At a 2021 event hosted by a private high school in Newport Beach, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance said that since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, children have suffered when their parents divorced, even if their marriage was unhappy or “violent.”

Vance, author of the 2016 best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” told the audience at the Orange County event that his grandparents didn't divorce despite having “an incredibly chaotic marriage in so many ways,” and said some couples now view marriage as “a fundamental contract, just like any other business transaction.”

“I think that's one of the great tricks that the sexual revolution played on Americans,” Vance says, “the idea that these marriages may have been fundamentally violent, but they were certainly unhappy, and so if you get rid of those marriages and make it easy for people to change spouses the way they change underwear, people will be happier in the long run.”

He added, “And maybe it worked for the mother and the father — I'm skeptical — but it really didn't work for the children that came out of those marriages. And I think that's something we should all be honest about. We ran this experiment in real time, and we found that there's a lot of very real family dysfunction that's making our children unhappy.”

The year before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Vance spoke at an event hosted by Pacifica Christian High School. Pacifica Principal David O'Neill confirmed to The Times that the school hosted Vance as part of a community speaking series. He said the event was not a fundraiser.

“The evening was fantastic and Vance was made to feel welcome,” O'Neill said.

Vance's comments: Post online Vice News reported when Vance won Ohio's 2022 Senate election.

California Democrats are trying to connect Vance's comments to Republican Rep. Scott Baugh, who is running for Congress in the battleground coastal Orange County currently represented by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine).

Baugh is a member of the Pacifica board of trustees, which hosted Vance's event, his campaign confirmed.

Democratic state senator Dave Min, who opposes Beau, called Vance's comments “extreme” and “dangerous” and called on Beau to deny them.

“Anyone who knows anything about domestic violence knows that J.D. Vance's comments are appalling, ignorant and reprehensible,” Minh said in an interview.

Minh's wife is a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and runs a legal aid clinic that provides free representation to victims of domestic violence.

“Domestic violence is never acceptable under any circumstances,” Baugh said in a statement. “I stand with victims of domestic violence, and frankly, victims of all crimes.”

The Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for Vance's Senate office.

When asked in 2022 whether he thought couples in violent relationships would be better off staying married for the sake of their children, Vance said: He said through a spokesperson. He denied the premise of the “false question.”

Vance argued that “one of the big tricks” of the sexual revolution is that “if progressives had their way, domestic violence would go down, but in reality our modern war on the family has made it worse.” “Anyone who is fair will recognize that I am criticizing the progressive framework on this issue, not embracing it,” he said.

Over Vance's lifetime, reported rates of domestic violence in the United States have declined.

In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance is candid about his family issues, including domestic violence, divorce and drug addiction. Vance's mother was a drug addict and he was raised by his grandparents, with whom he says his relationship was tumultuous and violent.

In his book, Vance wrote that his grandfather, whom he called “Papaw,” was a “violent drinker” and his grandmother, whom he called “Mamaw,” was a “violent non-drinker.” One night, Mamaw threatened to kill him if he came home drunk again. A week later, Papaw came home drunk and fell asleep on the couch.

“Mommy, who never lies, calmly got a gas can from the garage, poured gasoline on my husband, lit a match and dropped it on his chest,” Vance wrote. Vance said her grandfather's body began to burst into flames, but her 11-year-old daughter was able to put them out.

Vance's grandparents were separated for many years but never divorced, Vance wrote. They “stayed together until death did us part,” he said at the Orange County event. “That was really important to my grandmother and grandfather. That was obviously not the case in the '70s and '80s.”

The event's moderator asked Vance what cultural measures or government policies he would support to “reinvigorate Americans' faith in the institution of marriage,” and Vance said he would like to take inspiration from Hungary, among other ideas.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government is trying to halt the country's declining birth rate by introducing a 2019 Offering subsidized loans If the bride is under 41, the newlyweds will receive up to 10 million forints (about $27,500).

The loan is forgiven if the couple has at least three children. Couples who divorce, emigrate or have no children after five years must repay the loan, including interest.

“It's just crazy,” Vance said of the policy. “The number of marriages has skyrocketed, the number of stable, long-term marriages has skyrocketed.”

Times reporter Haley Branson Potts contributed to this report.