Robert N. Bellah Quotes

When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled.

Here's the thing: the unit of reverence in Europe is the family, which is why a child born today of unmarried parents in Sweden has a better chance of growing up in a house with both of his parents than a child born to a married couple in America. Here we revere the couple, there they revere the family.

The triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.

It's immoral to parent irresponsibly... And it doesn't help matters any when prime time tv, like "Murphy Brown", a character who is supposed to represent a successful career woman of today, mocks the importance of the father by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice." Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is... Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at [such values] I think most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong.

It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be constituted by children, and relations not involving children ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indifferent by public opinion. It is only through children that relations cease to be a purely private matter.

Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother.

In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality.

From the way children are treated society can be judged.

Fathers are so necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue. Without father figures, young people often feel orphaned; left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development.

There are a lot of very fine upstanding gays who are good citizens and all that. I am not making a decision for individual people. But when it comes to a societal policy, I think there are not enough babies for adoption to go around. I think a preference should be given to families with a mother and father who have a lifetime commitment.

People…shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if they’d already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn’t fair.

The basic unit of any society is the home. When the home begins to break, the society is on the way to disintegration.

I imagine the world dividing into the people who want to feed their children, and the ones shooting at them.

The state is now more involved than it ever has been in the raising of children. And children are now more neglected, more abused and more mistreated than they have been in our time. This is not a coincidence. This is not a coincidence. And with all due respect, I am here to tell you it does not take a village to raise a child. It takes a family to raise a child.

If humanity is to live in the future in a socially right way, humanity must educate its children in a socially right way.

I'm passionately opposed to the nuclear family, with its mom and dad and their 2.4 children. I think it's the most neurotic life-style ever developed.

The welfare state corrupts family life. Even Democrats have acknowledged the destructive consequences of the welfare state on the underclass. It has rendered vast numbers of male unnecessary to females, who have looked to the state to support them and their children (and the more children, the more state support) rather than to husbands. In effect, these women took the state as their husband.

If experience be consulted, it will be found there is no action, however abominable, that has not received the applause of some people. Parricide - the sacrifice of children - robbery - usurpation - cruelty - intolerance - prostitution, have all in their turn been licensed actions, and have been deemed laudable and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth. Above all, Religion has consecrated the most unreasonable, the most revolting customs.

I hope that people of all faiths will start looking for our too-invisible children who are crying out for help.

Guilty as charged. We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family unit.

And so today, the undermining of the home and family is on the increase, with the devil anxiously working to displace the father as the head of the home and create rebellion among the children. [Isaiah] describes the condition when [he] states, "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them." and then these words follow-and consider these words seriously when you think of those political leaders who are promoting birth control and abortion: "O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths."

Visitation reflects the era of the absentee father; parent time influences the re-emergence of the involved father. Visitation reflects the destruction of the family; parent time influences the reconstruction of the family. Parent time influences an era that understands that as either parent loses, so lose the children.

We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.

I really believe, in my heart and soul, that if we would rebuild and strengthen the family structure in the country, you'd start to really deal with a number of the most difficult problems we're having in the country today, in poverty, education, and in crime, but we've broken the family structure up.