2 fathers named Michael

What do you think would happen if your dad made a habit of sleeping with other people's little boys?

How about if your dad never married your mother and, in fact, at the same time was married to another woman who was handicapped and whom he desperately wanted dead, mainly by cutting off her food and water supply?

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Would either of those men deserve the title "father" or deserve to be celebrated on Father's Day?

Hardly.

But, while the country remembers and honors fathers who sire, raise and love their children, there are two men who have children who, more than likely, are celebrating their parental status under the guise that just fathering a child makes you a real father.

In some senses, such a person would better be called a sperm donor. Just the physical aspect of creating a new human being has nothing to do with the reality and responsibility of fatherhood.

Under the two circumstances above, the two people involved have forfeited the nobility of the title "father."

They are both named "Michael."

One of them was destined to obscurity had it not been for that moment in time 15 years ago when his young wife, Terri Schindler-Schiavo, suffered some mysterious accident which left her brain damaged.

His name is Michael Schiavo.

The other man was destined for international fame and notoriety, initially for his musical talents, but ultimately, more so, for his changing and unusual appearance, bizarre lifestyle, mysterious family arrangements, odd methods of child-raising and preferences for sleeping with the boy children of other people.

His name is Michael Jackson.

Like it or not, both of these men have children and, by that definition, are entitled to be honored for Father's Day.

They don't deserve it.

Michael Jackson has children whose parentage has raised some questions and a lot of eyebrows. Who are all the mothers? In fact, questions have also been raised as to paternity.

Childrearing techniques? I don't recall chapters in my favorite Dr. Spock book outlining the benefits of dressing the kids in public in Mardi Gras style masks or veiling their heads or even, dangling them over a balcony high above a busy street.

That's what he does and barely a quibble is heard.

Wonder what might happen if your dad did that? Or, if your neighbor did that to his kids? You know as well as I do that you'd scarcely have a moment for a breath before Child Protective Services would place the kids in foster care and that dad would be behind bars.

But Michael Jackson, superstar, gets a pass.

And as for sleeping with the male children of strangers – well, a jury in Santa Maria, Calif., gave him a pass on that, too, acquitting him of all 10 molestation counts against him.

Apparently they didn't let the core issue of the case deter them as they looked for a way for Michael Jackson to walk. Did he sleep with boys? Was there touching or sex? Did he provide any with alcohol? Was there sexually explicit material on the premises? Were there other accusations? The jury had none of it. They wanted to be fair.

Apparently, they also didn't like the "attitude" of the alleged victim and his mother.

Oh.

So Michael Jackson is a free man to celebrate Father's Day and plan other outings with other people's children, although we're told, never, ever again in his bed.

As for Michael Schiavo, he's free, too, to celebrate Father's Day. He finally got the courts and state to make certain his brain-injured wife would die. It was easy. All they had to do was stop her food and water. It took her nearly two weeks to die.

That left him free to continue playing house with the woman who bore him two children out of wedlock. He's finally liberated from the binds of matrimony from the wife he worked so hard to permanently shed, although he refused to divorce her.

How does one explain to the kids that Daddy is a philandering adulterer and, some might say, accessory to state-sanctioned murder?

Oh, and a would-be author too. He's now peddling a book about his fight to kill his wife or rather, as he considers it, her "right to die with dignity."

What a coincidence that the book is announced just as the long-awaited autopsy of his dead wife is released, which essentially exonerates Michael.

Gee, who would have guessed?

What have we come to? Talk about defining deviancy down.

Just looking at these two legal cases, you have a perfect illustration of the situation in which we find ourselves. It is virtually impossible for anyone to be responsible for anything. Whatever one wants to do or be, it's OK – no one should judge anyone else as to lifestyle or desires. There is no real right or wrong. But, when someone, for whatever reason, lives in a manner that others decide has no value or benefit, the decision can be made to off them.

We're told it's about quality of life – whether you're talking about the obscene extravagance of Michael Jackson or the dogged survival of Terri Schindler-Schiavo as she the endured the effects of whatever cut off the oxygen to her brain that night in her apartment when her husband was the only person present who could have helped her.

So on this Father's Day, Michael Jackson stands acquitted of child molestation and is a free man. Michael Schiavo is free via the court-ordered death of his wife by deliberate neglect. And Terri Schindler-Schiavo, the wife in question, is dead.

As I tell my children, "life isn't fair." That's the truth.