Learn lessons from Family Leader pledge controversy

By Sioux City Journal

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Lessons can and should be learned from the controversy generated this month by an unfortunate choice of words included in the original preamble to a marriage pledge for Republican presidential candidates prepared by the Iowa organization Family Leader.

The words - which, to its credit, Family Leader later removed from the pledge it wants candidates to sign in support of traditional marriage between one man and one woman - were these: “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American president.”

We understand and appreciate the larger point Family Leader was attempting to make about the troubling increase in out-of-wedlock births in America. (According to the Centers for Disease Control, some 41 percent of babies born in this country today are born to single mothers; within the African-American community, the figure is 72 percent.)

Still, to suggest or even hint at suggesting African-American children born into slavery were in any way, shape or form better off than black children born today is, of course, absurd.

This controversy puts not only Family Leader, but the state in a poor national light at a time when Iowa stands at the center of the political stage. For its own sake and the sake of the state, Family Leader (and its leader, Bob Vander Plaats) should admit to making what in our view was a simple mistake in judgment (however well-intentioned its motives) and should not try to explain, rationalize or defend the controversial language.

If they wish to spare themselves the potential for the embarrassment of a surprise, all Republican candidates would be well-advised to temper their zeal to establish a foothold within Iowa and other early states and read in full the words contained in any pledge they are asked to sign. Candidate Michele Bachmann, for example, is taking criticism for having signed the Family Leader pledge before the slavery language was removed from the preamble.

In her defense, we do not believe Bachmann read the preamble and we do not believe she would have signed the pledge if she had. With a full reading, though, she would have prevented the kind of unfair, but negative scrutiny she is getting over this.

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