Illegitimacy

Ever since Karl Marx dubbed religion the "opium of the masses" sociologists have debated the role of ideas in human behavior. Does, for example, the fact that unmarried Murphy Brown had a baby on last night's episode of the popular television sitcom simply reflect society's increased tolerance of out-of-wedlock births? Or does it, as some argue, signal that illegitimacy is now OK -- thus encouraging women to emulate the television heroine?One might think Ms. Brown a poor role model for unwed mothers.

A JUDGE in Shreveport, La., has ruled that teachin abstinence may not be part of a sex education program for high school students. Abstinence, said the judge (urged on by Planned Parenthood, which filed the suit), is a religiously based virtue. To teach it in public schools is to violate the separation of church and state.Now, before you laugh, consider this: It has long been illegal to display the Ten Commandments in public classrooms, and the Supreme Court recently held that a milquetoast, ecumenical, watered-down invocation of God's blessing on graduating high school seniors was also violative of the Constitution.

IN THE 1994 crime bill, Congress required an analysis of out-of-wedlock childbearing, identifying causes, consequences and preventive measures. And for good reason: Many of the people accused and convicted of violent crimes grew up without fathers.The report fingers some familiar culprits -- and punctures some comfortable assumptions. "Illegitimacy" is not just a ghetto problem, nor do those proverbial "teen" mothers comprise the majority of women who give birth out of wedlock. In fact, teen-agers account for only 30 percent of births outside marriage.

As politicians frame the discussion of welfare reform, as they offer their description of what a successful American family should look like, as they talk of the virtues and values we should be teaching our children, I find myself in a very uncomfortable place, a very unfamiliar place.I find myself agreeing with them.I am a member of the generation that rejected the Ozzie and Harriet family model. The revelation of my formative years, with Nixon and Laos and Kent State, was that you could not trust the pronouncements of white, male politicians.

Washington. -- As the welfare-reform debate begins to boil, the place to begin is with an elemental fact: No child in America asked to be here.Each was summoned into existence by the acts of adults. And no child is going to be spiritually improved by being collateral damage in a bombardment of severities targeted at adults who may or may not deserve more severe treatment from the welfare system.Phil Gramm says welfare recipients are people ''in the wagon'' who ought to get out and ''help the rest of us pull.

Washington. -- President Clinton's passionate philippic in a black church in Memphis last Saturday demonstrated that, regarding inner-city violence, the range of the discussable is expanding, but we still are a far cry from candor.Mr. Clinton, a government man, instinctively believes that the underclass, which he says might better be called the outer class, principally lacks what governments can provide -- services, work. His instinct is reinforced by reading sociologist William Julius Wilson's analysis of how, in Mr. Clinton's words, the inner cities ''have crumbled as work has disappeared.

WISE CHILDREN.Angela Carter.Farrar, Straus & Giroux.234 pages. $21. "Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people," notes Dora Chance, the irrepressible narrator of "Wise Children," Angela Carter's exuberant new novel about a British theatrical dynasty.Indeed, the events that overtake the intertwined lives of the eccentric Hazard and Chance families are not things one normally laughs at: murder, jealousy, infidelity, illegitimacy and incest. But this is a tale that's all in its telling, and since chatty, witty, earthy Dora's doing the telling, it smacks much more of the music hall than of Greek tragedy.

Here is how members of Maryland's delegation on Capitol Hill were recorded on selected roll-call votes last week:Y: YES N: NO X: NOT VOTINGHOUSE: LOCKBOXVoting 364-59, the House passed a bill (HR 1162) to ensure that savings from spending cuts voted on the House and Senate floors are used to lower the deficit rather than buttress other programs.0$ A yes vote was to pass the bill.N X MemberY * * Ehrlich, Robert, R-2nd* N * Hoyer, Steny H. D-5thY * * Bartlett, Roscoe G., R-6thY * * Wynn, Albert R., D-4thY * * Cardin, Benjamin L., D-3rdY * * Mfume, Kweisi, D-7thY * * Gilchrest, Wayne T., R-1stY * * Morella, Constance A., R-8thSENATE: MORE CHILDRENBy a 66-34 vote, the Senate stripped a pending welfare overhaul bill (HR 4)

Even though some self-appointed guardians of public morals may be outraged, the Carroll County commissioners were right to support the creation of a day-care center for teen mothers. The board correctly understood that keeping these young women from dropping out of school will help to make them economically self-sufficient adults capable of caring for themselves and their children.If we, as a society, want to discourage young mothers and their children from collecting public assistance, this project, promoted by a group called Raising Hopes, makes a great deal of sense.

Granted, Newt Gingrich is given to overblown rhetoric. But the storm that still continues long after the House speaker's suggestion of bringing back orphanages is doing nothing to address the problems facing too many children in this society.Humane people hold sacred the bond between children and parents, and the bond between young children and their mothers is especially important. So when Mr. Gingrich talks somewhat callously of substituting orphanages for welfare payments, his critics understandably respond with rhetorical missiles.