The Ten Commandments In The Land Of The Free

IN 1992, Murphy Brown, a popular TV sitcom character epitomising an intelligent, highly paid, professional woman, decided to bear a child out of wedlock. With righteous indignation, vice president Dan Quayle invoked "family values", the Republican party's watchword in that year's presidential campaign, to attack the show and its star, Candice Bergen. Families, the Republican platform insisted, "must continue to be the foundation of our nation". And, as envisioned by the Bible-thumping Christian right, a family consists of a legally married heterosexual couple with their minor children.

Never mind that this nostalgic fantasy is unmatched by the demographics in today's America. Openly gay lifestyles, divorce and teenage problems have combined to undermine the nuclear family. Still, most Americans yearn for it because it conjures up a simpler, better America. For example, in a midwestern district where only 58 per cent of the voters prefer "conservative" candidates, 95 per cent wanted their Congressman to be a "family man".

As Republicans in 1992 exploited this anxiety over the loss of family, candidate Bill Clinton addressed the newly changing family's needs: affordable daycare to help working mothers, family leave for parents caring for sick children or elders, legal ways to ensure divorced dads pay child support, legislation to prevent discrimination against gays, universal healthcare. These were Democratic agendas but Clinton shrewdly veered to the centre—seemingly away from the liberal "left"—as he tried to be all things to all people.

Family values thus encompassed traditional social standards of civility, decorum and restraint; subliminally, they displayed a fear of the different, the unknown, the unconventional. Such values are a top priority in America's Deep South which, not surprisingly, has a greater mistrust of differences (blacks, immigrants, non-Christians and liberals) than, say, the northeast. This conservative heartland is home to Clinton and his opponents—Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde, to name a few. Here, family comes first, religion a close second. (Starr's zeal can best be understood in light of the fact that he is a preacher's son, he sold Bibles in his youth, and he never misses Sunday church.)

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville said: "Religion...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of the United States." Is it surprising, then, that Congressmen and ordinary Americans alike are first deeply concerned about the suffering of Clinton's family but, then, on TV talkshows, they refer repeatedly to "sin", "repentance", "penance", "the Ten Commandments"? The real America reflects neither the permissiveness of Hollywood, nor the secularism of its liberal media. Its values have their roots in the Judaeo-Christian ethic which underscores that adultery is wrong, that there are absolutes in the areas of integrity and tolerance.

In any case, thanks to AIDS, the sexual revolution is definitely over. A 1994 survey found their sexual behaviour was dominated by the three Ms—marriage, monogamy and the missionary position. The Washington Post declared: "The neo-Puritans have taken back Peyton Place." Seventy-five per cent of Americans find sex in what sociologists call a "pair bond", and of those so committed, 75 per cent men and 85 per cent women remain faithful to their partner. Serial monogamy is the flavour du jour. The silent TV majority likes its entertainment hot, even steamy, but infidelity is rare in the general population. Viewed in this light, the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky puts him out of sync with his constituents; 66 per cent say they do not share his moral values, though almost as many still approve his job performance. Some think this is sexual McCarthyism.

Parents are outraged because they have to explain this to their children—the president has violated the sanctity of the American family not just by adultery but by kinky sex with a girl young enough to be his daughter. "Clinton has lived a lie," says one Congressman. "He has damaged my family, what can I tell my children?" asks a radio talkshow hostess.

(Vibhuti Patel is an editor with Newsweek International.)