Just what presidential team is more likely to support fathers? The current field is not promising.
SARAH PALIN: The recent finding by an Alaskan bi-partisan panel that Palin unlawfully abused her power by pursuing her family’s grudge against her ex-step brother (Trooper Mike Wooten) following his ugly divorce from her sister demonstrates that Palin might not be sensitive to needs to foster legal regimes that ease rather than promote anger and conflict after divorce. By violating a state ethics law prohibiting public officials from using office for personal benefit we are left with an individual that seems to believe that all is fair in divorce and that there is little room for restraint and reconciliation.
JOE BIDEN: Biden constantly brags that he was one of the chief architects of the federal “Violence Against Women Act.†(VAWA) One problem of course is the name. On the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition website is a bibliography of studies by Martin S. Fiebert of California State University. This bibliography examines 196 scholarly investigations. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 177,100. The 153 empirical studies and 43 reviews and/or analysis demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. According to RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), despite the fact that one third of all domestic violence injuries are suffered by men, women receive an incredible lop-sided share of the VAWA benefits.
Nationally syndicated columnist Cathy Young noted Biden’s VAWA “represents a toxic mix of gender-war feminism that treats such crimes as acts of patriarchal oppression rather than individual wrongdoing, and paternalism that sees women as deserving of special protection.†Young chides Biden who at the 1990 Senate hearings on the bill, proudly reported that he and his brothers were forbidden to lay a hand on their sister even in self-defense, while she enjoyed “absolute impunity”â€â€Âand added, apparently not as a joke, that he had “the bruises to prove it.” Young correctly concluded, “This is not equality; it’s chivalry masquerading as feminism.†According to Young, VAWA actively discourages dual arrest even though numerous studies show that conflict is often mutual.
JOHN MCCAIN: McCain made the infamous “tar baby†response to a question regarding shared parenting from fathers’ rights activist (and African-American) Tony Taylor. Taylor asked McCain if he “would be bold enough to address the issue of equal access to children for fathers that have gone through divorce.”
McCain testily replied: “I’m sorry to disappoint you, I am not going to overturn divorce court decisions. That’s why we have courts and that’s why people go to court and get a divorce . . . I’m [not] going [to] declare divorces invalid because someone feels that they weren’t treated fairly in court, we are getting into a, uh, uh, tar baby of enormous proportions.” While the politically correct media hopped all over the “tar baby†comment as a slight to African-Americans, it showed that McCain is insensitive if not clueless as to what is happening to children due to the lack of fathers. Though directly asked by Taylor, McCain would not show his support of our troops by supporting legislation that would prevent the common problem of soldiers being subject to loss of child custody simply because they are fighting our nation’s wars oversees and could not be with their children.
BARACK OBAMA: We do not need another president that is long on the “responsible fatherhood” speeches, and short on the issue of father’s rights. Unfortunately, Obama fits that category as exemplified by his now famous Father’s Day speech. Columnist Glenn Sacks and Mike McCormack have criticized Barack Obama for filing legislation (the Responsible Fatherhood Act) that speaks endlessly of “responsible fatherhood” and “paying child support,” but is silent on shared parenting, visitation, and viewing fathers in a positive image. Obama’s larger problem is that he cannot seem to move beyond his own experiences where his father truly abandoned his own family and empathize with by far the largest cause of fatherlessnessâ€â€Âcourt imposed fatherlessness.
Encouragingly, Obama once stated, “We need to see what we can to make sure that fathers are valued, that our policies are encouraging them to be part of their children’s lives, that they are lifted up as important in stitching back together the kind of strong communities that we need for children to thrive.” But such sentiments about helping fathers are rare and lack specifics. Obama, who cannot see beyond the borders of his own childhood and his own father’s abandonment, has never addressed helping fathers that actually want to spend time with their children battle the court system that prevents them.
Glenn Sacks commented, “Obama’s comments are pandering, using the specter of the absent/deadbeat dad as a way to curry favor with women voters.†Jesse Jackson, caught on tape stated that Barack Obama “was talking down to black people.†Jackson was stating the truthâ€â€ÂObama was placing the blame on black fatherlessness on black fathers, not the court system.
At least with Obama the issue of fatherlessness is on his radar screen and was part of his campaign, which cannot be said of McCain. While I will be casting my vote for Obama, it is sad that the entire field is so out of tune with the American public and the needs of fathers and children.
Rinaldo Del Gallo, III is spokesperson of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition. His columns have appeared in newspapers nationwide.
