Family Values

FAMILY values," it is now universally pronounced, were found wanting as a campaign issue and have been laid permanently to rest. Maybe. But before the last eulogy is spoken, it is important to straighten out what went wrong, so that the right lessons are learned.Vice President Dan Quayle started all this with his famous reference to "Murphy Brown." (I don't know about you, but I have become so sick of hearing that sound bite that I actually hold my ears and hum when I hear it coming -- something I haven't done since schoolyard days!

Among the signs of our times is a lack, some might say a dearth, of Mafia novels. A relic of the glamorous, insensitively macho '60s, those debonair patriarchs and their nattily dressed henchmen wheezing about honor while shooting hapless people in the head met a fate similar to that of James Bond, that other '60s icon of sex, sophistication and gratuitous violence: death due to an inability to be taken seriously.It's ironic that some of the people who created these pop-culture heroes helped, wittingly or not, to kill them off. Mario Puzo wrote "The Godfather," the book that not only invented the genre but so thoroughly mythologized mobsterism that actual criminals began to imitate its characters.

Like millions of Americans, Chris Seay was hooked after watching just a few episodes of The Sopranos, HBO's hit series. "The characters were so real, so true to life," he recalls. "They were truly flawed heroes, and that is compelling to me." The saga of an Italian-American family living in northern New Jersey is characterized by award-winning writing and acting. It is also drenched in blood, sex, greed, crime and, most of all, the angst of its protagonist, Mafia boss Tony Soprano. What makes Seay, 30, different from other fans of the series is that he is a Christian minister.

Boston. -- Is there some way to close off this endless, surreal exchange between fact and fiction, real life and sitcom, Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown? It's become as wearisome as witnessing a couple fighting for the last word.First it was Dan taking Murphy to task for the malfeasance of unwed motherhood. Next it was Murphy waving an Emmy and a finger at Dan for picking on single mothers.Then last week, Dan tried to turn this heavy stuff into a Lite controversy by doing a promo for Murphy reruns at an L.A. TV station.

* Shirley Richa, 46, of Clarksville, teacher for Baltimore County public schools:Family values to me means not just showing the world that you value your own family but that you're willing to implement social programs for any family in America or the world. Just holding your own family and saying "aren't we wonderful" isn't enough. You have to value everyone's family.

There's a debate going on in television over family values.Nobody seems to be able to define these values, but they were certainly getting a lot of attention recently in Los Angeles at the annual summer TV press tour. And with Election Day '92 -- not to mention the November Sweeps -- not far off, the discussion is becoming more heated and political every day.It all started a few months ago with the high-profile season finale of "Murphy Brown," in which the fictional TV newswoman played by Candice Bergen became a single mother, an event that apparently offended the sensibilities of real-life Vice President Dan Quayle.

THIS Sunday, supporters of gay rights are expected to converge on Washington for one of the largest demonstrations in the nation's history. As I await the event, and recall earlier marches in which I have participated with other parents of gay children, I am reminded once again of society's upside-down notions about the relationship between homosexuality and "family values."The latest flurry of misguided moralism was touched off by a popular comic strip in which a teen-age character reveals his homosexuality to his best friend.

WASHINGTON -- First, there was Bill Clinton conceding last year that Dan Quayle was more right than wrong when he attacked Murphy Brown for having an out-of-wedlock child. Last week, liberal Health Secretary Donna E. Shalala said as much, chalking up another one for traditional family values.Vice President Al Gore held a conference this month on fatherhood. And this week, the White House opens its doors for a conference on building the American character.Whose values are these, anyway?Recognizing the public's concern that society's moral fiber is fraying at every seam, Democrats have seized on the issues of family, values, responsibility and character -- potent political weapons once held exclusively in conservative Republican and religious-right arsenals -- and are trying to make them their own."