Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash
From islamophobia to homophobia, the left likes nothing better than to slap conservatives’ reasoned arguments with phony “phobia” labels. As liberal judges seize more and more control over American families, it is time for us to start pointing out their obvious problem with “fatherphobia.” On Father’s Day last month, we heard plenty of people talk about the importance of fathers, but when it comes to family court cases, the importance of fathers often takes a backseat to a principle known as the “best interests of the child.” Using this innocuous-sounding justification, judges often relegate fathers to occasional visits with their children or no visits at all, with no decision-making power in their children’s rearing.
As the great Phyllis Schlafly once said, “Every successful civilization has placed the responsibility for rearing the next generation on children’s own parents, both mother and father. Replacing that proven practice with the notion that a ‘village’ should raise children, according to non-parents’ subjective and misguided notions of what is in a child’s ‘best interest,’ is a radical departure from the traditional rule that parents should possess shared responsibility for raising their own children.”
Millions of American children live in divorced households, and those children need the influence of their father just as much as any other child. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. Just as a father could never replace the love of a mother, so too could a loving mother never replace the role of a loving father. Family courts should not pretend otherwise.
Every prosperous society in the history of mankind has left decisions about the best interests of a child up to that child’s parents. When judges, government agents, and school officials start overriding this parental authority, the very integrity of our national identity is at risk, and our children will be its first victims. Conservatives should not let the left get away with their fatherphobia. The default position of any family court case should be equal shared parenting for both the mother and the father. That is the best way to set our children up for the very best future possible.
