Ensign touts importance of becoming role models

Kirsten Searer

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 | 9:35 a.m.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., hosted a largely faith-based summit on fatherless children Monday, diving into a topic that has drawn him criticism in the past.

Ensign spoke openly about his experiences growing up in a single-parent household as well as his seven-year mentorship of a boy through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

He encouraged roughly 50 representatives of faith-based organizations and other advocacy groups at the summit to join together and promote mentoring programs and other activities such as the Boy Scouts that can reach out to children with no male role models.

The event, held at the UNLV campus, featured former UNLV and NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, who now works as a minister in Las Vegas.

Cunningham said he found out after his parents died that the man who raised him wasn't his biological father. Still, he said, he modeled himself after a series of male mentors, including his brother, Sam Cunningham, and other black quarterbacks.

He said he believes all people -- whether they are athletes, parents or someone performing their day-to-day job -- have no choice but to be role models in life.

Ensign agreed, saying "Your choice is if you're going to be a good role model or a bad role model."

Ensign talked about his mother, who he said was "tough" but struggled to support three young children with her job carrying change at a Reno casino.

"Certainly we did not have the kind of supervision that we needed," he said. "I was definitely on my way to becoming a complete juvenile delinquent."

Yet Ensign said his life took a turn when his mother married Mike Ensign, a casino executive who is now chairman of Mandalay Resort Group. Mike Ensign later adopted John Ensign.

Having a male role model helped focus his life, Ensign said.

For seven years, he said, he has mentored a Las Vegas boy through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. He said he was first reluctant to give up time because he was serving in the House of Representatives and at the time had two small children.

But, he said, he trusted God to help him make up for the time he devoted to the program. Too many Americans, he said, are self-centered and don't reach out to others to show they care.

That's part of the problem with fathers who don't take an active role in their children's lives, he said, saying it has become "acceptable" to abandon children, if not financially than emotionally.

"We need to create that kind of group peer pressure that says, 'what do you mean you're letting the government take care of your child or letting the mother take care of your child?'

"There needs to be that pressure again so they can't walk away scot free," he said.

Studies have shown that nine of ten men in prison say they had no positive male role models, Ensign said. About one-third of children in America are born into single-parent households, he said.

About 11 percent -- or more than 83,000 of Nevada's households -- are run by a woman with no husband present, according to 2000 census numbers.

Of Nevada's 37,877 families that lived in poverty in 2000, about 20 percent -- or almost 17,000 households -- were run by a single mother.

In 1997, when he was still in the House of Representatives, Ensign drew criticism for his role in the conservative group Promise Keepers and for comments he made at a news conference that "out-of-wedlock births need to be somewhat stigmatized."

Ensign said Monday he thinks it's important to attack this issue from a faith-based perspective.

He said he is trying to form a broad-based group of people from many different religions to tackle a problem he called "one of the top issues that faces America today."

"Faith can play a big role because that's where our values come from," he said.

Randall Birk, a pastor with University United Methodist Church, said he was glad the summit took place not only because it could unite local pastors but also because Ensign spoke about the need to show fatherless children love and stability.

Birk's church, which is near the UNLV campus on Maryland Parkway, hosts a Sunday school program that draws in many children with unstable family lives, he said.

"What these kids are looking for is someone to love them on a regular basis," he said. "You have a lot of kids in this neighborhood who just want people to do what they say they're going to do."

Ensign's office will pay for the rent of a room at UNLV for the afternoon, which should be about $300, said Ensign spokeswoman Sari Mann. Taxpayers also paid for invitations to the event, which Mann said were printed by Ensign's office.

Earlier on Monday, Ensign hosted a summit in Reno on the same topic featuring U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.