"You've never heard complaints about paying child support until it's a woman who has to pay it."--Seattle Family Law Attorney Lisa Scott

"Courts almost never allow men to get downward modifications on their child support. I represented a guy who earned $33,000 a month and paid $12,000 in child support. His company went bust and his income crashed down to zero.

"We went in and asked for a downward modification--not an elimination of child support, but a downward modification. The judge said 'no,' and told him 'tough luck--you're capable of earning $30,000 a month, so go do it. I don't care if you live under a highway underpass in the meantime, just pay your support as ordered.'"--Los Angeles family law attorney Adam Sacks

Anne Heche (pictured) is having a hard time paying her child support and it's a good thing she's a woman, so she gets preferential treatment. Apparently Heche has had some career troubles and bad luck and the court is allowing her to skip an upcoming payment. The court is probably correct--I don't know the details--but were the genders reversed, I doubt the court would be so accomodating.

The full article is Anne Heche Doesn't Have to Pay for July (EOnline, 5/14/08).

I've previously discussed Anne Heche's divorce in A Fathers' Rights Perspective on Anne Heche's Divorce/Custody Settlement and A Crucial Point Missed in the Anne Heche/Coleman Laffoon Custody Battle. On the subject of women paying alimony, see From WomenPayingSupport.com--'Be a Man...Don't Ask for Spousal Support.

"Dear Amy: My boyfriend and I were watching my 5-year-old niece. She came to me and told me that my boyfriend said he was going to punch her in the nose. I know that when my boyfriend is playing with the kids he plays around and says things, but he is adamant that he didn't say that.

"I spoke with my niece's parents, and we chalked it up as a misunderstanding.

"But now my boyfriend does not want her playing with him, and he refuses to watch her unless someone is with him every minute.

"He is in law enforcement and says he sees things like this all the time, situations in which a kid accuses an adult of doing something and the adult gets in trouble. His exact words were, 'God forbid she said I touched her.'

"I don't know how to get him to understand that she is a 5-year-old kid with a vivid imagination, and I feel this might be the end of our relationship.

"HELPLESS AND CLUELESS"

I thought the boyfriend in the scenario above was overreacting a little but I was floored by the response by advice columnist Amy Dickinson. Dickinson writes:

"Most of what young children say has some basis in reality. You should believe your niece but also assume that perhaps your boyfriend was horsing around and that his statement was taken out of context.

"Your boyfriend is the adult in this scenario, and it is his job to put things in perspective. Being in law enforcement, he should be more -- not less -- understanding about this incident. The fact that he is so punitive and blames a 5-year-old for this incident highlights his own immaturity.

"I do agree with him about this one thing, however: He should not be alone with your niece because he can't be trusted to treat her well."
 
The full column is Boyfriend defensive about girl's comment--thanks to Justin, a reader, for sending it.

Several days ago I shared this outrageous story with you--Father Jailed Because His Adult Daughter Fails to Get Her GED. In the case, father Brian Gegner was ordered to see to it that his daughter gets her GED, but she has not done so, in part because she struggles with math. The daughter's problems in school came at a time when she lived with her mother. The daughter herself--now almost 19-years-old--says that she alone is responsible for her own problems and that her father shouldn't be blamed. Nevertheless, the father is in jail on a six month sentence, and Butler County Judge David Niehaus said he would only release him if the daughter passed her GED.

In my Wednesday morning blog post Protest Ohio Outrage: Father Jailed Because His Daughter Didn't Get Her GED!, Michael Robinson of the California Alliance for Families and Children and I urged all of you to call Niehaus and also the Governor of Ohio to demand Brian Gegner's release. We have just received some excellent news--the judge in the case has backed down, and has released the father. He will remain free as long as his daughter merely attends GED classes, as opposed to having to pass the GED.

While this is still an abuse of judicial authority, it is also a big step forward for father Brian Gegner, and a reasonable face-saving measure for Niehaus. Apparently the bad press and the many phone calls demanding Gegner's release--some of which came from you, our readers--had an effect. I thank all of you who participated in this campaign, and give special thanks to Robinson for his fine work on the case.

From the story Judge Says He Will Release Father If Daughter Attends GED Class (Kentucky Post, 5/16/08):

"The Fairfield father who was put in jail after his daughter failed to obtain her General Equivalency Diploma (GED) will be released from jail on Friday.

