Can he say that?

We're talking Emory University here.

I ask in admiration, since John Witte Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory, in his Sunday @issue article "Sex may be free, but children come with a cost we must accept," pulls no punches in admonishing adults for the harm they inflict. He uses words that are plain and descriptive, identifying irresponsible adults as "adulterers and fornicators" whose irresponsibility creates "illegitimate children."

His plain-spokenness and forthrightness are welcome. But in the modern world, where euphemisms are invented for all conduct or situations that could possibly result in any individual feeling shame, or suffering any loss of self-esteem, speaking plainly is simply not done. I fear for his safety —- it's a liberal-arts re-education camp for John Witte, for sure. I must remember to send him cigarettes soon as I know which camp.

Witte's argument is that adults pay little or no penalty for causing life, with the result that " 28 percent of all Caucasian, 50 percent of all Hispanic, and 71 percent of all African-American children were born to single mothers in 2007," at a cost to taxpayers of $112 billion per year.

"Compared with children born and raised within marital households, nonmarital children on average impose substantially higher costs on society for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs and in lost tax revenues," he writes. Those costs exceeded $1 trillion over the past decade, according to the Institute for American Values, he continues.

But rather than visit that cost on the rest of us, a greater burden should be placed on both adults "whose sexual dalliances produce children." Contraception is available and cheap. Those who opt to ignore it, resulting in life, should be forced to pay support sufficient to guarantee that a child born outside marriage has a comparable living standard to children born to adults who marry.

Witte's remedies include aggressive maternity and paternity suits, punitive-damage and estate lawsuits by illegitimate children when they reach adulthood, and concerted adoption efforts.

In an apparent effort to secure for himself a better daily work assignment or more morsels of food in the re-education camp, Witte is quick to remind readers that his proposals are not "grumpy conservatism but elementary liberalism."

Whatever. Conservatism is never "grumpy" to those who understand its magnetic power to transform lives for the better, but if the gentleman wishes to throw us under the bus to advance his efforts to force adults to accept their "moral and fiscal" responsibilities to children, so be it.

It may be intrusive liberalism to suggest, as he does, that "birth certificates should carry more specific information about both parents —- not just their names and addresses, as now, but their Social Security numbers, blood types and genetic data as well." That would be combined with "a national registry of these birth certificates ... to ensure that parents can be found regardless of where they move," the better and easier for government authorities to track them down.

The discussion of Witte's proposals ends here, but not before again noting the important role he plays in focusing national attention on a crisis of the culture.

Without question, when 38 percent of children are born to single women and to men who are most likely walk-aways, serious changes in the law, in the media, in the conversations on campuses, and in the middle class and in churches, are required. Adults deserve every protection of the law —- until the moment they conceive. Then the law's obligation shifts to the interests of the child until the age of majority. We should be prepared, as taxpayers, to pay $1,000 to collect $1 if it results in compelling an adult to recognize responsibility. An adult's lifestyle is secondary to the child's.

Every institution has a role.

As the Parents Television Council reported last week, prime-time television is overwhelmingly drawn to nonmarital sex in conversation and visuals. TV helped to turn the nation on cigarettes; its dialogue and scenes determine the norms.

It does not take a village. It takes a mother and a father.

> Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Friday, Sunday and Tuesday.

jwooten@ajc.com

Blog with Jim Wooten six days a week at ajc.com/opinion