COLUMN: For Cuban boy, blood is thicker than water

From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '00 From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '00Hell hath no fury like my grandmother. As a rebellious child and teenager, I would talk back to my teachers and even curse my own parents on occasion. But I would sooner saw through my own arm with a rusty butter knife than cross my grandmother.From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '00Hell hath no fury like my grandmother. As a rebellious child and teenager, I would talk back to my teachers and even curse my own parents on occasion. But I would sooner saw through my own arm with a rusty butter knife than cross my grandmother. Born and raised in the swamps of Louisiana, my grandmother is as tough as they come. Our country is in quite a bind regarding 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez. Elian escaped the Castro regime in Cuba with his mother and stepfather. But after their boat capsized off the coast of Florida, only Elian and a few others survived, rescued by the Coast Guard while floating on an inner tube. Elian's mother died a watery death. Common sense would dictate that the U.S. immediately send young Elian back to his only living parent, father Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Our own laws are designed to ensure that orphaned children go to their closest relative. But neither common sense nor the law is anywhere to be found in the case of young Elian, and many in the Cuban community in Miami -- together with conservatives in Congress -- seem dead set upon keeping Elian here in America. Presumably, ahem, "freer" than he would be back home in Cuba with his father. There are two primary objections to sending Elian back to Cuba. First, we, as a rule, don't send people back to Cuba. This policy, though, is, quite simply, a relic of the Cold War. Cuba is no more an ideological or military threat to the United States than the Bahamas. The second objection stems from the understanding that Elian's mother died trying to reach the land of freedom with her son, for whom she wanted a better life. Thus, we should honor her last wishes and keep Elian here. But this objection is entirely designed by its proponents to tug on our heartstrings. Furthermore, Elian's relatives in Cuba claim that the boy and his mother were forced to attempt the dangerous sea journey against their will by Elian's stepfather. Despite an Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling that Elian be sent back to Cuba, he has remained with cousins in Miami for the last several weeks, visiting Disney World, eating hamburgers and attending civic events in Miami. But as Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Molly Ivins wrote not too long ago, "The child doesn't need trips to Disney World -- he needs his father." And here's where the Elian case went wrong. Rather than approach the case with the best interests of the child in mind, opportunistic groups in Congress and within the Cuban community in Miami have used this case to make a state about communism and the Castro regime. Indeed, the battle to keep Elian in the United States has centered around the unfortunate ideological struggle between Fidel Castro and exiled Miami Cubans. Elian's father has said he feels like "breaking the neck" of U.S. politicians trying to prevent his son from returning to Cuba. Someone should explain to Mr. Gonzalez that's a pretty common reaction to Senate Republicans, even among those who elected them. Indeed, the "family values" party has forsaken said values in order to get into an international pissing contest with communist Cuba. That's a damn shame. It shouldn't matter if Elian Gonzalez came from Stalinist Russia. Admittedly, Castro's Cuba is no land of milk and honey, but his father deserves the right to raise his son. Period. Attorney General Janet Reno has pleaded that we allow the law to settle the Elian Gonzalez case, not our passions. But the same legal system that says a child should be with his parents also allows lawsuits and endless litigation, which is exactly what Elian's distant cousins are in the process of initiating in an effort to prolong his stay here. So far they've been successful. Just last week, though, Elian's grandmothers obtained visas to visit the United States to plead for Elian's return. And if they're anything like my grandmother, they won't leave without the kid. But it shouldn't have to come down to grandparents pleading with U.S. authorities. And it shouldn't come down to a protracted, year-long legal struggle between the INS and distant relatives in the United States who have absolutely no legal claim to raise the child. Family -- in this case the father and both grandmothers -- counts for something. A lot, in fact. And so Elian should be on the next flight to Cuba. Elian Gonzalez should be on the next flight back to his father.