Clinton Family Values Effort Urged : Policy: Group of communitarians outlines Administration actions they say would strengthen two-parent households.

A group of intellectuals and academics who identify themselves as communitarians issued a call Wednesday for President-elect Bill Clinton to reclaim family values as a mainstream theme for his Administration.

In a 29-page position paper released Wednesday, the group, which views a two-parent family as a cornerstone of a civil and moral society, called for specific public policies aimed at strengthening families. Those include publicly funded paid leave for new parents, flex-time at work, better day-care centers, and new divorce laws that would favor children and “slow the rush to divorce.”

The communitarian movement is a project of intellectuals, academics and religious leaders--both liberal and conservative--who want to forge links between moral values and public policy issues. They want to focus on rights and responsibilities but avoid the strident negativity of the religious right.

Supporters of the movement include Robert Bellah of the University of California at Berkeley, theologian Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School, theologian Richard John Neuhaus and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, editor of the independent Catholic journal Commonweal.

The paper was prepared by seven academics associated with the burgeoning communitarian movement who said they saw good and bad in the sloganeering around family values that marked this year’s presidential campaign.

They praise the “long overdue attention” on families and family values, but denounce much of its tone. “The use of pro-family arguments as attack weapons by some has done a profound disservice to the cause of America’s families,” the paper says.

The paper is being circulated to 50 religious and civic groups as well as to the new Administration.

The group envisions a new model of the family. They want neither a return to the traditional family of Ozzie and Harriet nor a treatment of the family as “just another lifestyle option.” Instead, they argue that a two-parent family, in which both mother and father have strong and equal commitments to their children, is the basis of a strong society.

“Nothing in this statement should be read as treating women (or mothers) as having lesser rights or more responsibilities than men or (or fathers),” they say. “We strongly support, and recognize as morally correct, the fundamental equality of fathers and mothers: Both command the same basic rights and responsibilities.”

The paper sets out the view that the well-being of the nation’s children is a prime responsibility of parents but one that “too many parents are failing to discharge.” But society has failed parents as well, according to the group. The paper criticizes society for failing in its responsibility to foster “a family-friendly environment.”

The paper called for a coherent national family policy that would include two main parts: “Bonding for infants with their parents at home at least until age 1 and improved child-care facilities for older children and for those infants whose parents face unusual circumstances.”

Among proposals:

- At least six months of publicly funded paid leave for parents after childbirth or adoption and an additional six months of unpaid leave for parents employed by businesses with more than 50 employees.

- Corporate policies encouraging flex-time and home work arrangements that permit parents to better mesh family and work responsibilities and spend more time with their children.

- Improved day-care centers for older children, focusing on reducing personnel turnover and improving the quality of personnel.

- Creation of a child allowance for families to replace tax exemptions.

Those who prepared the Communitarian Position Paper on the Family were Jean Elshtain of Vanderbilt University; Enola Aird, chair of the Connecticut Commission on Children; Amitai Etzioni, of George Washington University and editor of The Responsive Community, a journal; William Galston of the University of Maryland; Mary Ann Glendon and Martha Minow of Harvard University, and Alice Rossi, former president of the American Sociological Assn.