Tucked away in the pages of big city newspapers in recent months have been a succession of items more depressing even than the accounts of hideous crimes. The headlines over these news stories read like this: “A Third of All Births Illegitimate” or “1 Birth in 3 Here is Out of Wedlock.”
The leader in these dismal statistics is Washington, D.C., where there are more illegitimate births than legitimate. In Chicago, 33 out of every 100 babies are born out of wedlock. New York’s figure is 30 out of every 100.
When you translate the percentages into actual numbers, the total is staggering. Chicago, for example, has a population of about 200,000 fatherless children who have been born since 1965. That’s more than live in any other city in Illinois.
Illegitimate births are the result of social and financial irresponsibility, not the poverty of people too poor to afford marriage. Washington, D.C., is a city of little unemployment because of the steady work available in Federal jobs. The layoffs, cutbacks and recessions which plague some private employment have not affected Federal jobholders.
The evils of fatherless children are everywhere apparent. The tremendous increase in crime has been most striking among boys aged 16 to 26. Child abuse has become a social problem of enormous proportions. For the first time in our history, we are beginning to read about a significant and growing number of suicides among teenagers and even younger children.
Illegitimate births are only one manifestation of the accelerating immorality among our people. Many cities have apparently almost abandoned enforcement of the laws against obscenity and prostitution. The obscene movies and bookstores and swarms of prostitutes openly ply their trade within a few blocks of the White House in our nation’s capital.
One of the causes of illegitimate births, according to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, is the phenomenon called “sex rock” — the term for popular songs with suggestive lyrics that many young people listen to by the hour. These lyrics promote illicit sex and the use of obscene words, and they graphically describe sexual acts and various bizarre conduct.
Several years ago, local radio stations would cancel the airing of offensive songs once they realized what they meant, or sometimes fuzzy up or blur the suggestive lyrics. Today there appears to be no restraint, even though the songs have become sexually directive and give explicit instructions.
Apparently, among many teenagers, sex rock can become an addiction much like alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, or pornography. It is a secret communication system understood only by those tuned in to its rhythm. Hour after hour, the rock beat and the lyrics pound on their stream of consciousness, formulating their ideas and attitudes toward life and love.
Some industry officials in the billion dollar record business defend sex rock as merely an honest reflection of a permissive society. They argue that “singers are only expressing what people are doing all around us.”
The Reverend Jesse Jackson says that teenagers should be considered the victims of sex rock, rather than its audience. He cautions: “The deadliest poisons are colorless, odorless and tasteless toxins with the power to penetrate anywhere, undetected.” That’s exactly what sex rock is.
