he American cockfight over family values took an odd turn last weekend. The cocks chickened out.
As we know, heavily armed federal agents burst into a Miami home to take 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez away from his extended Cuban-American relatives and deliver him to his father, Juan Miguel, in Washington. Extraordinary measures were necessary. Blind hate of Cuban leader Fidel Castro led the extended relatives to create a hostage situation, complete with intransigence and the abusive ''I like to be in America; OK by me in America; everything free in America,'' POW-style home video of Elian.
The show of force was ugly, but the forces that kept this child from his father were even uglier, including the insubordinate mayors of Miami and of Miami-Dade County, who refused to help the government remove Elian from the relatives. The government did what it had to do. It was not a raid. It was a rescue.
The final confirmation of this should have been the pictures of Elian and Juan Miguel Gonzalez released a few hours after the rescue, with smiles that could not have been faked. One might think this would be a moment to put aside politics to celebrate the reunion. Considering how politicians have spent the last decade beating up on deadbeat dads for child support and blaming absentee fathers for much of the breakdown of the family, one might think there would be more interest in the efforts of Juan Miguel to retrieve his son.
But no, the cocks stayed in the corner. Few of them had a good thing to say about the rescue.
''I was outraged, I was sickened, and afterward, I was ashamed,'' said House majority whip Tom DeLay of Texas. ''You bet there'll be congressional hearings.''
This is the same DeLay who has made child abuse an issue and has said fathers have an ''irreplaceable value'' in raising children. ''Children that grow up without their fathers are twice as likely to drop out of school and 21/2 times as likely to become teen mothers,'' DeLay has said. ''I know that fathers have a duty, a right, and a responsibility to be an influential and guiding force in their children's lives.''
Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said his committee ''should take a close look at the propriety of the federal government breaking into a child's house.'' In 1985, Specter refused to criticize the firebombing by Philadelphia police to rid a house of the radical group MOVE, even though that government action killed four children, destroyed 53 homes, and made 270 neighbors homeless. Back then Specter said: ''This is not the time to talk about blame.''
Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire was particularly loopy. Smith caddied the Miami relatives who followed Elian to Washington. Smith, who preaches parent power in education and against abortions, said: ''I'm disgusted, I'm angry, I'm sad. I couldn't feel worse if my own son were taken.'' It did not occur to him to say, ''I'm thankful, I'm thrilled, I'm grateful. I couldn't feel happier if my own son were returned.''
As we all know, the cocks were not all Republicans still smarting over their failure to impeach President Clinton. There is vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. Despite the determination by immigration officials that Elian should be sent back to Cuba, Gore announced that the boy should stay here until a family court decided the matter.
A family court in a hostage situation? Gore, who has no shot at Cuban-American votes, had to be kidding. This is the same man who repeatedly touts the White House crackdown on deadbeat dads.
''One of the most meaningful conferences for me personally was the one we held in 1994 to promote fatherhood,'' Gore said in a speech last summer. ''For too long, the crucial role of fathers had been missing from the policy picture.
''That has changed.... Nearly 1.5 million men acknowledged paternity in 1998, an increase of 12 percent in one year - three times the 1993 figure of 516,000. A man acknowledging paternity does not make a father, but it is a start, the first step toward committing to a child the emotional and financial support a father must give to merit the name.''
With Gore claiming he is ''leading the fight for responsible fatherhood,'' it makes it all the more curious why he would get in the way of the paternity of Juan Miguel, who by serious news accounts was a responsible father despite the divorce from the late mother. While Gore's position was no more hypocritical than family values Republican rival George W. Bush - who of course also denounced the rescue, it has to leave Democrats a little less enthusiastic about his judgment as president should he win.
For Gore to join the mostly Republican chorus that placed Castro hate above fatherhood shows how family values depend on whose family is being valued. These politicians say we need cocks as well as hens to raise the chicks. Elian Gonzalez turned them all into chickens, clucking in cowardice.
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist.
