family values

But on “family values night,” as Marilyn Quayle described the session dominated by Republican women, the values took on an accusatory edge: […] the Vice President's wife made clear to cheering conservatives what she felt was at the center of family values: “Commitment, marriage and fidelity are not just arbitrary arrangements.”[…] [T]he difference is that the use of family values focuses more sharply on abortion, gay rights and the pre- and extramarital activities that go under the name of playing around or hanky-panky.

1992 September 6, William Safire, “On Language: Family Values”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 26 Dec 2022

Although Hollywood executives are fond of pointing out this latest trend, the phrase “family values” hardly carries the same meaning here as that expressed by Vice President Dan Quayle, his wife, Marilyn, Patrick J. Buchanan and others before and during the Republican convention. There, it was generally viewed as a phrase that implicity^([sic]) criticized alternative life styles, and was even seen as rebuking working mothers.

[1992 November 12, Bernard Weinraub, “Hollywood Is Testing Family Values’ Value”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 19 May 2023, page C15