Barack Obama's Father's Day Message

Speaking to an invitation-only crowd at Mount Moriah Baptist Church in my hometown of Spartanburg, SC, presidential hopeful Barack Obama shared a stirring testimony couched in economic disparity.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that fathers have to share the responsibility for raising children and caring for families because their role doesn't end at conception.

Days before Father's Day, the first-term Illinois senator and father of two daughters delivered his life message as well as an assessment of what government needs to do in remarks at a Baptist church.

"It's about to be Father's Day," he said. "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

He recalled his own upbringing as the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas. Obama said he grew up with a father he know only through letters and stories told by his mothers and the relatives who raised him.

He didn't share any original thoughts as far as I can tell, but he does seem solid on parenting and fatherhood.