"After a heated hearing, Butler County Judge David Niehaus told Brian Gegner he will let him out of jail if his daughter attends a class to prepare for the GED test.

"Gegner's daughter must also schedule the test before the next court date."

Syndicated columnist Amy Alkon discussed our campaign today in Fail Math? Daddy Goes To Jail.

To learn more about the case, including some interesting details Robinson uncovered, see my blog post Protest Ohio Outrage: Father Jailed Because His Daughter Didn't Get Her GED!
 

"The devastating power of the internet as a tool of revenge was revealed in January by actress Jane Slavin who took 'e-venge' on her lover, world-famous composer Michael Nyman, after he spurned her with no explanation.

"Posing as a beautiful woman called 'Lucia', she began a flirtatious online relationship with Nyman, who began bombarding 'Lucia' with explicit e-mails.

"The crowning moment of her revenge came when 'Lucia' agreed to meet Nyman in a café in North London. At the appointed time, it was Jane, of course, who walked in.

"To compound the humiliation of the man who wrote the haunting film score for The Piano, Slavin wrote an online diary drawing attention to Nyman's physical failings...

"In the U.S., there are countless websites and blogs dedicated to wronged women and the men who have hurt them - and the UK is fast following. Boiling bunnies is a thing of the past: revenge, it seems, is a dish best served up on a web page.

"For the women, online vengeance serves as both catharsis and punishment. It is also possibly the most public way of dragging down an ex-lover - the modern-day equivalent of putting him in the stocks and pelting him with rotten tomatoes."

The article Don't get mad, get E-venge! (UK Daily Mail, 5/8/08) details all of the vindictive, vicious things (allegedly) mistreated women do to the exes who (supposedly) mistreated them. It's an odd societal disconnect: we often see these "hell hath no fury/you go girl" type stories, yet our society is in denial about the most common vehicle for women to extract their revenge--the family court system.

Does anybody really believe that the women who do the vicious acts described in the article wouldn't use the system against their exes? In fact, there's no better vehicle for revenge--the kids can be (and sometimes are) poisoned against their fathers and held as de facto hostages of the vindictive mother, child support and alimony are used as weapons, and the overwhelmed and anti-male family law system often unwittingly enables such behavior.

I'm also amused at these women's bottomless sense of being wronged and how it's always his fault. The best example is Laura, who started an affair with a married man, and then is an outraged victim she discovers that--gasp--he's cheating on her with other women!

The full article is here. As usual, anything a woman does to a man, no matter how outrageous or destructive, is A-OK.

I enjoyed author Laura Topham's clueless line about the Jane Slavin/Michael Nyman (pictured above)--Nyman dropped Slavin "without an explanation." Actually, what Slavin's subsequent behavior says about her provides plenty of "explanation" why Nyman wanted out.

From the Associated Press' Sex Offender Banned from Son's Graduation (5/10/08):

"School and law enforcement officials have told a St. Joseph man that he can't attend his son's eighth-grade graduation because he is a convicted sex offender and isn't allowed on school property.

"James Jones, 36, said he may go anyway although the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department has told him he would be arrested and face up to four years in prison.

"'I've already been punished for this. This isn't about me anymore. Now they're punishing my kids, and that's taking it a little too far,' said Jones, who served five years in prison after being convicted in 1990 of forcible rape of a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

"'I'm always preaching education to my children. How does that make me look if I'm not there at graduation?'..

"Sheriff's investigator Shawn Collie said although Jones has argued against the school property restriction more than any other offender, he has signed an agreement acknowledging he knows about the restriction. That means he can't claim ignorance if found on school grounds, such as for the May 22 graduation.

"'We'll be there. And we'll arrest him if he's there,' Collie said."

A few thoughts:

1) Regarding the rape, he was convicted, so let's assume he's guilty. "Forcible rape" is pretty bad stuff, and it's real hard to feel sorry for a rapist. Yes, Jones was only 17, and that's young, but it's old enough to know it's wrong to cause other people pain. And I'm sure that two decades later the young woman he assaulted still suffers because of it.

2) Prison is supposed to be about punishment and rehabilitation. Rape is a terrible crime, but Jones paid for it with five long years in prison--upon his release, he's paid his debt to society and should not be subjected to further punishment.

