"Roland Martin" Responds to Our Criticism of His Plan to Deny Christenings to Illegitimate Children

This morning, I put up a post criticizing Roland Martin's plan to hold Black men accountable for being absent in the lives of their children. Roland's solution is for Black pastors to reject women seeking to have their children christened or "dedicated" in church until the woman can convince the father of the child to make an appearance.

I’ve called on pastors nationwide to stop the stream of momma, grandmother, aunts and female cousins coming to the altar for baby dedications with no man in sight. That pastor should say, “Until I personally meet with the father, I will not dedicate this child.” Somebody has to hold that man accountable for his actions. Roland Martin on CNN.com

It appears that Roland Martin (or his assistant) has responded. Typically, when we mention someone by name and they respond in the comments, we elevate the response to post level so that those who receive the blog via RSS feed and read the response.

Here is what "Roland Martin" wrote in response to the post and associated comments:

Since folks wanted to weigh in on this, you need to understand my rationale.

The problem we have is that we seen lines of women walking up to the altar, and we never see the father. So, how can anyone ever reach these young men if someone never talks to them?

Right now, we let them off the hook. We have babies being christened and no one even talks to the father. Don’t you think someone should at least have a conversation to talk to them about manhood, being a father, and their responsibilities? If not the pastor, then who should do it?

If you want to get married, a woman cannot go to the pastor and do it without the pastor meeting with both. The same for a man. So why do pastors require a meeting with both individuals, but no do the same for a baby dedication?

You guys keep focusing on denying the baby a christening. I’m focusing on denying the baby a father. This is called ACCOUNTABILITY. No one seems to want to hold men accountable.

If the church makes a good faith effort to reach the father and meet with him, and nothing happens, fine, dedicate the child. But if we are going to confront this epidemic of men not handling their responsibilities, we must reach them somehow.

So instead of calling it cruel and all of that, what’s your solution? If a 17-year-old woman gets pregnant and we never see the father, then the cycle repeats. Roland Martin

I'm going to disable comments on this post. If you would like to comment on the original post or the response from "Roland Martin," leave those at the original post.

For the record, I offered my solution in the original post, but I guess my solution placed too much "accountability" on irresponsible fathers and Pastors. Silly me.