Thomas Mott Osborne: “Mr. Speaker, the recent elections that we had here in the United States indicate that many people were concerned about…”

“Mr. Speaker, the recent elections that we had here in the United States indicate that many people were concerned about "values" in this kind of a loose term, and it seems like much of this concern is directed at a perceived erosion of our culture. A good amount of the data that we have uncovered would indicate that this concern certainly has merit. For example, nearly one half of our young people are growing up without both biological parents today. So roughly one-half of our young people have experienced some significant trauma in their lives because losing a biological parent is difficult for anyone. More than 20 million children are fatherless in our country, and usually when they have no father, whether they are a young man or woman, they try to fill this void with activities which ofttimes are harmful, maybe gangs, drugs, promiscuity, whatever. A significant number of our children are involved in alcohol and drug abuse. Roughly 3 million young people in their teenage years currently are addicted to alcohol. That is 3 million. And hundreds of thousands, of course, are addicted to other substance abuse. Promiscuity, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases have become a major problem. The out-of-wedlock birthrate has increased from 5 percent in 1960 to 33 percent today.”