Home Is Where the Heart--and Child--Should Be

A couple of months have gone by since 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez was found floating on an inner tube. He has lost his mother. He has been separated unlawfully from his father, his grandparents and his home. This boy has been through enough. He should be returned to where he belongs, Cuba, via the next available transportation.

Instead, this pitiable child continues to be victimized by strangers and distant kin who claim to know what’s best. They make persuasive arguments why a motherless boy would be better off not with his natural father, even though Juan Miguel Gonzalez has never been shown to be an unfit parent in any demonstrable way. They are willing to turn young Elian into a virtual orphan who is given free rides at Disney World and then asked by grinning adults on camera if he’s having a good time.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno justifiably and compassionately ruled that Elian be returned posthaste to his father’s custody. As representative of a government that prides itself on family values and fully endorses the legal priorities of heritage, Reno acted properly, supporting the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s position that Elian be immediately sent home.

But attorneys have been engaged and lawsuits filed, thereby prolonging a situation that should have long since been resolved. So rather than be home with his father--to whom he speaks on the telephone as often as possible--mourning his mother, Elian Gonzalez is still in South Florida, no longer a boy but a pawn.

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How cruel and presumptuous it is of a great-uncle to seek to steal a son from a father. Yet that is exactly what Lazaro Gonzalez is doing, having retained a battery of lawyers to act on his behalf, the theory being that this is what Elian’s mother would have wanted, inasmuch as she risked her life to spirit away her child to the land of the free.

One of these attorneys has been speaking out on her belief--and, ostensibly, great-uncle Lazaro’s--that children have rights. Yet what of the rights of an abandoned parent? Are they not as sacrosanct in this country as they are in tropical islands under unpopular political regimes? Must it be taken on faith that Elian Gonzalez’s mother not only knew what she was doing in fleeing, but that a woman who put a 6-year-old so at risk at sea could be construed as knowing what’s best for a child?

With the backing of Cuban exiles, many of whom espouse an American-style belief that life without liberty is not preferable to death, Elian’s relatives in Florida wish him to be granted political asylum. He has barely mastered his ABCs, but is expected to comprehend that living in a free society is better than living with his dad. This is a splendid debate to undertake, but only when it concerns someone else’s child, not one’s own.

To further complicate matters, the lawsuit filed in a Miami federal court Wednesday seeking asylum for the Gonzalez boy could take a very long time to be heard. A judge to whom this case was assigned is involved in a murder trial that is expected to last another fortnight or longer. This judge has offered to step aside, in part because a political consultant working on his reelection campaign also advised the campaign of a state court judge who sided with the Florida relatives in awarding them temporary custody of Elian Gonzalez.

Weeks and weeks could go by without a verdict. A spool of legal red tape would therefore continue to be wrapped around little Elian, who at times must feel as if he is still adrift aboard that tube.

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In an attempt to comfort the child through this turmoil, as well as to offer an olive branch to distressed family and angry compatriots in Cuba, a temporary visa was to have been issued to each of his grandmothers. This would have enabled the women to fly to New York--avoiding Miami, where the situation is still too incendiary--and be reunited with Elian, so that at least he could have some contact with loved ones who got left behind.

Unfortunately, the two grandmothers said late Thursday that they would decline the visas for now.

Here is a boy whose psychological damage must be checked and rechecked on a regular basis, from having been part of an intense escape attempt that left his mother and 10 others dead. He is not mature enough to have any influential opinion on whether these people were justified in their actions.

Blood is thicker than the water where they died. Elian Gonzalez belongs with what’s left of his family.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com