplace, etc.
I wasn’t “slinging dirt”, or making up “falsehoods”, I simply described what the Chanceys believe, and provided links to their own sites and those of their close associates, where Matt and Jenny and their close associates described their views at some length. My comment here was truncated for some reason, though since then it has spread in various forms across the internet; here it is in full, for the readers of the Dothan Eagle:
Alabama voters should be made aware that Matt Chancey opposes women’s suffrage on religious grounds. Matt Chancey and his wife Jennie believe that it is a sin (or at the very least, is highly inadvisable) for women to vote, hold political office, attend college, or work outside the home. These views are expounded upon at great length on Jennie Chancey’s website,Ladies Against Feminism.

Apparently, in the Chancey household’s ideal world, fathers would vote for the household, and all daughters would live at home “serving their fathers“ until the time of their arranged courtship and marriage, at which time they would pass from their father’s ownership into their husband’s possession, thus assuring that they would never have the chance to vote; theoretically, any adult sons living at home would be similarly disenfranchised.

Certainly women COULD vote under such a system if they were the heads of their own household, but the only time that this would happen would be when a woman was widowed, and then only until such time as she remarried or moved in with an adult male relative; in Chancey’s world, to ensure that widows remarried promptly, they might even be encouraged to avail themselves of Christian matchmaking/arranged-marriage services, such as this one, run by Jennie Chancey’s parents. (Jenny Chancey’s father is the Reverend Ovid Need; he is a prolific writer, for some samples of his work and his rather amazing views concerning Jews, Catholics, and women, go here and here and here.)

Matt Chancey is also on very intimate terms with Doug Phillips, the president and founder of VisionForum Ministries, a major homeschooling curriculum company. Phillips also teaches that God doesn’t allow women to vote or hold office. Doug Phillips is described by Matt Chancey as being his dear friend and mentor, while Phillips in turn praises as his own intellectual hero one of the most virulent racists of the 19th century, Robert L. Dabney, and has authored a book , Robert Louis Dabney: The Prophet Speaks.

...and Matt is not above a bit of internet sleight of hand, either, when it will aid his political ends, as shown by this article, from the Washington Post.

Head-of-household voting, arranged courtship and marriages, bride-prices…. that’s NOT the American way—in fact, it’s SO unAmerican that most folks would never dream that ANYONE in this day and age (other than fundamentalist Islamics) could hold such views, much less an educated man who is running for political office in the United States of America!

But, Matt Chancey and those close to him DO appear to hold such views, and the voters of Alabama need to know about it.

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Posted by ( Mike Keevert ) on July 12, 2008 at 6:45 pm

I love a good cat fight….looks like a fine one brewing here!

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Posted by ( Grace ) on July 12, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Lady Lydia, um, after reading some of the quotes Corrie posted, and finding out that they are out there on the internet, I don’t think you are doing Matt Chancey the greatest of favors coming on this thread and trying to lambast *me* from now until next week (when this election thank God, will be history).

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Posted by ( Grace ) on July 12, 2008 at 1:45 pm

http://mommylife.net/archives/2007/05/the_doug_philli_1.html

Since I’m being accused of being spiteful and vengeful, here’s another real interesting link. Barbara Curtis, a fairly well known blogger and author herself, a staunch, vocal pro-life conservative woman with many children, was deleted from Jennie’s Ladies Against Feminism site.

Read the above link to find out why.

Just saying what’s out there, not anything that hasn’t already been made public.

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Posted by ( Grace ) on July 12, 2008 at 1:35 pm

“I have written a book also and it it is as easy as posting a comment online.“

Oh, really?

“If done in 15 minute increments daily, while children are sleeping, it can amount to quite a bit.“

I’ll bet.

“For some people, that is more relaxing than watching television, or going out for coffee and you can keep an eye on your home at the same time. I don’t have to spell it out for you step by step or minute by minute, as your blogs and posts show someone who spends an enormous time on the web running other people down, by name.“

Really? Just like the following site—

http://mrsbinoculars.com/ ?

Matt Chancey probably spent an enormous amount of time on that site, too.

Btw, where have I run people down, Lady Lydia? Can you give some specific examples, with quotes?

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