The 2000 election threw into stark relief one of the key differences
between Republican and Democratic voters: the marriage gap. As we have
seen in previous elections, a yawning partisan divide persists between
married and unmarried voters -- and it grew throughout the 1990s. Increasingly,
married voters are Republican voters. In 2000, only 44 percent of married
voters supported Vice President Al Gore, compared with 57 percent of unmarried
voters. Similarly, in the 1998 congressional election, 44 percent of married
voters supported Democrats, compared with 60 percent of un-married voters.
Since 65 percent of the electorate is married, these numbers obviously
spell trouble for Democratic candidates.
The marriage gap is driven, at least in part, by differences between
these voters on a range of issues that are popularly known as "family
values," in other words, concerns about "morals" in our
families, society, and the political arena. In the 2000 election, for
instance, married people were more likely than unmarried people to cite
"values" as a reason they voted for Gov. George Bush (e.g.,
restoring honor and dignity to the White House, opposition to abortion,
and his position on family values) and against Gore (e.g., Gore's stances
on abortion and gay marriage).
This deep divide between voters along matrimonial lines -- marrieds favoring
Republicans, unmarrieds favoring Democrats -- highlights the large role
values play in national politics, especially last year. In a period of
economic prosperity, issues that normally dominate electoral politics
receded, and the election was fought on the cultural terrain of morality
and values -- from guns to gays, to character and leadership, and, more
broadly, to the moral state of the nation. According to Los Angeles Times
exit polls, moral and ethical issues were most important to voters.
Unfortunately, this is a fight that the Democrats will continue to lose
if the values landscape maintains its current contours. The Democratic
disadvantage on "family values" issues in American politics
is nothing new, though it may have intensified in the wake of the impeachment
scandals and the political opening afforded by the relative peace and
prosperity of the last eight years. The family values debate is part of
an ongoing political conversation that started in the 1960s when groups
challenged authority, questioned traditional women's roles, and pushed
for expanded sexual freedoms. Over the course of the 1970s, the parties
polarized over social and moral issues, with the Republican Party becoming
identified with groups such as the Christian Right and socially conservative
positions on abortion, feminism, and the Equal Rights Amendment. The Democratic
Party, meantime, became associated with socially liberal views about sexuality
and women's rights, along with tolerance of diversity and openness to
difference. At the same time, however, the party was connected in the
public mind with such socially "libertine" developments as sexual
promiscuity, drug experimentation, and contempt for authority in general.
In the course of this divergence, the Republicans have offered the public
a compelling narrative about the decline of moral values and its relationship
to a host of social ills such as juvenile crime rates, welfare dependency,
teenage pregnancy, and civic malaise. While the real story is more complicated
than their account, it has been difficult for Democrats to respond to
it without jettisoning important commitments to choice, privacy, and tolerance.
In fact, in the mid-1990s President Bill Clinton and Democrats made serious
headway on issues of personal responsibility, a shift rooted in initiatives
such as welfare reform, v-chip technology, and school uniforms. But the
impeachment scandal undermined that progress, and currently Americans
clearly identify Republicans as the arbiters of moral values. In January
2001, for example, the Pew Research Center found that 49 percent of Americans
trusted the Republicans to improve moral values whereas only 26 percent
trusted the Democrats to do so. In a recent Democracy Corps survey, 57
percent of voters associated the Republicans with "personal responsibility"
compared with 25 percent who associated the term with the Democrats. In
the same survey, the Republicans had a 20-point advantage on "commitment
to family" and a 15-point advantage on "shares your values."
It would be easy for Democrats to dismiss this Republican "morality"
advantage as an artifact of the influence of fringe religious voters.
But it is evident in a broad swath of voters. And a large portion of these
voters are married. But does this mean that married Americans are hijacked
by the Christian Right? Hardly. A more likely story is that when people
get married and have children, their new experiences alter their political
concerns. First, parents often return to the religious fold after dropping
off from worship when they left their childhood home for work or college.
Second, people with children have concerns that did not occur to them
when they were childless. Parents worry about their kids' exposure to
sex and violence on television, in music, and on the Internet. They worry
about school safety and the impact of peer pressure on taking drugs or
committing violence.
