Vice President Dan Quayle places the blame for the Los Angeles riots on the disintegrating family unit, particularly among blacks in contemporary American society.
Quayle, addressing the Commonwealth Club of California Tuesday, used a battery of statistics to support his belief and criticized Hollywood's portrayal of the family unit, particularly Monday's episode of the CBS series "Murphy Brown" in which the unmarried title character had a baby."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 fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another `lifestyle choice,' " he said.
Diane English, Murphy Brown's producer, took umbrage at Quayle's salvo.
"If the vice president thinks it's disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear children, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he'd better make sure abortion remains safe and legal," said English in a prepared statement.
Citing statistics on black households, Quayle said in 1967, 68 percent of the households were headed by married couples, but in 1991 only 48 percent were headed by married couples.
The vice president added that 65 percent of the black children born in 1989 were to single mothers and that the leading cause of death today among young black males is homicide.
"Nature abhors a vacuum," Quayle said. "Where there is no mature, responsible men around to teach boys how to be good men, gangs serve in their place. In fact, gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a generation of inner city boys."
While Quayle focused on statistics of black families, he made little mention of single-parent trends among American whites, Hispanics and Asians.