Quayle Attacks ‘Cultural Elite’ on Moral Values

Vice President Dan Quayle, dividing the nation into “the cultural elite and the rest of us,” on Tuesday broadened his attack on the moral values of Murphy Brown to encompass a wide swath of American life, including universities, Hollywood and the news media.

Quayle also accused Ross Perot of harboring a “very condescending approach toward women,” citing a flap last week between Marilyn Quayle and the Texas billionaire, who is preparing an independent bid for the White House. The vice president also criticized Perot for saying that a President Perot would not knowingly appoint a homosexual to his Cabinet or other senior post. The Bush Administration, Quayle said, hires on merit.

But Quayle also characterized homosexuality as “mostly a choice” rather than a biological or inherited trait--contradicting some medical evidence.

Quayle jumped back into the “family values” controversy during a speech to a Southern Baptist convention here, and during an interview with reporters aboard Air Force II.

Three weeks ago, Quayle started a firestorm when he said in a San Francisco speech that the moral values exemplified by television character Murphy Brown’s unwed motherhood were an underlying cause of the Los Angeles riots. On Tuesday, he said he was proud of the criticism that his initial comments generated.

“As I discovered recently, to appeal to our country’s enduring, basic moral values is to invite the scorn and laughter of the elite culture,” he said. “Talk about right and wrong and they’ll try to mock us in newsrooms, sitcom studios and faculty lounges across America.

“Among the sophisticates, to talk about simple moral principles is considered an embarrassing gaffe. I guess that means they’re embarrassed about the views of the average American--because moral values are what the American people care most about,” Quayle said, adding, “That’s why I say this about the scorn of the media elite: I wear their scorn as a badge of honor.”

The vice president could not have chosen a friendlier audience: More than 15,000 delegates to the 135th annual Southern Baptist Convention, and their guests, in the Hoosier Dome, an enclosed football stadium.

“The cultural elite in Hollywood and elsewhere may have a lot of money, they may have a lot of influence,” he said. “But we have the power of ideas, the power of our convictions and the power of our beliefs.”

Four standing ovations greeted him before he began to speak, and two came in the midst of his address. Morris Chapman, president of the convention, saluted him for drawing attention to a situation comedy that “trivializes tragedy.”

Later, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force Two as he flew from Indianapolis to Raleigh, N.C., for a political fund-raiser, Quayle was asked who he included in the “cultural elite.” The vice president said he would include “some Democrats . . . left-wing, out-of-step, valueless Democrats” in the group. Pressed further, he said: “Us versus them, and I’m on the ‘us’ side.”

He was also asked about the indirect exchange between his wife and Perot. During a visit to Texas last week, Mrs. Quayle compared Perot to a “snake-oil salesman” and accused him of trying to buy the election.

Perot retorted: “I find it fascinating that grown men are hiding behind their women. . . . If they have anything to say, why don’t they step out front and say it themselves? If they want to get in the ring, come on in the ring--we’ll have it and get it on.

“But no, no, they’re afraid to do that. They send the women out to do it for them. Which is really . . . in that particular case, probably a good idea, because she is really smart and really talented.”

Quayle said he and his wife had discussed Perot’s comment. “She believes, and I think she’s absolutely correct, that it’s very condescending to women in general, and that he has a very different viewpoint of women than she does, and I do.”

Besides, he said: “I don’t think the American people want the White House for sale.”

Asked about Perot’s recent declaration in an interview on the ABC television show “20/20” that he would not knowingly appoint a homosexual or an adulterer to his Cabinet or other senior Administration job, Quayle said that in hiring staff members, “I do not ask about their lifestyle.”

“This Administration hires on merits,” he said. But he added: “We know the people we hire.”

Asked specifically whether he viewed homosexuality as a choice an individual makes, or whether the individual has no control over his sexual orientation, the vice president said: “It’s mostly a choice.”

Quayle’s evaluation deviates from some medical evidence--including a recent study by neuroscientist Simon LeVay of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. LeVay found differences in the brains of gay and straight men. His findings were published in the journal Science last year.

The issue of homosexuality has become a topic of contention among the Baptists. In Raleigh, 64% of the congregation of the Pullem Baptist Church voted in February to sanctify a marriage-like ceremony between two gay men.

During the Air Force Two interview, Quayle also said that his reference to the Murphy Brown television character three weeks ago was “one line, obviously put in to get attention.”

But, he said: “The American people said ‘rubbish’ to the ridicule it produced.” It drew mocking headlines in tabloid newspapers, kept Johnny Carson’s audiences laughing during the late-night entertainer’s last week on the air with “The Tonight Show” and made Quayle an instant hit with editorial cartoonists.

“Goofy,” was the way Perot described Quayle’s comments at the time--though Perot himself criticized a different TV show, “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” on much the same grounds when Doogie lost his virginity last September.

By revisiting the controversy, Quayle is carefully trying to shore up the conservative side of the Republican coalition, which to a great extent has never been comfortable with President Bush.

His effort has caused some consternation among senior officials in the Bush reelection campaign--”ranting and raving,” was the way one campaign aide described the reaction to Quayle’s focus on “family values” and his use of Murphy Brown as an example.

But, Bush political advisers have said, such attacks worked well for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew 20 years ago--Agnew was Richard M. Nixon’s running mate--and they are likely to become central to Quayle’s political role this year.

It has not come without cost.

A Washington Post-ABC News Poll found his popularity--along with that of the President--has dropped markedly since February. The percentage of those with a favorable view of the vice president fell from 39% to 26%, and the television character Murphy Brown--added to the poll after Quayle turned the spotlight on her--turned up with a 50% favorable rating. The survey was published Tuesday.

As if to graphically demonstrate his opposition to the “cultural elite,” Quayle made an unannounced--if not unplanned--stop later in the day at the Western Lanes bowling alley on the edge of the North Carolina State University campus in Raleigh. He donned a pair of red, white and blue bowling shoes, rolled up his shirt sleeves, tucked in his tie and bowled one frame, making a spare.