By Peter Roff. CNS Commentary from the Free Congress Foundation. ww.cnsnews.com 23 May, 2000
The Elian Gonzales business has finally fallen off the front page of the newspaper. He and his father are in some remote corner of Maryland where, along with his playmates, Elian is receiving tutelage in Cuban Communist doctrine. Now is a good time to think about his case and contemplate the
meaning of the issues it symbolizes.
On the one hand, you have the eternal struggle of freedom versus tyranny. The United States, the freest and most open society in world history, stands on one side of a great abyss. On the other side is Cuba, a repressive police state run by a ruthless thug who uses violence, threats, and
imprisonment to keep people in line.
This is about as clear a contrast as one can have. As a result, many in this country take the position that no one, especially a six year old boy, should be sent out of the US by force to live in such a place. You would expect no less from citizens of a nation conceived in liberty and founded on
the proposition that all men are created equal and entitled to the opportunity to live free.
Were Elian Gonzales an adult or near-adult male, a compelling argument could be made that the United States government should treat him as a refugee and permit him to remain in the United States with distant relatives so that he might grow up in freedom.
But Elian is not 16; he is six. He is a child. It is an article of faith in our society that what a child needs most are parents. To deprive Elian of the love and affection of his remaining parent by keeping him free in America is, in many ways, just as conflicted an option as depriving him of
his freedom by sending him back to Cuba to be with his father. Either way, Elian loses something important. It is not an easy choice.
Family and liberty are twin building blocks of our nation. Both are very important to the national fabric. Now that Elian is being re-indoctrinated into the Communist philosophy out in western Maryland, the conflict over his fate may begin anew and we may have to ask the hard questions all over
again.
Do we want to live in a country where the state is allowed to make such fundamental decisions about the lives of children? Do we really want the state to decide that living in America is a better outcome for Elian then remaining with his father because we, the majority of Americans, do not like
the life to which he will return in Cuba?
The international left, for example, urges a more aggressive role for the state on behalf of children. They have an agenda to interpose the state, or its agents, between parents and their children and to disrupt the normal functioning of the tradition family. For those who would call alarmism on
the part of one conservative, take a look at the views of one prominent American liberal.
Hillary Clinton, author, first lady and candidate for United States Senator, has written extensively on the idea that children need to be viewed as "child citizens." She has advocated the need to study the idea that the interests of parents and their children are always in common. She
suggests rethinking this idea with an eye to severing the legal bond between them.
Author Peggy Noonan describes Clinton's views in her best selling book "The Case Against Hillary Clinton. "Who should decide when state intervention is right and necessary in the event that a child should need to be removed from his or her family?"
Noonan writes. "Here Hillary puts forth an unusual solution. Decisions to intervene should be entrusted to 'boards, composed of citizens representing identifiable constituencies - racial, religious, ethnic, geographical,' which would decide when parental rights over a child should be
terminated."
Noonan cites the observations of writer Christopher Lasch in Harper's. "She objects to the family much more than she objects to the state. Her writings leave the unmistakable impression that it is the family that holds children back and the state that sets them free. Her position amounts to
a defense of bureaucracy disguised as a defense of individual autonomy."
These ideas are, to say the least, very chilling. Mrs. Clinton argues the need for state interest to override familial interest - much like the argument in the Elian Gonzales case. That Elian's father has an interest that is at least as equally compelling as the United State governments' is a
legitimate line of argument. He should have as much to say in deciding the little boy's future as the US Department of Justice.
Whichever side prevails in court, however, the sad reality is that Juan Miguel Gonzales will probably not ever be able to fulfill the role of father to Elian, at least as far as we in the United States understand the idea of fatherhood.
Should the court allow Elian to remain in Miami with his relatives, it is unlikely the Cuban government would allow frequent - if any - visitation. So Juan Miguel will be removed from his son's life more or less permanently.
If, on the other hand, the court decides to send Elian home to Cuba, that government will eventually take over as the authority for Elian's upbringing as specified in the Cuban Constitution of 1997. According to that document, the Castro regime decides domestic issues regarding family law,
education policies, childcare, and gender - decisions traditional made in the United States by a child's parents.
As the blue kerchief resting around Elian's neck reminds us, the Castro regime moves with a vengeance to separate parents from children in the best interests of the state and the "people's revolution."
The case of Elian Gonzales is, like it or not, already settled. The court of public opinion, which, as we have seen, often carries equivalent weight to a court of law, wants the Gonzales family together. If that means a return to Cuba, so be it.
The danger is that the confusion of issues and positions in the case have desensitized the American public to the idea that parents, and not the state, are the authorities over children.
If it has, then we may have taken the first step along the slippery slope that ends with government-sponsored child advocates separating children from parents because of home schooling curricula, guns in the home, religious affiliation, political leanings, or other contentious issues that do not
effect the health or safety of children.
Before you dismiss these concerns out of hand, remember that they probably never worried about these issues in Cuba before 1959 either - the year that Brother Fidel and his band of liberators came to power in Havana.
Peter Roff is a political writer and strategist who is a frequent guest on MSNBC and the Fox News Channel. |