-Caveat Lector-
>From IntellectualCapital.CoM
> Is Dan Quayle Right Again?
> by Pete du Pont
> Thursday, June 03, 1999
> Comments: 111 posts <Picture>
> On May 19 in San Francisco, former Vice
> President Dan Quayle took on the �legal aristocracy� for having �bit
> by bit undermined parental authority over children, weakened
> discipline in the schools and obstructed the moral education of the
> young.� The reaction was predictable: The American Civil Liberties
> Union charged that Quayle wants �a society that is intolerant of
> differences or dissent.�
>
> Recall that seven years ago, Quayle, then vice president, attacked the
> �Murphy Brown� television sitcom for glorifying out-of-wedlock
> parenthood, saying that two parents married to each other are better
> for children than a single parent. The liberal reaction then too was
> pure elitism -- that Quayle was out of touch with the modern facts of
> life and generally Neanderthal in his views.
>
> But a year later, the liberals were under attack when Barbara Dafoe
> Whitehead�s Atlantic Monthly article, �Dan Quayle Was Right,�
> concluded that what everyone instinctively understands is true:
> Traditional parenthood produces better children and a better society.
>
> God and the courts
>
> <Picture: Could he be right again?>
> Could he be right again?
> So could Dan Quayle be right again? Could the courts, lawyers and
> liberal interest groups such as the ACLU and People for the American
> Way be undermining our culture?
>
> Well, the Supreme Court has ruled that prayer in public schools
> violates the Constitution, and that moments of silence to meditate in
> a public school are unconstitutional. Several years ago a federal
> judge in Denver ordered the mayor to issue a press release denying any
> involvement by his office in the city�s day of prayer against youth
> violence.
>
> As Quayle said in his speech, there is opposition to posting the Ten
> Commandments in courtrooms or schools because the first three refer to
> God. In fact, in 1980 the Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments
> postings in schools on just these grounds. And the ACLU is suing
> Chicago Public Schools because they support Boy Scout troops, which
> affirm a belief in God.
>
> The government -- in the form of its courts -- is not being neutral in
> regard to religion; it is actively discouraging it. Where government
> treads, religion is forced to retreat. In Quayle�s words, �[T]he
> crusade against religion has degenerated in a crusade against moral
> principles in the schools.�
>
> School discipline fares no better. In one case, a school suspended a
> student for writing an essay about shooting the principal and burning
> the school library -- and ended up being sued. The 9th U.S. Circuit
> Court of Appeals ruled that a student threat to shoot a guidance
> counselor was not a �true threat� and forced the suspending school to
> pay the student�s legal fees.
>
> Could it be that the Littleton, Colo., shooting a few weeks ago is
> related to these attitudes?
>
> Undermining parental authority
>
> As for the teaching of values, back in 1994, the Lake County, Fla.,
> school board voted to require that teachers �instill in our students
> an appreciation of our American heritage and culture such as � a
> free-enterprise system, patriotism, strong family values, freedom of
> religion and other basic values that are superior to other foreign or
> historic cultures.� It turns out that this violated a Florida law that
> forbade teaching that a specific culture (ours) is "intrinsically
> superior or inferior to another.�
>
> As I wrote at the time, would it be so awful to teach that the
> Constitution is superior to, say, Nazi Germany�s, or the Soviet
> Union�s, where practicing religion could get you a decade in the
> gulag, or superior to Iran�s under the Ayatollah?
>
> U.S. News and World Report cites a case of a 6-year-old girl caught
> stealing at school. When her parent sought help from the child�s
> teacher in instructing that stealing was wrong, the teacher replied,
> �We don�t use the word �stealing� here. We call it uncooperative
> behavior.�
>
> Then there is the effort to give children �rights� to sue their
> parents. Quayle cites the 1980 case of a young girl suing her parents
> -- and winning in court -- because they insisted she not use drugs, be
> home at a reasonable time and not sleep with her boyfriend.
>
> A final example is the issue of parental notification before abortions
> for minors. The Supreme Court has held that state laws requiring
> parental permission for minors� abortions are unconstitutional unless
> there is a �bypass� procedure so judges, or in some cases doctors, can
> make the decision instead of parents.
>
> In Quayle's 'amen corner'
>
> So are all these actions by Quayle�s �legal aristocracy� destroying
> the moral fabric of our country? Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT)
> thinks so. �We have become so wary of being labeled intolerant," he
> said, "that we are increasingly unwilling and in some cases incapable
> of making moral judgments,� and that �we have gone from stigmatizing
> adultery, divorce and particularly out-of-wedlock childbirth to
> normalizing these behaviors.�
>
> Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) agrees, too. In his 1996 book
> Miles to Go, Moynihan writes that �the amount of deviant behavior in
> American society has increased beyond the levels the community can
> afford to recognize.� So as a society, we are defining deviancy down
> so as to exempt much of what used to be called abnormal behavior.
>
> Quayle�s point is that the legal aristocracy has led this effort to
> legitimize deviant behavior and debase our moral coinage. Could Dan
> Quayle be right again?
>
> Pete du Pont is the editor of IntellectualCapital.com. He is a former
> Republican governor and congressman from Delaware. His e-mail address
> is [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Old-time Religion Offers No Cure for Violence
> by Adele M. Stan
> Thursday, June 03, 1999
> Comments: 231 posts
>
> When tragedy erupted this spring at a Rocky
> Mountain school, the nation stood stunned, gasping at the news that
> two teenage boys had massacred a dozen classmates and a teacher, then
> turned their guns on themselves. But what the nation deemed a tragedy,
> Washington saw as opportunity. Lawmakers and candidates for office
> offered a host of would-be cures for the disease of teen violence, all
> crafted to advance one or another political agenda.
