Ex-welfare official answers his critics

Robert W. Patterson is editor of The Family in America, and recently exited the Corbett administration, where he was special assistant to the secretary of public welfare

During the last few weeks, The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News have had a field day with the journal I edit, The Family in America, deploying scorn, ridicule, and caricature to depict me as an "extremist" unworthy of a political appointment at the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW). It's time to tell the other side of the story.

The Journal. Contrary to press misrepresentations, The Family in America is not a faith-based journal, nor is religion the "center" of the Howard Center, its Illinois publisher. Any casual reader will discover that the public-affairs quarterly relies heavily on empirical, academic research that quantifies the value of marriage and intact families to America's social and economic well-being. Religion is rarely discussed in the journal. Its stable of contributors and its 22-member editorial board are composed of respected policy experts and academics.

Even its much-maligned "New Research" commentary that generated the most derision - on semen's apparent antidepressive effects on women - was merely a recitation of a study previously referenced in Scientific American. Moreover, the assertion that I "condemn" contraception and working women misrepresents the journal's thoughtful essays questioning publicly funded birth control and gender-based affirmative action.

Yes, the journal promotes a viewpoint, deeply rooted in the social and biological sciences and increasingly accepted across the ideological spectrum, that men, women, and children - as well as society as a whole - are healthier, happier, and more prosperous in the context of monogamous, lifelong marriages with multiple offspring. We lament, as does social scientist Charles Murray in his new book Coming Apart, the retreat from marriage since the 1970s, a retreat that leaves not only the poor but also the entire American project at risk.

The journal and its work have implications for needed reforms at DPW. It provides solid, research-based intellectual underpinnings for the proposition that only policies that promote personal responsibility through family formation and the dignity of labor - rather than enabling unwed childbearing and family breakdown - can make any lasting headway in alleviating poverty.