This is a picture of one of the items on my desk. It is a huge eraser that my now-grown daughter bought for me at her school's Christmas gift shop when she was six years old. She was so proud to give it to me, and I've always treasured it. It reminds me every day that being a father has been the greatest achievement of my life.
That eraser is also the inspiration behind this post.
Tomorrow is Father's Day. It is a time to celebrate fathers everywhere--whether you are a father by biology, adoption, marriage, or simply a fatherly presence in another's life. It is also a time to remember our fathers who have passed on and honor the influence they have had on our lives.
However, the woke left in our society is upping the game on calling into question the whole idea of men and fatherhood. The gender confusion that is being thrust on all of us has made even the simple act of buying a Father's Day card a challenging activity.
Who even gets a Father's Day card anyway?
Is it a "pregnant person" with the pronouns "they/them" who identifies as a man? What about a "birthing person" whose pronouns are "he/him" and who identifies as a child's father, but hasn't contributed any paternal genetic material? Should "he/him" get a card?
If woke activists are changing Mother's Day to "Birthing Persons Day," what should we even call Father's Day?
In 2017, there was actually a proposal to rename it "Special Person's Day."
It sure appears that the progressive left is doing its absolute best to erase fathers altogether.
The State Department has removed the words "Mother" and "Father" from US Passport applications and replaced them with "Parent One" and "Parent Two" to be more "gender neutral."
As a matter of law, the biological father of an unborn child has no say in whether the mother of his child has an abortion. So, fathers have become irrelevant in that equation.
Just take a look at the media, as well. Almost everywhere you look, whether it's television programming, cartoons, or TV commercials, fathers are portrayed as lazy, beer-swilling, lay-abouts whose only accomplishment is watching sports.
Mom sites on Instagram and social media portray doofus dads as deserving of a standing ovation if they can mange to tie their kids' shoes and drive them to school without incident.
Science is on the verge of "designer babies," where a baby's genes can be selected from a catalog and grown in a lab. The presence of a father is not needed--only a sperm donor with genetically-desirable traits.
How long before radical activists demand a rewording of the Ten Commandments? Instead of "Honor thy Father and Mother," maybe a more inclusive phrasing would be "Honor thy Birthing Person and Sperm Donor?"
Okay, you get the idea.
But it isn't just present-day fathers who are being erased and marginalized.
Our Founding Fathers are being erased as well. You know the ones--those brave revolutionary leaders who risked all they had to give us the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive...the United States of America.
But, leftist school districts are erasing the name of George Washington and other founding fathers from school buildings because they are deemed to be "unworthy of the honor."
Thomas Jefferson's statue has been removed from New York City Hall after 187 years, because woke politicians don't want to honor an "enslaver."
The radical left perpetually sings the song that the Founding Fathers are nothing more than a bunch of old, dead, white men who owned slaves and built our "patriarchal society."
Yes, the Founding Fathers (like all of us) were flawed. And America, the country, may be flawed; but America, the idea, is perfect. We can’t lose faith in it now. The entire American story is one of redemption — of constant betterment, course correction and change. What defines us is our commitment to build a more perfect union.
Our Founding Fathers envisioned a country built on freedom, equality, and God-given rights. The fact that they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution over 235 years ago doesn't make these documents any less important--or the principles any less true.
For those of us who have been fortunate enough to have a father or father-figure in our lives, we know that they have taught us valuable life lessons. Our Founding Fathers have also taught us a valuable lesson that, I hope, we can keep with us--that freedom and liberty are worth fighting for.
Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Many brave men who followed George Washington into battle died in the pursuit of that liberty. And many brave men and women, since, have given their lives to defend it.
I want my grandchildren to celebrate Father's Day in the same country I grew up in.
In order for that to happen, it will take all of us teaching our kids the lessons to be learned from our history. Those lessons should include the stories of the Founding Fathers who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to build the nation that we know and love.
We need to keep them--and all fathers--from being erased.
Happy Father's Day!
“A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.”
-Billy Graham
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