Sins of the Fatherhood Man
Wade Horn gets a pass, despite feminist whines.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor
June 22, 2001 2:00 p.m.

espite feminist wails, National Fatherhood Initiative founder Wade Horn sailed through his confirmation hearing yesterday for assistant secretary of health and human services for family support. The campaign against him by the National Organization for Women, including a last-minute call-to-arms from activists, only proved to show how out of touch the feminist groups are with reality.

As Stanley Kurtz reported earlier this month, NOW's case against Horn is simple: They don't like him because he's a fan of marriage. Outgoing NOW president Patricia Ireland stopped short on Hardball of admitting the real feminist beef with him, which is that fathers aren't essential. That's Pat for you though, perhaps thinking about her marketability, post-NOW. Possible Ireland replacement Kim Gandy (NOW's current executive vice president) , on the other hand, has said, "I think promoting marriage as a goal in and of itself is misguided."

NOW's case against Horn, in fact, is firmly established. His alleged offenses include:

Horn believes that mothers and fathers are innately different, and therefore do and should parent differently.

Horn asserts that boys and girls have innate differences, that due to these differences they should be reared differently, and that the recent trend toward rearing boys and girls the same has led to an epidemic of elementary school misconduct.

Horn believes that "fathers ought to be the primary providers for their families."

Horn opposes pre-marital sex.

Horn opposes cohabitation.

Horn characterized Jane Fonda as an "idiot".

Imagine the nerve of Horn! Shocking!

Curiously, reaction on the Left has been placid. Even the Jane Fonda attack didn't faze any committee members. NOW's talking points fell on deaf ears, even in a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Monday morning, on NOW's womenenews.org website, writer Sarah Stewart Taylor had to concede as much:

There did not appear to be any vocal opponents of Horn's nomination in the audience at the hearing, though women's groups have been asking those who have concerns about his record to contact their Senators and ask them to vote against the nomination.

Still, NOW worries that Horn's "beliefs" "might interfere with his ability to run the vast agency fairly." To please NOW, it seems, Horn would have needed to pass more than a mere litmus test; he would have required an intellectual lobotomy. NOW wants to make sure nominees have no opinions whatsoever.

The Horn nomination, likely to pass through the full Senate without much of a hitch, ought to serve as a lesson for the post-Ireland feminists: Girls, when you've positioned yourselves to the left of the Daschle Senate, you've become irrelevant.