As the presidential election approaches, conservative commentator Michael Knowles says that family issues are at the center of the American political divide.

Knowles said that while the American right supports pro-family policies, the American left opposes the nuclear family in his lecture titled “Kamala Wants You Single.” The event was hosted by College Republicans and The Spectator at Washington and Lee University on Sept. 16.

“The left, as long as there has been a left, has shown a specific hostility towards marriage and family,” said the Daily Wire personality.

Knowles said that changes over the past fifty years, such as the implementation of no-fault divorce laws and the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade, undermined the family. He pointed to the increasing number of single people in America as evidence of decaying family values in America.

“A whopping 29% of American households today are what they call solitaries,” said Knowles.

Knowles said the family is as important to politics as a bulwark against radical social engineering, which he characterized Harris’ platform as.

“[Harris’ campaign] is a full-frontal onslaught against the family,” Knowles said, but didn’t cite specific evidence from Harris’ platform.

Harris’ campaign website highlights her intention to sign a bill to restore access to abortion nationwide.

“Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Vice President Harris has driven the administration’s strategy to defend reproductive freedom and safeguard the privacy of patients and providers,” Harris’ website says.

Her website does not mention no-fault divorce.

An integral part of her campaign is built on plans to reduce the cost of living for families, according to her website. Harris’ campaign website includes a plan to expand the child tax credit to $6,000 for families with newborn children.

“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe that working families deserve a break,” her campaign website states.

A temporary expansion of the child tax credit in 2021 briefly reduced childhood poverty by 30%, according to Megan Curran, the director of Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

Harris’ website also includes a proposal to provide cheaper childcare and preschool options to families. Knowles criticized this proposal as an attempt to erode families by removing kids from their parents.

“Family is the most stubborn impediment to the liberal social project,” Knowles said.

Knowles said that the family should be more central in conservative messaging because it provides stability against social engineering. By emphasizing economic issues over family issues, he said, the right has put the “cart before the horse.”

“The family is the basic political unit,” Knowles stated.

Knowles excluded same sex marriages from his definition of marriage in the lecture. According to him, the central criterion for marriage requires having children. He criticized marriage equality as an attempt by the left to destroy the meaning of marriage.

Knowles’ view contrasts with growing public support for same sex couples. According to Gallup, 71% of Americans support marriage equality as of 2022.

Knowles spoke a year after Matt Walsh, another Daily Wire commentator, addressed campus. Walsh is known for his controversial postures on LGBTQ issues.

A petition opposing his speech garnered 600 signatures from both students and faculty in March 2023. Walsh postponed his speech until Fall Term, Sept. 18, 2023. But there were no petitions to disinvite Knowles from speaking on campus.

The audience to the event received Knowles’ message with cheers and little hostility.

Audience members asked Knowles whether he believed private educational institutions should exclude certain people from speaking at events.

“There are plenty of speakers I would not invite if I was running an institution,” The Daily Wire commentator said. “My problem here is that it’s the conservatives who are getting banned.”

Knowles said that he did not see this position as a double standard.

“I think we should have more good things and less bad things, and it is possible to distinguish between the two,” he said.

Washington and Lee was Knowles’ first stop on a fall college tour presented by Young America’s Foundation, a national conservative student group.