All in the Family

It needs help, but what kind?

Outside the Baltimore Convention Center, a picket's placard proclaimed: PRESIDENT CARTER, SEX DEVIATES AREN'T GOING TO TEACH MY KIDS. Read another poster: WHY ARE JIMMY AND ROSALYNN SPONSORING THIS ATTACK ON GOD'S PLAN? Scarcely seeming to notice the hubbub, and smiling as usual, the President entered the hall and urged the 671 delegates attending his White House conference to be the "catalyst for a new awareness in government of the importance of families and the needs of families."

The Baltimore meeting was the first of three sessions to be held on the topic. There will be another in Minneapolis on June 19-21 and a third in Los Angeles on July 10-12. The resolutions approved at all three meetings will then be taken to the President, who has pledged to try to carry out what has been proposed. Back in 1978 when he first announced a conference on the family, the idea seemed relatively noncontroversial. Ever since, conservative and liberal groups have been warring over how the family should be defined and helped.

The conservatives, calling themselves "pro-family," did not want the conference in the first place. As one of their leaders, Phyllis Schlafly, put it: "We don't think the Federal Government has the competence to deal with the family; it aggravates problems rather than solves them." But if a conference had to be held, the conservatives insisted on its establishing their definition of the family: "People related by heterosexual marriage, blood or adoption." In other words, no recognition of unmarried couples or of homosexual pairings. Beyond that, the conservative groups called for a vote against abortion and the ERA.

Organizing first and fastest, conservatives won most of the conference delegate seats in the first state election, but in most states, the Governors moved to balance the delegations. The resulting assembly included 25% from racial minorities, 11% from single-family households, 4% from families with handicapped members and 10% from families with an annual income of $10,000 or less. In the end, it was a coalition of moderate to liberal groups that commanded a clear majority of delegates.

From the start, the conference organizers were determined to keep to the middle of the road and not fire up the conservatives, who were busy holding press conferences denouncing the meeting. Marian Wright Edelman, director of the Children's Defense Fund, told the delegates: "The issue is not whether government interferes; it already does. Our job is to make sure specific governmental and private-sector actions help, not hurt children and strengthen, not weaken families." The conference, insisted its delegates, would not demand big spending programs but would seek ways of aiding families through measures like tax credits and incentives.

Commanding about 20% of the vote, the conservatives were regularly voted down in the various workshops and about 50 of them walked out. At the same time, a homosexual delegate was defeated--by a mere two votes--when he proposed defining the family as "two or more persons who share resources, responsibility for decisions, values and goals and have commitment to one another over time." At week's end 600 of the delegates passed 57 resolutions on problems ranging from the "marriage tax" to joint custody of children. The top three issues: alcohol and drug abuse prevention programs, home health care for the elderly and employment policies that encourage "strong family life." Said conference Executive Director John Carr: "We firmly believe that while this open process is far more risky and far more controversial, it is also far more likely to lead to action than locking 20 experts in a room for a year."

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