[StBernard] Our Foundation is Crumbling

[Westley Annis]

Our Foundation is Crumbling
by Ken Blackwell

The latest figures on out-of-wedlock births should 
be setting off alarm bells in every corner of the 
country. After a number of years at the wholly 
unacceptable level of one of every three births 
out-of-wedlock, the numbers in the last three years 
have lunged to 40 percent. This is a crisis direr 
than the economy, more dangerous than foreign enemies. 
America cannot remain a superpower abroad with a 
crumbling family structure at home.

The crisis these new numbers represent is a crisis in
male-female commitment. We are facing increasing gend-
er rejection. Something is deeply and dangerously wrong 
between the sexes. Young American men are increasingly 
unable to commit to the mothers of their children.

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan saw a 24 percent out-
of-wedlock birthrate in the black community and 
sounded the alarm. All the great gains of the civil 
rights movement were threatened by the breakdown of 
the black family, Moynihan warned. He suffered then 
the fate of the prophet without honor. As the messenger 
bearing the bad news, he was very nearly stoned. His 
unheeded warnings about crime, drugs, educational fail-
ure have become the collection of pathologies that all 
Americans know too well. Today, Moynihan's distinguish-
ed public career is honored, but his message is too 
little heeded.

What is driving these menacing numbers? Why are 40 
percent of American children being deprived at birth 
of their fathers? By the time they reach age 18, 
fully 60 percent of young Americans have seen their 
mothers and fathers break up. This comes either from 
divorce or from the breakup of cohabiting relation-
ships. Or it stems from never-formed families. How 
can the young learn commitment if their parents 
remain uncommitted?

This lunge toward a 40 percent out-of-wedlock birth-
rate is the sign of a culture unraveling. In its 
wake will come a blighted future of increasing crime, 
educational failure, drugs, and poverty. It is not 
poverty that is driving these numbers; the out-of-
wedlock birthrate is driving poverty.

What can be done? First, do no harm. Or do no more 
harm. We must recognize that federal family planning 
efforts have contributed to this crisis. All data 
shows that young people who have multiple sex partners 
are less likely to marry and, if married, are less 
likely to remain married. Why then should our tax 
dollars subsidize a "hook up" culture?

We are shoveling money at groups whose sole purpose 
is to facilitate out-of-wedlock sexual activity.

Second, we must recognize that religious attendance 
is positively correlated with marriage, family form-
ation, and family stability. The federal government 
can never directly fund churches and synagogues, but 
it can observe the "do no harm" rule.

The administration's announced plans to tax major 
givers could deal a crippling blow to religious 
institutions. These are the primary beneficiaries 
of larger donations. The administration's pre-K 
proposals may not be designed to pry children away 
from church-based child care, but they will necessar-
ily have that affect. Churches, especially those in 
inner-city neighborhoods, play a crucial role in 
helping many fatherless children to escape the snares
 of a host of social pathologies. Let's not fire on 
these ambulances of the poor.

Finally, let's sustain marriage as a social institu-
tion. Too many spokesmen on the left and the right 
have made marriage a political football. When a 
libertarian radio talker calls for the state to "get 
out of marriage," he is encouraging the further 
breakdown of the family, the only institution that 
can supply the needs of children. As Prof. Michael 
Novak memorably put it: The family is the original 
department of health, education, and welfare.

For libertarians to call for a laissez-faire policy 
on marriage is to guarantee a greater role for the 
federal government in a futile attempt to stave off 
the disaster of family breakdown and to deal with 
the predictable consequences.

Family Research Council's Mapping America project 
provides the hard social science evidence of the 
importance of family structure and religious attend-
ance to the national well-being. There is virtually 
no area of public concern-education, health, avoid-
ance of criminal behavior, abstinence from drugs, 
even bullying in schools-that has not been studied 
and reported on by Dr. Patrick Fagan's project. I 
urge all concerned Americans to read the study on 
the Mapping America website.

By taking timely action now, we can reverse these 
dangerous trends. That, more than anything else 
government could do, will be the kind of change 
that will bring hope.