...or that they are at least entitled to full-time stay-at-home parenting from one person and financial support from a second person.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it.

There are millions of children who live without the financial support of one biological parent, either by accident (the death or disability of one parent) or design (the deliberate conception of or adoption of a child by a single parent, necessary flight from an abusive parent/partner, etc.). Some of those children are wholely or partly supported by the taxpayers, but many are fully-supported by a single parent. I suspect that the main objection to those who advocate "fathers' financial rights" is coming from those taxpayers who don't wish to support any more kids on the welfare roles.

As to this specific case: The article did not make it clear whether or not the father was deliberately misled by his child's mother. It is entirely possible that she WAS under the impression that she was sterile; she may actually have been minimally-fertile, and this accidental conception may very well have been her one chance in life to bear a child (a position with which I can sympathize, even though I'm "childfree" and feel that the father has a right to opt out of support but not out of accidental fatherhood). --Or she may have been trying to trick the man into what used to be called a "shotgun marriage" or financing her career change to "stay at home mom" (we "childfrees" refer to these morally-bankrupt accidentally-on-purpose pregnancies as "Oops!ing").

I should also point out that this sort of thing does not happen only to single men. There are some women (thankfully, only a relatively small percentage) who have a "baby drive" that is the equal of any man's sex drive; and such women just don't feel satisfied with their lives unless they've got a "bun in the oven." You would think that a husband would have as much right to decide the number of children he wants to raise as his wife has a right to decide the frequency and types of sex acts that she'll share with her husband; however, these women band together (in person or on-line) to encourage one another to keep having babies ("Oh, he'll love it when it arrives!" they coo) after hubby's said, "Enough, already!" (One woman boasted on-line that she'd inseminated herself from the contents of hubby's used condom. --An act that was deemed to be both clever and heroic by her fellow baby-addicts.)

I'm seeing a lot of letters here that take a firm "if you don't want kids, then don't have sex" stance; but do you REALLY wish to advocate that, even for married couples? Would YOU want to live that way?

This cattiness is so...shallow.

And the observation that both sides engage in this type of irrelevant criticism, and that giving out cheap shots at least *should* be beneath the dignity of the "Liberal side," but apparently is not, is spot-on.

I clicked on the link to see if there was any validity whatsoever to the comments regarding the ugliness of the dress and the groom. The dress is not so bad. It's not my taste, but so what? And John Kerry is at least as homely--if not homelier--than Mr. Senor. And--again--so what? And what's with the whole "gay" thing? --Even if it were true, so what? "They" used to smear George Stephanopoulos with that one, if memory serves, and didn't "they" claim that his marriage was a sham, as well?

The sad fact is that the political sphere has been hit with the same sort of shallow "looks-ism" that's been a widely-accepted aspect of the entertainment industry for years. The better-looking candidate is likely to be elected, regardless of his/her political views or talents. (Face it: For all of the chimpanzee caricatures that have been done on him, our own presidential version of Mrs. Malaprop is not a bad-looking man, and that alone probably got him a lot of votes.) Political commentators continually make snide remarks about the width of the backsides of various candidates' wives. Beautiful women are assumed to have given out sexual favors to have gotten where they are, and the homely ones (who are at least assumed to be competent) have even worse comments thrown at them.

The lines of distinction between politics and entertainment have become increasingly-blurred over the years. And the sort of shallowness that we're seeing here is the end result.