J.D. Vance blamed the “sexual revolution” for causing Americans to leave marriages too freely. Vance went on to claim married spouses, even when there is violent abuse occurring, should stay together to preserve the happiness of their kids.
When Vice reached out to Vance in July 2022 to ask about his comment that “children would fare better if parents stayed in violent marriages,” a Senate-campaign staffer replied, saying “I reject the premise of your bogus question” and refusing to facilitate a follow-up interview.
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace,” Vance said at Pacifica Christian High School in California, adding, “the 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.’”
The context of this interview centered around relationship of Vance’s grandparents, which he says was “at times violent.” His grandparents are the subject of his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which has been adapted by Netflix into a feature film.
Editor’s Note (9/1/2025): A previous version of this page cited this event as happening sometime in September 2021, as was reported by all major media outlets as confirmed by Pacifica Christian in 2024. After many hours of digging for more information about this event, we can exclusively confirm the actual date was August 27, 2021.
