Quayle Says Emmy Is Not License to Lie

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Vice President Dan Quayle fired another volley in his running battle with television sitcom character Murphy Brown on Monday, accusing Hollywood of distorting his “family values” message.

Responding to comments made during Sunday night’s Emmy award ceremony--including by actress Candice Bergen and the show’s creator, Diane English--Quayle told a small airport rally:

“Last night, they said I attacked single mothers. That’s a lie. Last night, they said that I believe single mothers and their children are not families. That’s a lie. Winning an Emmy is not a license to lie.”

At a rally later in a sweltering high school gymnasium in Columbus, Miss., Quayle denied he had ever attacked single mothers or said that single-parent households did not meet the GOP family values test.

To head off charges that he has led such a sheltered life that he cannot comprehend the economic and social realities of modern America, Quayle said: “My sister got divorced two years ago and she’s got two children and she’s struggling. My grandmother, who died when she was 100 years old, she was a single mother and she raised my mother and my aunt and she did all right. So I don’t need any lectures from Hollywood.”

Quayle started the battle with the popular sitcom last May, accusing the show of glamorizing single motherhood because Murphy Brown had a child out of wedlock. Since then, the vice president and the show’s participants have been involved in a back-and-forth battle over whether the show ridicules traditional values, and over whether the vice president can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Last May, he also urged single mothers to marry. “Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is,” he told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

On Sunday night, several Emmy participants mocked Quayle, accusing him of being out of touch with modern American reality and lacking sensitivity to the millions of families headed by single women.

Two of the strongest attacks came from actress Bergen, who plays Murphy Brown, and English.

When Bergen accepted her award for best actress in a comedy series, she said: “I’d like to thank the vice president . . . and the cultural elite for recognizing me and Murphy once again.” Then, referring to Quayle’s publicized misspelling of the word potato , she thanked her writers for “not only writing these great words (in the show), but spelling them correctly.”

English, who accepted the award for best comedy series, thanked the sponsors for sticking with the show despite the controversy. Then she said: “I would also like to thank in particular all the single parents out there who, either by choice or by necessity, are raising their kids alone. Don’t let anybody tell you you’re not a family.”

She added: “As Murphy herself said: ‘I couldn’t possibly do a worse job raising my kid alone than the Reagans did with theirs.’ ”

Quayle’s rejoinder came as he began a campaign trip to small cities in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma. President Bush won all five states in 1988 and needs to retain them this year, but polls show that could be difficult. Quayle, who is the Administration’s main liaison with the right wing of the party, came to woo small-town conservatives.

The jibes from the Emmy Awards gave Quayle a good reason to re-emphasize the campaign’s “family values” theme.

“Now, Murphy Brown, listen closely, because I’m only going to say it once,” he said, to laughter. “You owe me big time.”

Then he said he wanted to make a serious point about his and President Bush’s ongoing crusade for family values, and accused the Emmy participants of lying.

He also returned to his charge that Hollywood and the rest of the nation’s so-called “cultural elite” propagate immorality.

“Hollywood doesn’t like our values,” Quayle said. “Hollywood doesn’t like our beliefs. Hollywood can go ahead and laugh at the American people. They can go ahead and lie about what I said.

“But I’m going to tell you this: I’m going to continue to speak the truth. I’m going to continue to speak up for traditional values, and I am not going to back down.”

Neither is Murphy Brown. CBS recently issued a press release on the show’s Sept. 21 season premiere, headlined: “Murphy’s life is radically changed by the two new men in her life, Baby Brown and Vice President Dan Quayle.”

Quayle’s staff says it has a copy of the script.

Television writer Rick Du Brow contributed to this story.