Gop Convention Big On `Family Values,' But Whose?

WASHINGTON - Family values night at the Republican National Convention in Houston will begin with entertainer Lee Greenwood singing his original rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Last April, Greenwood married for the fifth time.

Politicians in general this season - and conservative Republicans particularly - are making much of "family values." They conjure a world of enduring marriages, loving two-parent households and temperate lifestyles.

A Republican press release promises, "Wednesday, the Convention will focus on traditional family values . . . values rooted in the past with a vision toward the future. Strong families and communities are an essential part of `The American Spirit' and have made America great."

But as next week's GOP entertainment roster suggests, defining family values is difficult, given how people live and love in the 1990s.

Convention-goers will be listening to Greenwood and other performers who have gone through multiple divorces, who live with partners without benefit of marriage - and one, Tanya Tucker, who has two children born out of wedlock, has been treated for alcohol and drug abuse and who has driven a car with a license plate reading "Ms. Bad Ass."

FEW `TRADITIONAL' LIFESTYLES

Most of the actors and artists who will entertain Republicans seem to be at variance with what party conservatives consider to be a traditional lifestyle.

No one's saying the Democrats at their convention were traditional to the core, but neither did they cling to the "family values' banner as tightly as Republicans.

Someone like country singer Tucker, a single mother of two, has a lifestyle that doesn't fit in with the family values espoused by Vice President Quayle.

Tucker doesn't think much of Quayle herself. "Who is Dan Quayle to go after single mothers?" the singer said to the New York Daily News. "What in the world does he know of what it's like to go through pregnancy and have a child with no father for the baby? Who is he to call single mothers tramps?"

David Beckwith, Quayle's spokesman, said Quayle never called single mothers tramps. And despite his criticism of TV's "Murphy Brown" character for having a baby without benefit of marriage, the vice president has nothing against single mothers. "That's nobody's business but their own," Beckwith said. "But it's reasonable to ask the entertainment industry to help provide leadership in turning around a deteriorating social situation."

Asked whether Republicans don't view their cast of entertainers as part of "a deteriorating situation," he said: "We make a distinction between personal lives and what is depicted as glamorous or standard on the screen."

RED, WHITE AND BOOTS

Summer Harman, Tucker's publicist, said Tucker, who has performed at other GOP conventions, volunteered to sing for the Republicans in 1992. "Tanya and President Bush have been friends for a long time," Harman said.

On the convention's opening night Monday, Tucker will not only sing the National Anthem but afterward will entertain at an invitation-only bash called Red, White and Boots, which is to raise money for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

There, Tucker, who in 1988, according to Time magazine, went to the Betty Ford Center for treatment of cocaine and alcohol habits, will share the stage with other entertainers, including singer Louise Mandrell (separated from her third husband).

At the closing night Thursday, the National Anthem will be sung by Christian pop artist Sandi Patti. She is a mother of four who a few months ago announced her plans for a divorce.