Protecting Military Parents is Not A Tar-Baby Issue!

Senator John McCain was wrong to tell a Gulf War vet that protecting the parental rights of deployed troops is a Tar Baby issue (http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/politics/2007/03/16/mccain.tar.cnn). There is nothing dark and sticky with the concept of a presumption of equal child custody for all fit parents. Senator McCain's inability to relate to the question Tony Taylor asked at a town meeting in Cedar Falls, Iowa on Friday is a sad comment on his poor grasp on the problems in our society when it comes to divorce and court created fatherless families. Tony asked McCain, “Many soldiers are experiencing multiple tours in Iraq and this is exacerbating an already high divorce rate. In times past the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act protected soldiers away in combat from litigation launched against them at home but it did not protect their custody rights to their children. If you (Senator McCain) were to become president, what would you do to help protect soldier's custody rights to their children?” Senator McCain responded by saying "For me to stand here and ... say I'm going to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that." Obviously he missed the boat on his opportunity to stand up for military parents when it comes to not having their children taken away from them while they are out fighting for our country. Let's all tell the 2008 presidential candidates that all children deserve to have both of their parents equally in their lives and that we expect that legislation will be inacted to do so.www.achildsright.net