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