Family, religion are paths to peace

Dear Editor,
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu recently made a major address at Tulane University on the violence in New Orleans, and the emotional hour long speech was in essence a cry for help — but he was unable to offer any solutions to the problem since it is intractably tied to “broken families” and “disintegrated social structures”.
I would submit, however, that there is a solution to the exploding social ills that are now plaguing New Orleans, Ferguson, Baltimore and the rest of America. It starts with acknowledging the fact that over the last 50 years the number of disadvantaged mothers giving birth to children out of wedlock has exploded — a 400 percent increase by white mothers to 38 percent today, and a 300 percent increase by black mothers  to 73 percent. It ends with acknowledging the fact that there has been a movement to remove God from our schools, market place and ultimately from our homes. With that many disadvantaged families with no father in the home today, combined with the decline in religion and morality, and the resulting social chaos should not be surprising.   
So this begs the question — is it possible that we now have a country whose policies promote the disintegration of the disadvantaged family unit and the removal of God ? If the answer is yes, then we need to change our policies. Perhaps if our disadvantaged mothers went back to relying on fathers to support and raise their families, rather than on our government, things would improve and we would stop the cycle of violence. White and Black fathers matter!
Steve Gardes, CPA
Lafayette