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The following is a letter written by Dr. James Dobson, Ph.D., concerning
Dan Quayle's infamous "Murphy Brown" speech. Dr. Dobson is the founder of
Focus on The Family, a Christian group which attempts to help Americans
discover the significance of a strong family in our society. Read the
letter, and then see if Quayle's speech was so funny.
June 1992
Dear Friends,
...Historically, we in North America have been indifferent to our
government's family policies. But that has changed radically since 1980.
Here in the United States, where the Presidential election is still nearly
five months away, the family and its moral upderpinnings are consistently
in the headlines. All of the candidates for the White House have been
addressing this concern in one way or another these past few weeks.
However, none of their pronouncements created much of a splash. None, that
is, until Vice President Dan Quayle's speech on May 20 in which he
criticized the Murphy Brown television show for glamorizing unwed
motherhood. That's when the media went into its familiar feeding frenzy.
And what a feast it was.
David Letterman and a host of standup comedians tried to make Quayle
look like the world's biggest fool. Johnny Carson thanked the V.P.
mockingly for making his last week on the Tonight Show so easy. Barbara
Reynolds, columnist for USA Today, wrote with surprising venom: "Murphy
Brown or Dan Quayle? Which one is the most wretched excuse for a role
model in this country?" Ellen Snortland snorted in the L.A. Times,
"Traditionally family values is a right-wing euphemism for `a white
family where Daddy's the boss.'... Our country's government is not
pro-motherhood or even pro-parenthood. It's anit-choice, pro-married
and in favor of 'traditional motherhood' because the guys in government
want the old fairy-tale days back."
CNN's Bernard Shaw, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and ABC's Peter Jennings
each took swipes at the Vice President. The New York Daily News carried
the headline "QUAYLE TO MURPHY BROWN: YOU TRAMP!" In Philadelphia it
was, "MURPHY HAS A BABY...QUAYLE HAS A COW." Matt Groening, the creator
of Fox's "The Simpsons," said, "You don't have to make up jokes about
Dan Quayle anymore. The real thing is too funny."
Well just how funny was the real thing? Casual observers may not know
that the Vice President's comment about Murphy Brown represented a single
sentence in a seven-page speech that went largely unreported. Perhaps it
would be enlightening to read the context in which the remark was made. I
invite you to evaluate the following excerpts, which Hollywood and the
media considered to be the most stupid speech in recent memory. Judge
for yourself:
________________________________________________________________________
...right now, the failure of our families is hurting America deeply.
When families fall, society falls. The anarchy and lack of structure in
our families inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls
apart when the family foundation cracks. Children need love and
discipline. The need mothers and fathers. A welfare check is not a
husband. The state is not a father. It is from parents that children
come to understand values and themselves as men and women, mothers and
fathers.
And for those concerned about children growing up in poverty, we
should know this: marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program of
all. Among families headed by married couples today, there is a poverty
rate of 5.7 percent. But 33.4 percent of families headed by a single
mother are in poverty today.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there are no mature, responsible
men around to teach boys how to become good men, gangs serve in their
place. In fact, gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a
generation of inner-city boys. I recently visited with some former
gang members in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a private meeting, they
told me why the had joined gangs. These teenage boys said that gangs
gave them a sense of security. The made them feel wanted, and useful.
They got support from their friends. And they said, "It was like having
a family." "Like family" --unfortunately, that says it all.
The system perpetuates itself as these young men father children
whom they have no intention of caring for, by women whose welfare checks
support them. Teenage girls, mired in the same hopelessness, lack
sufficient motive to say no to this trap.
Answers to our problems won't be easy.
We can start by dismantling a welfare system that encourages
dependency and subsidizes broken families. We can attach conditions
-- such as school attendance, or work--to welfare. We can limit the
time a recipient gets benefits. We can stop penalizing marriage for
welfare mothers. We can enforce child support payment.
Ultimately, however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural
concensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly
is simply, wrong. Failure to support children one has fathered is wrong.
We must be unequivocal about this.
It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown -- a
character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid,
professional woman -- mocking the importance of a father, by bearing a
child alone, and calling just another "lifestyle choice."
I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need
to do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV
and national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in
this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. Now
it's time to make the discussion public.
It's time to talk again about family, hard work, integrity, and
personal responsibility. We cannot be embarrassed out of our belief that
two parents, married to each other, are better in most cases for children
than one. That honest work is better than hand-outs --or crime. That we
are our brothers' keepers. That it's worth making an effort, even when
rewards aren't immediate.
So I think the time has come to renew our public commitment to
Judeo-Christian values -- in our churches and synagogues, our civic
organizations and our schools. We are, as our children recite each
morning "one nation under God." That's a useful framework for
acknowledging a duty and an authority higher than our own pleasures and
for personal ambitions.
_________________________________________________________________________
Well that's the substance of Dan Quayle's infamous speech of May 20.
Pretty hilarious stuff, huh? With such funny things coming out of
Washington, comedians need not make up any more jokes about the Vice
President. Carson, Letterman and Arsenio had their monologues prepared
for them. But in the midst of the frivolity, did you notice who didn't
laugh?
Virtually every poll taken during the firestorm revealed that the
majority of the people agreed with Mr. Quayle. Isn't that interesting?
Hollywood and the press fired every big gun in their mighty arsenal from
ridicule to sarcasm yet the public came out solidly against them! The
Rocky Mountain News recorded over 14,000 calls for Quayle and only 5,000
against. ... On TV station KCBS in Los Angeles 62 percent agreed Murphy
Brown set a bad example. What this public response indicates is just how
dramatically out of touch the entertainment industry and the media elite
are with the American people.
...
Sincerely,
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
President