By contrast, single adults, especially men, simply do not think about
these issues as much as married people. According to an iVillage.com/Knowledge
Networks survey conducted in March 2000, only 16 percent of single men
thought that sex and violence on television were a very serious problem,
compared with 47 percent of married men. By comparison, 42 percent of
single women and 56 percent of married women thought they were a problem.
These concerns are linked to a belief that what is wrong with our families,
and our nation more broadly, is the lack of responsible parenting. In
the same iVillage.com survey, more than 50 percent of the public (in an
open-ended question) said that the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School
in Littleton, Colo., occurred because of lack of parental supervision
and discipline (as opposed to the easy availability of guns at gun shows).
Respondents said that the biggest challenge facing parents is insufficient
time and commitment to teach children respect for rules and responsibility.
This finding is confirmed by other national surveys that show that people
think the challenges of parenting are as important as their worries about
education and health care.
Such data would suggest an opening for a values narrative that emphasizes
a return to traditional roles. But, in fact, the Republican message fails
to adequately address people's concerns. The salience of moral decline
does not mean that there is broad support for retrenching women's rights,
denying civil rights to gays, or eliminating abortion rights. Moreover,
a Republican definition of family values that blames broken families or
secular laxness for our social ills ignores the economic foundations of
much of our moral angst. On average, real wages for men without a college
education did not grow between 1973-1995 and did not regain their 1973
value despite greater growth over the last five years. Moreover, as an
analysis by economics writer Jeffrey Madrick shows, Americans face challenges
to maintaining a decent standard of living as costs for services such
as education, transportation, health care, and goods such as housing have
risen faster than incomes. People are working more hours to keep up, but
we have no real support for child care or family leave, some of the biggest
issues facing working families. This means people are working longer hours
and spending less time at home. Little wonder Americans are feeling stressed
about their ability to spend time with their children.
Americans make the connection between moral decline, the challenge of
parenting, and the economic squeeze. In a recent St. Louis focus group
of men without a college education, one participant explained why he feels
the country is on the wrong track:
"I mean you can start anywhere from layoffs and going down to the
personal family level. You got too many kids in their teenage years, high
school years, doing what they want because there's no structure back home.
Because either their parents are working their tails off trying to keep
everything paid and the kids in school, so they're not there after school
to help out so their kids run rampant, or they are laid off, they're working
night jobs and they're not there to watch the children."
Another college-educated man from Oakland County, Mich., put it this
way: "I tend to feel that the burden of the tax system in our country
is forcing couples to work. And not so much take care of our kids as maybe
my parents were able to in the past." From this and other data, it
is obvious that people personalize political issues such as the tax cut,
making a link between their tax burden and their ability to have the time
and resources to support their families. So when people worry about moral
decline, their concerns are broader than the narrow family values agenda
of the Republican Party. They are responding to their own experiences
with the challenges of raising families when they do not have the resources
to provide safe homes and safe schools for their children.
There is no reason for progressive Democrats to shy away from addressing
these issues -- they are not antithetical to a progressive agenda, and
they speak to the core values of the majority of the American public.
Democrats should not hesitate to criticize the proliferation of sex and
violence in the media. Parents across the political spectrum are concerned
and want help in shielding their children from these influences. After
all, studies by groups such as the Kaiser Family Foundation find that
the majority of television programming contains some sexual content but
little discussion of sexual responsibility.
Likewise, Democrats should not shy away from talking about the importance
of parenting -- regardless of people's familial arrangements -- and its
influence on early childhood development, behavior in school, economic
well-being, and children's health. And Democrats, regardless of their
own faith or lack of it, should express respect for the religious choices
of others and for the role faith-based organizations can play in families
and communities. After all, all religious communities, not just religiously
conservative groups, have a stake in the quality of our communities.
Finally, Democrats need to connect these priorities with an economic
agenda that supports families by offering equal access to education, health
care, retirement security, and targeted tax relief. Such a values message
is not about exclusion or taking away rights, but about acknowledging
a real desire for a society in which families and individuals have a chance
for a decent moral and economic life.
