When I watched Miley Cyrus slither on stage at the recent MTV Video Music Awards looking like a cross between a 12-year-old boy and a seasoned pole dancer, I felt as though someone had kicked me in the stomach. Clearly she was coached to act sexually outrageous in order to get attention.  But her handlers forgot to tell her that she would embarrass herself and, hopefully, her family.  Her performance showed how seriously she has been prostituted by adults wanting to gain one thing: a lot of money. And as she moved on stage I wondered, Where is Billy Ray?

I remember an interview that Billy Ray did in 2007 when he described his relationship with his then 14-year-old daughter. He remarked that he enjoyed teaching her to cook hot dogs and play games with her but when it came to discipline, he wasn’t very keen on it. That was her mother’s territory.

Clearly over the past six years, his fatherly influence has waned miserably. I don’t know Billy Ray and before I would indict him as a bad father, it is important to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Miley and/or her mother cut him out of Miley’s…