FAMILIES REPRESENT KEY ELECTION YEAR ISSUE

While driving home from a short vacation last weekend, I listened to a radio discussion about differing attitudes among the television "media elite" and everyone else on issues like adultery, abortion and religion.

I had already seen the statistics, compiled by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs, which reported that only 49 percent of the media elite (the most uppercrust of television writers, executives and news producers) believed "adultery is wrong," compared to 85 percent of everyone else. Forty-five percent of the media elite responded that they had "no religious affiliation." Only four percent of the rest of the public indicated the same.

On a question about homosexual acts, 20 percent of the elite said they believed them to be wrong, compared to 76 percent of the rest of America. Finally, on abortion, 97 percent of the media elite believed in a "woman's right to an abortion," while 40 percent less (still a majority) of everyone else agreed.

Frankly, I wasn't too surprised by the center's study. Nor would I expect that other people would be surprised, either.

What intrigued me more was the theory cited for this discrepancy by Kenneth Woodward, who had written a story on the issue for Newsweek Magazine and who was one of the guests on the radio program. Woodward suggested that the main reason for the gap was that most media elite look upon their careers as more integral to their self-esteem than the average person, and so they prioritize career more.

This prioritizing of career translates into a diminishment of the priority on family. Thus, less time is spent with family. And family, Woodward explained, can be a very conservative force.

Why this intrigued me was that I had never really thought about family as a clear, conservative force. I had always assumed that there were families who leaned liberal and families who leaned conservative and that was just the way it was. The idea that merely being in a family (or more specifically, being a parent) would tend to lead a person more to the conservative caused me to stop and question, is this true?

Of course it is!

Parents value qualities like hard work, honesty and personal responsibility, because they expect such qualities in their children. Parents also tend to stress fundamental values like: belief in God and respect for parents. Such qualities bind families closer together and make life easier for the parents.

Moreover, as parents are the figures of authority in the family, questioning authority (an important liberal attitude) tends to take a back seat to acting responsibly. In additon, law and order in family and in society in general become more important, especially as the responsibilities to children restrict the flexibility and freedom of the parents.

All of the qualities mentioned above are more commonly associated with being conservative rather than liberal.

In fact, a couple of days after returning home, I came across a Reader's Digest opinion poll about this very issue. Not surprisingly, at least 64 percent of married people with children identifed themselves as conservative; only 27 percent of this demographic group called themselves liberal. This conservative tendency was displayed throughout the poll on specific questions on issues ranging from homosexual marriages to abortion to religion.

This helps explain why we are hearing so much talk about families this election year. Despite the assertions of some, as Edwin Feulner of the Heritage Foundation points out, "The traditional American family is not a vanishing breed. Married couples with kids number about 92 million people, or 57 percent of all Americans over 25."

This is a lot a voters.

"Traditional families represent the most powerful voting bloc in the country," chimes in Kenneth Tomlinson, editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest. "They also tend to vote more heavily than singles or marrieds with no kids."

A ten percent shift in the family vote about 9 million people is more than enough to change the outcome of most presidential elections. (President Bush won in 1988 by 7 million votes.) And families, as indicated on the Missourian's Perspective page July 13, are not happy with the current atmosphere in America.

Is it any wonder then that Dan Quayle has been beating the family-values drum and Bill Clinton has made family programs a major part of his call to arms?

Political posturing aside, however, what are the priority policy issues facing families? There is, after all, a role for government.

In Perspective a week from tomorrow, the Southeast Missourian will look at this question. Like all Perspectives, how successfully we do it depends on you.

We ask you, "What should the government do to specifically assist families? What should be its first priorities?"

Certainly, improving the economy is one if not the most important family issue affected by government decisions. But our hope is that you will address issues that affect the family more specifically.

For example, should one of the first priorities for government be to expand the Young Child Tax Credit to make it easier for families to spend more time with their children? Or is the first priority to enhance child support enforcement? Or to reform welfare? Or create incentives for company day care programs?

Is school choice a first priority issue? Or long-term re-employment privileges for parents who quit jobs to care for young children? Maybe among the first priorities is sex education? And/or condoms in the schools? Perhaps it is a Constitutional Amendment allowing prayer in school?

Then again, is government's first priority just to do a better job at what it is already supposed to be doing for families, improving communication between government agencies and eliminating wasteful duplication of existing services?

What is your perspective on these issues?

Columns are due Thursday: two-and-a-half pages, double-spaced (typed, if possible). Send to: Perspective, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701. As always, columns must be informative and constructive. And if you don't write, stay tuned for Monday, August 3.