3) The best thing for society is if criminals are able to be rehabilitated, and from what we see in the article, it sounds as if Jones is an excellent and admirable example of this rehabilitation. For this, Jones deserves credit, not exile.

4) It probably will mean a lot to his son for him to be at his graduation, and will be hurtful if he can't attend.

All in all, I side with Jones.

Thanks to Jeremy, a reader, for sending the story.

Sometimes you find out a marriage is over when you come home and your house is empty except for a note from your soon-to-be former wife. Sometimes it happens after a fight. Sometimes it happens when you find out about an affair.

I found out my marriage will soon be over in a different way--the Campaign for Children and Families and the Alliance for Marriage Foundation told me.

According to the Campaign for Children and Families, today's California Supreme Court pro-gay marriage ruling in the case Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco "has destroyed the civil institution of marriage." The Alliance for Marriage Foundation says the decision has "struck down marriage." All because the ruling would allow the 2% of the population who are gay to marry. Read the full story of the catastrophe here.

Ignorant me, I thought that marriage was under greater threat from the fact that hundreds of thousands of innocent fathers have been booted out of their homes with little judicial oversight via restraining orders based on false domestic violence allegations. Or that courts allow children of divorce to be dragged half way across the country so mothers can exclude their fathers from their lives. Or that the abusive child support system often traps low income men in a hopeless spiral of debt. Or that family courts are allowing military parents to be permanently removed from their children's lives while they're overseas. I was wrong--it's gays being allowed to marry that is the real threat.

On KABC Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America said that the California Supreme Court had "Imposed gay marriage on the citizens of California." How exactly is anybody "imposing" gay marriage on me?

The announcement is the second terrible blow to my marriage in the past 18 months. In October 2006, the Campaign for Children and Families informed me that in signing a bill to allow California gay couples to file taxes as if they were married, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had "put the last nail in the coffin for marriage between a man and a woman in California" and "Terminated [the] Last Piece of Marriage."

The worst part of this is that these tax changes may also lure my teenage son into the gay lifestyle. If the Campaign for Children and Families is correct about the dire threat gays pose to heterosexuals and heterosexuality, perhaps the only thing that's kept my son from doing it so far was the tax disadvantage he knew he'd face one day...

Feminist sparkplug Gloria Allred represented some of the plaintiffs in the case decided today. Gloria and I don't agree on much--we once debated family law issues on the radio and after an hour of battle I said, "Gloria, any common ground here?" and she replied, "Still looking, Glenn." But she's right on this issue and I congratulate her and the gay groups which won today.

As for "protecting families," Gloria's victory in the 1996 Burgess case--which allowed custodial mothers to move children thousands of miles away, thus destroying the father-child bond--genuinely harmed families. Today's Allred victory did not.

Ron Prentice, the executive director of California Family Council, says:

"In November, the people will have an opportunity to overrule the Court's decision by passing a constitutional amendment - and California's voters must respond in strength and number."

Great. So while the California shared parenting movement--the real defenders of families--remains unfunded and starved, these fake "defenders of families" are going to pour millions of dollars into a campaign against gays. I guess these people never heard their elementary school teacher say, "If the other person hasn't done anything to bother you, then leave them alone."

According to Jury convicts wife of forging checks while her husband was serving in Iraq (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5/2/08):

"Dana M. Kieser deceived and defrauded her husband when he was at his most vulnerable, serving in Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard, a Ramsey County jury heard Friday.

"She closed out John Kieser's retirement and college-savings accounts, forged his name on two checks totaling almost $25,000, bought a home in Fargo, N.D., and sold their home in Maplewood -- all without his knowledge or consent, prosecutor Laura Rosenthal said.

"Dana Kieser showed little emotion when the verdicts were read. John Kieser was in the courtroom, too, but he clearly took no joy in them. He was served with divorce papers while home on leave in early January 2007 but still held out hope for reconciliation, even two months after his tour of duty ended in July.

"The couple's contested divorce is pending in North Dakota. Dana Kieser said during testimony that she has custody of their two boys, ages 6 and 4...

"Rosenthal said that Dana Kieser left her husband essentially homeless and that he never has and never will live in the Fargo house.