>
> This week, as the students of Columbine High School returned to their
> locker-lined killing field, Congress stood in disarray over the issue
> of gun control, one of the purported cures. Previous weeks had seen
> Jack Valenti, Hollywood's man in Washington, square off with Gary
> Bauer, the religious right's contender for the presidency, over
> violence in film.
>
> Others called for a halt to the proliferation of gruesome video games
> that serve as a virtual circus maximus for our times. Then there was
> the clarion call for a "religious revival" from the likes of House
> Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) and GOP presidential candidate Dan
> Quayle. That is when I felt the chill of alarm run down my spine.
>
> Whose religion to revive?
>
> I have nothing against religion per se. Like most Americans, I have
> survived some hard times on the strength of my faith. But I have been
> at this faith-exploration business long enough to know that a house of
> worship is only as good as the person who leads it.
>
> <Picture: Is there a growing distance between parents & their
> children?> Is there a growing distance between parents & their
> children? A child who enters a faith community unguided by a loving
> parent can find himself facing dangers every bit as treacherous as
> those found in the wilds of the Internet. And, let's face it, does not
> the problem that led to Columbine have something to do with a growing
> chasm between the worlds of many parents and their children?
>
> I have no doubt that a benevolent church or synagogue can do wonders
> for a kid who feels alienated from his parents. But I would not count
> on Quayle or DeLay to lead him there.
>
> Quayle long has embraced the message of the Christian Coalition, an
> organization whose leaders have vilified lesbians and gay men, and
> opposed the notion of the equality of men and women. Imagine a kid
> isolated and distraught over confusion about his or her sexual
> orientation seeking solace in a church where gay people are labeled
> perverts who wish to destroy the fundamental institutions of society.
> Would that child be saved?
>
> In the summer of 1995, I visited an Iowa church that was at the center
> of right-wing political activity. Coincidentally, the Sunday I
> attended Des Moines's First Federated Church was billed as "Youth
> Day." One group of young people discussed their recent mission to
> Europe, where they had sought converts. Other kids offered their
> testimony on how their souls had been saved by virtue of their
> membership in the church. One young man, perhaps 12 or 13 years of
> age, testified how, with the encouragement of his youth minister, he
> had smashed 33 of his CDs and listened to popular music no more.
>
> After the service, I asked him which artists' recordings he had
> destroyed. Nirvana? Metallica? No. Try country stars Clint Black and
> Reba McIntyre.
>
> Lefty religion
>
> What, I ask you, happens to the mind of a kid who is made to feel that
> to like the music of Clint Black is a grave enough sin to warrant a
> destructive act? Which other sins warrant similar destruction?
>
> On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, First Federated hosted an anti-gay
> rally keynoted by Charlton Heston, who has since become president of
> the National Rifle Association. The roster of speakers read like a
> who's who of the right: Pat Buchanan, Lou Sheldon of the Traditional
> Values Coalition, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association,
> to name a few. Role models for troubled youth, you think?
>
> Lest you think my only concerns about religion lay with the right, let
> me convey an experience from my own misspent youth. I grew up in the
> heyday of hippiedom, the 1970s. Back then, the distance between the
> worlds of parents and children was described as the generation gap,
> and my household was no exception to the trend.
>
> Among the many youth movements at the time was one known colloquially
> as the �Jesus freaks.� Disenchanted with my native Catholicism, I
> enjoyed a brief flirtation with the "freaks," thanks to a friend who
> had gotten involved with an outfit known as the Children of God. After
> school, we would sit on the banks of the local reservoir and read
> scripture, an experience I still regard with fondness.
>
> But it was the part of her doctrine that involved renouncing one's
> parents and all material possessions that I had trouble with. (See
> Matthew 10:37-39.) I would come to accept it with time, she said,
> especially if I would come to New York with her to spend time with the
> Children of God.
>
> Luckily, whatever distance there was between my parents and me, they
> thankfully were involved enough in my life to prevent unannounced
> forays to New York. My friend did not fare so well. During her time
> with the Children of God, she had a nervous breakdown and disappeared
> from school for several months.
>
> My friend's experience shows that even the religious-minded can be led
> astray. Within scripture, the unwitting child could find countless
> justifications for murder and betrayal. Without guidance, a child
> could even find justification for actions like those at Columbine.
>
> Pray for a miracle
>
> While most of the issues raised by politicians after the Columbine
> tragedy offer little by way of cure, they are nonetheless important
> issues. Guns designed for the efficient destruction of humans are far
> too accessible to anyone who desires them; kids are inundated, via
> media and video games, with violence so virtual that the horror of
> human suffering wrought by real violence becomes easy to miss.
>
> But take away the guns, videos and movies, and we still will have the
> same dynamic that has led countless tragedies -- the gulf that exists
> between kids and adults. And that is a problem for which there is no
> easy answer.
>
> To address it politically would require an examination of the changes
> foisted upon the family by the new economy and the exponential growth
> of technology. Nothing short of a miracle, it seems, will compel our
> lawmakers to open that discussion. How much easier it is simply to
> proclaim the need for a religious revival.
>
> Adele M. Stan is a contributing editor to Ms. magazine and a
> contributing writer to Mother Jones.
A<>E<>R
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