Raising a Son, Razing a Nation: White Christian Nationalism and the Farcical Mission to Turn Every Boy into a Straight Man

This paper attempts to examine how White Christian nationalists understand heterosexuality and operationalize it within their nationalist ambitions. I focus on how White Christian nationalists imagine the sexual development of boys into straight men who, in White Christian nationalists' machinations, will father Christian children, head the household, and lead the nation. My source base primarily includes childrearing manuals from evangelical and White Christian nationalist authors. These manuals contain valuable - and often pseudoscientific - information instructing parents on how to raise their boys into straight men. I hope to apply the theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Lee Edelman to demonstrate how families mediate a boy's sexual development, as parents surveil their son's sexual behavior, punish supposed homosexual tendencies, and guide him towards heterosexual adulthood. Ultimately, I aim to demonstrate that, while families are a microcosm of the Christian nation, building the Christian nation starts with the child.