"District Judge James Clark set sentencing for June 12. Dana Kieser is unlikely to serve any time in prison. The presumptive sentence for check forgery is a stayed sentence. The amount of restitution would be determined by probation officials."

There are many, many truths which this case illustrates. Here's a few:

1) It is usually the woman, not the man, who initiatives the divorce and breaks up the family, and it is often done without a genuinely compelling reason.

2) It is often husbands, not wives, who "hold out hope for reconciliation" and try to work the marriage out.

3) Many men are in harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan and are--let's be blunt--stabbed in the back by their wives. Sometimes it's through wives looting them, as in this story. More often it's through women initiating unwarranted divorces and then moving "back home" with their kids, and then making weighty financial demands upon the father. As I explained in my co-authored column Protect Deployed Parents’ Rights (Trenton Times & several others, 11/11/06), "Many married parents deploy overseas, never suspecting that their parenthood essentially ended the day they left home." In most cases, the victimized parent is the father. It is indicative of our society's disregard for men and fathers that there is no negative social stigma attached to these acts.

This represents a societal change, and a bad one. When my grandfather was fighting against Germany in the Argonne Forest in 1918, can you imagine what the reaction would have been if my grandmother had left him? She would have been condemned--rightly--for betraying her husband. Her relatives would have told her, "How can you betray him when he is in danger? How could you take a man's kids away while he is abroad? Why are you breaking up your family unnecessarily?" This ethos is long gone now. (To learn more, see my blog posts Reflections on Veterans Day Part I and Part II.)

4) I had to laugh at the line "[Prosecutor] Rosenthal said that Dana Kieser left her husband essentially homeless." Actually, we don't have any problem with that--the wife could have made a false claim that the husband "threatened her" or that she is "afraid of him" and she would have easily gotten a restraining order which would have barred him from his home and made him homeless. Hundreds of thousands of women do this every year and nobody even blinks. To learn more, see my co-authored column Letterman Case Shows Problems with Restraining Orders (Albuquerque Tribune, 1/17/06).

5) I get letters all the time from soliders in Iraq or Afghanistan who tell me that their wives have cleaned out their accounts and disappeared, and I doubt that 1 in 10 of them ever gets justice for it. My first thought in reading this story was "Dana Kieser must have really screwed up--women get away with this all the time."

6) After all of this, "Dana Kieser is unlikely to serve any time in prison. The presumptive sentence for check forgery is a stayed sentence. The amount of restitution would be determined by probation officials." So all that happens might be that she is asked to pay some of it back, though even that amount will probably be light, because, after all, she's a single mother with two kids to take care of.

7) Dana Kieser lied and deceived but she has custody and probably will keep custody and John Kieser will face stiff child support obligations. Despite her crime and the criminal conviction, in the end, she wins and he loses.

The full Minneapolis Star Tribune article is here. More details can be found in this video and also this older article.

Women's Studies professor Courtney Martin of www.feministing.com recently wrote:

"John McCain was on The Daily Show last night and wouldn't you know he took time out to acknowledge one of his 'very attractive young woman' detractors at a recent town hall meeting who was wearing a shirt that said 'John McCain Doesn't Represent Me'...

"According to John boy, 'I called on her and asked her what it was that she'd like to say. That's the essence...' But Stewart interrupted his moment of town hall poetics and asked the key question: 'And what did she say?' So McCain was forced to answer, chuckling the whole time, 'She said, 'Why did I want to discriminate against women?' I tried to defend my belief in equal opportunity for all in this country.'

"Except of course, when it comes to a little thing called bodily integrity. And good thing this little minx was attractive so that McCain deigned to call on her. And good thing he chuckled through retelling her very apt question. And good thing he understands the breadth and depth of 'equal opportunity.'

"Don't sleep people. This guy doesn't have what's best for 'attractive young women' in mind."

Having read this, I wondered what assault of women's "bodily integrity" Senator McCain had made. The incident Courtney Martin discusses occurs at about 3:20 in the tape. It is, in my mind, more evidence that modern feminists can always, always find some fault with men whose politics or views they don't like, and blow the fault up as if it means something. If anybody watching this video would like to explain what on earth McCain did that any sane woman would take offense to, I'd be happy to hear it.
 
To watch, click here or see below