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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father

posted by on June 24 at 18:20 PM

From the PI

Federal Way police have arrested a father who said he fell asleep with his 7-month-old boy near a backyard fire pit Saturday night and awoke to find the child burned to death….

The father told police that he fell asleep holding his child while sitting on a bench adjacent to the pit. He said he awoke to find the child missing and went into the house to see if the boy was with his mother, then returned to the pit and discovered the body shortly before midnight.

Could’ve been worse—he could’ve had one of them gay dads that talks about bathhouse sex at the kitchen table.

RSS icon Comments

1

You're in a spunky mood today. It's making me happy, which is totally gay. Fuck you.

Posted by Mr. Poe | June 24, 2008 6:32 PM
2

Damn, that strikes me as more as an example of tragedy then neglect.

Posted by Giffy | June 24, 2008 6:47 PM
3

how do you sleep through someone burning to death?

Posted by douglas | June 24, 2008 6:54 PM
4

Jesus Christ!

Posted by Balt-O-Matt | June 24, 2008 7:22 PM
5

Wow, that one was a stretch. Of course you've never fallen asleep with your kid have you? No way, you're SuperGayDad! You read your kid books every night, books that challenge him to grow up strong and proud and free of the chains of religion or heterosexual ideology! You teach him noncompetitive games and sports and never buy him a crappy hamburger when there's a world of fresh organic fruits and vegies out there!

The only bad part is SuperGayDad has his own kryptonite, it's called logical non-anecdotal research. Makes you collapse in a shuddering heap and weak as a kitten.

Posted by Bob | June 24, 2008 7:23 PM
6

What if it was just a horrible accident? It seems really cruel to lump it into this category. There but for the grace of god (or atheist equivalent) go I.

Posted by jkjk | June 24, 2008 7:59 PM
7

Yes, it was a terrible accident and sexual orientation has absolutly nothing to do with it.

Posted by raindrop | June 24, 2008 8:14 PM
8

WTF? yes, a terrible accident, but who falls asleep next to a burning fire pit with a 7 month old child? pretty obvious negligence.

Posted by cmaceachen | June 24, 2008 8:44 PM
9

Silly breeder. You make s'mores with melted marshmallow not melted baby.

Posted by kinaidos | June 24, 2008 8:57 PM
10

No way that man "fell asleep" and dropped his baby into a fire. The stench of human flesh burning didn't wake the man up.

And he happens to fall asleep close enough to drop a baby in a fire. Is he fireproof or something?

Posted by robot2501 | June 24, 2008 9:12 PM
11

Dan, that's almost as low as Charles' post about the adopted girl getting run over by an SUV driven by her brother.

In order for this "Every child..." initiative of yours to be successful, you need to showcase examples of willful abuse (e.g., duct-taping the kid to a tree as punishment), not stupid negligence ending in tragedy. Otherwise it looks like you're just being mean.

Posted by meh | June 24, 2008 9:13 PM
12

@11 Uh, dropping your baby into a fire pit goes beyond stupid negligence. Maybe you were joking and I'm missing it because I haven't slept enough lately.

It could have been worse though. The baby could have two dads and one dad could have stayed home and baked pineapple upside down cake.

Posted by mj | June 24, 2008 9:28 PM
13

Look, mutilating babies, yeah, that's a kind of a sin. I get that. But throwing them in a fire pit is fair game. It is said to in fact been known to be a natural act since the dawn of the human. Legend says that this one time, these guys were all like yeah. I know these things because I speak them.

Posted by Rufio (From Hook) | June 24, 2008 10:09 PM
14

....this reminds me of a book I wrote...

Posted by CormacM | June 24, 2008 10:32 PM
15

I hadn't checked out the Slog this evening, but when I saw this story on the 11:00 news, the first thing that popped into my head was; "Does Dan know about this"

I guess it is nice to have people think about one, especially if one is in the entertainment business, but I think it would bother me if I was anyone's first thought when a baby is burned to death.

@11, it's not Dan being mean, morbid and weird yes, but not mean, the police did arrest the guy on suspicion of first-degree manslaughter.

Posted by Epimetheus | June 24, 2008 11:25 PM
16

15 posts by the end of the day, not including the duplicate. What else did you do today?

Posted by Trevor | June 24, 2008 11:58 PM
17

For a moment I thought it was just a horrible accident and completely unworthy of the ECDAMAAF category, but then I read it again. I call bullshit on the dad's story, if the child wandered into the fire by accident its screams should have woken Dad up. The police were correct to arrest him.

Posted by east coaster | June 25, 2008 12:01 AM
18

I agree with most reasonable people here - I love Dan's reports on the horrors that some straight people inflict on their children and the irony that these parents are STILL seen as "better" parents than gay parents to the religious right - this story is simply a horrible accident, and something this couple will live with for the rest of their lives.

Posted by darek | June 25, 2008 5:40 AM
19

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Posted by Greg | June 25, 2008 7:24 AM
20

Yeah, I'm going to join the people who are crying "bullshit" to the dad's "fell asleep" story. Babies cry and scream if they're *sunburned*.

The good news is, I think it's highly doubtful that the child actually died in the fire. More likely the murder or negligent death happened in some other manner and the father placed the body in the firepit to try to cover up.

Posted by Lauren | June 25, 2008 8:26 AM
21

@12

He didn't drop the baby into the fire pit. He fell asleep, and the baby wandered into the fire pit.

This makes all the difference in the world.

Posted by meh | June 25, 2008 9:39 AM
22

fell asleep = passed out drunk

Posted by max solomon | June 25, 2008 9:44 AM
23

I think its highly unlikely that the dad simply "fell asleep". I'm sure the baby let out a blood curdling scream when he first came in contact with the flames, which would wake anyone. Either the father was passed out drunk or there WAS foul play and the baby had died prior to being burned.

And where was the mother in all this? Inside for hours innocently unaware that her husband was passed out and that her baby was crawling around by a fire pit? Highly unlikely in my opinion.

Posted by Wes | June 25, 2008 10:00 AM
24

@21
Babies do not wander into fire pits.
I don't care how the baby got there this was not some, oops my baby was barbecued in the fire pit accident, ya know it happens all the time story.

Kids do get hit by cars probably every day, they fall and die, they drown but how many babies accidentally get roasted to death in fire pits?
I think 22 actually got it right.

Posted by mj | June 25, 2008 10:57 AM
25

22 is right. If he was just asleep, he would have woken up when the baby started screaming.

Posted by julia | June 25, 2008 11:33 AM
26

At the age of 7 months, there's no guarantee that the baby knew how to move around. So if it rolled off of him next to the fire, face down in the ground, for instance, it wouldn't scream very loudly, and it'd be unable to do anything. You don't have to be in a fire to burn to death.

Posted by Mr Fuzzy | June 25, 2008 11:51 AM
27

Wow, I'm not sure I get the point of these "Every Child..." posts--they certainly don't strengthen any arguments for gay marriage, or weaken any arguments for exclusive breeder marriage. All they do is come across as sophomoric, sensationalistic, and intellectually dishonest. I mean, we all know that human beings are pretty pathetic creatures--gay parents are certainly no purer than hetero parents.

Posted by Harold | June 25, 2008 12:25 PM

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