Why is the U.S. the land of "family values?"?

[mommanuke]

We pretty much have Dan Quayle to thank. He was the first to use the term in a political context in 1992 after he outraged so many people by his comments on Murphy Brown. Since then, it has been used as a wedge issue, as if people who do not share your political beliefs have no family values. Look at how it was used in the anti-Obama campaigns, accusing him of not having traditional American family values because he spent several years abroad as a child, regardless of the fact that his current life shows a traditional American family of married parents of children, who maintain their lifestyle by work, attend church(whether or not you approve of the church they attend), and hold pretty much every other American value.

Real family values in the US vary as much as the number of families. The things you mentioned from abroad are the result of societal values, not family ones. It's the political structure of their societies that produces the results.