McCain is Right on Fathers’ Rights
But Does He Know It?

After Barack Obama’s Fathers’ Day speech, analysts have been confident in criticizing his tired, old, business-as-usual, anti-father, anti-family stance. For some who didn’t get the real message through the flowery rhetoric, his choice of running mate “Old White Man” Joe Biden tipped the scale. If you are in favor of sanity, against bone-crushing arbitrary government intrusion and out-of-control pork-barreling, against the destruction of marriage and family, these aren’t your guys.

What about the alternative, John McCain? Fumbling federal social policy on marriage and family has been a decades-long bipartisan affair. So it isn’t a foregone conclusion that voting Republican will help much. We have to wait and see whether his choice of running mate for example, will bring some clarity to his positions. What do we know – or think we know – so far?

In his personal life, John McCain resented the long absences of his own father, who was commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet during the Vietnam War. But as he grew up and began his own family, he felt more empathy with his dad. There seems to be no sign that he is anywhere near anti-family or anti-father in his heart.

McCain is a member of the U.S. Senate Task Force on Responsible Fatherhood “sponsored by the National Fatherhood Initiative.” Here is where cause for concern begins. “Responsible fatherhood” is a promotional phrase for programs that create a sort of new Orwellian federalism while serving the more traditional dystopian goal of bleeding enormous amounts of money from taxpayers and the programs’ subjects. The National Fatherhood Initiative, started by Republican Party insiders, promotes the agenda.

Despite this very direct involvement in fathers’ rights issues, McCain has done little to discuss them publicly. According to About.com:

John McCain has not publicly taken a position on father’s rights issues, feeling that they are best addressed in the states and in the courts. In response to questions in town hall meetings and other settings, McCain has made it clear that he has no particular interest in the father’s rights debate.

But the commentary under the heading “Protecting Marriage” on his campaign website brings us right to the core politics of the war against fathers, marriage, and the family.

As president, John McCain would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to Constitutional balance is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the traditional family, the Courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the Constitutional right of the people to decide this question.

The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.

As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America’s families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress.

What remains to be seen is whether he can break away from the Republican Party’s habit of massaging the importance of marriage and family with one hand while destroying the institutions with the other. First, he must correct a fundamental and critical error in the reasoning his campaign brings to the discussion – the strange idea that it is somehow possible to debate family policy in a way that does not involve fathers’ rights issues. Recognition of the enormous and fundamental overlap would go a long way.

Serious analysts are well beyond simply blaming “activist judges” for the destruction of marriage and family. They are rightfully to be blamed, but it is for not exercising their role as defenders of the Constitution against arbitrary government intrusion – led by the US Congress in this case, implemented by state legislatures – rather than legislating from the bench. We need to know whether John McCain is prepared to push to get the federal government out of the domestic relations business or whether judges will continue to serve as scape-goats to preserve the status quo.