"Fathers Matter"? Do we really believe that?

Very interesting op-ed column by Leonard Pitts:

In a voice choked with tears [NBA MVP Kevin] Durant, a ferociously talented forward for the Oklahoma City Thunder, thanks God. He thanks each teammate by name, thanks his coach, support staff, brothers, friends, grandmother, fans, the sportswriters who voted for him. And in the part that will have you clearing your throat and discovering a foreign particle in your eye, he speaks directly to his mother....By contrast, Durant’s acknowledgment of his father is short and almost perfunctory....

The intention here is not to indict father or son. No, the intention is simply to say this:
The absence of fathers matters.
We have evolved a society wherein we pretend the opposite is true. The disappearance of fathers is now nearly the norm. Almost one in four American children lives in a household without their biological dads. For brown kids, that number stands at about 28 percent. For black kids, it’s a little better than half.
Mass incarceration and the War on Drugs have certainly played a role in this. But just as surely, a role is also played by the new social more which says it’s OK for a man or a woman to be feckless, for him to wander away because he is immature, selfish and young, for her to have a baby on her own because the clock is ticking and really, she doesn’t need a man for anything more than sperm. This is the new morality, the new American mindset.
And we tell ourselves it’s OK, that this haphazardness has no impact upon the child, that father is not irreplaceable, that his disappearance leaves no scar. But the statistics on poverty, drug use, education and incarceration suggest otherwise....
the speech was a testimony to the power of a mother’s love. But it was also a reminder:
A father’s absence has power, too.

But I was struck by something missing from the conversation.Well, perhaps not from this particular column, but from the public conversation about "fathers" and "mothers" generally, considering what perhaps the most talked about aspect of parenting is currently.

Would it not be tantamount to apostasy from the socially liberal viewpoint to suggest that fathering and mothering are NOT interchangeable, that if Kev has two mommies, say, something is missing?

I wonder if he's going to be called on saying that, 

the absence of fathers matters. We have evolved a society wherein we pretend the opposite is true

because of the implications actually taking such a position has for the future of same-sex "marriage" and adoptions.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/10/4108101/the-absence-of-fathers-matters.html#storylink=cpy

Post Script:
It seems Pitts has visited this topic before.
So I guess what he's trying to say is that yeah, the absence of fathers matters, but I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's a... thing.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/10/4108101/the-absence-of-fathers-matters.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/10/4108101/the-absence-of-fathers-matters.html#storylink=cpy