Rep. Briley's gall knows no bounds

April 27, 2008

 

The saga of Rep. Rob Briley took a bizarre turn recently on, of all places, the floor of the state legislature.  In a video that’s now splattered all over YouTube, Briley confronted Rep. Stacey Campfield about a piece of legislation he had proposed.  Campfield’s bill would have allowed men to discontinue child support payments if DNA testing proved they were not the father of the child.  It sounds more than reasonable to me.  Why should a man be financially responsible for a child that’s not his? 

 

Briley bristled at the legislation calling it “the most anti-child piece of legislation I've seen in 10 years, by far.”  That’s when it really got strange.  Briley asked Campfield if he thought pre-marital sex was appropriate.  Campfield was taken aback, admitting that he didn’t understand what that had to do with the bill.  Briley pressed the question.  Campfield ultimately answered that he thought if a child resulted in pre-marital sex then those involved should be responsible for the child.  Briley wasn’t finished.  “Do you believe, in your opinion, that adultery is appropriate?” he asked, continuing his strange line of questioning.  Campfield answered that he did not think it was appropriate.  Briley asked a couple of other incoherent and unrelated questions then moved that the bill be sent to “summer study,” which is where legislation goes to die.  His motion was carried on a voice vote.

 

I’ll get to the merits of the bill in a moment.  What’s utterly unbelievable is that someone like Rob Briley would have the gall to ask anyone if they thought adultery was appropriate.  As The Tennessean reported last September, Briley had admitted to adultery himself according to divorce papers filed in court by his wife.  We all remember the drunken chase Briley took police on last fall; the verbal abuse he gave the arresting officer, the kicking of the door while in the patrol car.  We remember his going into rehab then checking himself out, renting a convertible and heading to Tunica.  How he had the chutzpah to even show his face back at the State Capitol after all that is anyone’s guess but the audacity to question another member about adultery, of all things, proves his shamelessness knows no bounds.  I know I wasn’t alone, while watching the floor debate, in hoping Campfield would turn the question on Briley and ask him if he thought adultery was appropriate.  Campfield had to have been biting his tongue.

 

Briley maintains that excusing a man from having to pay for a child that isn’t his somehow punishes the child.  The truth is the Campfield bill would hold the true father responsible, but liberal logic dictates that it doesn’t matter who the real father is.  Of course, it does.  That is the very heart of the issue.  Like most solutions to society’s problems, the fundamental linkage is personal responsibility.  By relegating Campfield’s bill to “summer study” Briley absolves the real father of any responsibility whatsoever.  With the death of this bill, a woman can have an adulterous affair and bear a child and her husband is financially liable even if he knows he’s not the father.  Talk about adding insult to injury.  But it’s even worse than that.  If they get a divorce because she was playing around, he’s still financially responsible for the child of the man who destroyed his marriage.  The really sad part is the fate of these men is in the hands of reprobates like Rob Briley.

 

This seems to be a systemic problem with big government in general.  The entire welfare system discourages fathers from taking responsibility for their children.  Unwed mothers stand a much greater chance of getting financial assistance if Dad makes himself scarce.  Isn’t that punishing the child far more than insisting fathers “man up” and take care of their own children?

 

But how can we ask citizens to take responsibility for their actions when lawmakers don’t even take responsibility for their own?