The American
Coalition for Fathers and Children
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Los Angeles Foster Care Outrage--Father,
Daughter Separated for 10 YearsAccording
to
Long-Separated Father, Daughter Sue L.A. County
Foster Care Agency (Los Angeles Times,
7/17/06):
"There were plaudits all around last fall
when a troubled teenager who spent 10 years
in foster care was reunited with the father
she had hardly known, thanks to what Los Angeles
County supervisors described as a 'groundbreaking
effort' at family unification.
"But the genesis of that heartwarming story
is now the basis of a lawsuit alleging that
Los Angeles County officials condemned Melinda
Smith, now 17, to a decade of foster homes and
institutions by failing to take the most basic
steps to find her father.
"Melinda's parents were not married when she
was born in 1988, but her father, Thomas Marion
Smith, agreed to pay child support in 1989.
He saw Melinda often, he said, but when she
was about 4, her mother moved and left no forwarding
address. Two years later, in 1995, after the
county had received two complaints of suspected
child abuse, Melinda's mother turned the girl
over to foster care officials.
"Meanwhile, Thomas Smith continued to receive
monthly bills and make support payments to the
county for several years, while Melinda was
-- unbeknownst to him -- being shuffled through
a series of institutions and foster homes.
"The Department of Children and Family Services
-- required by law to use 'due diligence' to
locate a foster child's noncustodial parent
-- never notified Smith that Melinda was in
foster care and never gave him a chance to claim
her, the lawsuit alleges.
"The department listed Smith's whereabouts as
unknown in court documents filed a decade ago,
even though department records indicate that
Melinda's caseworker knew that Smith was paying
child support through a separate county agency
and his address was on file there.
"'He's a registered voter with a valid driver's
license and an open child support case,' said
his attorney, L. Wallace Pate. 'All they had
to do, at any time during those 10 years, was
pick up the phone and ask the L.A. County Child
Support Services Department, 'Do you have a
contact on this man?'
"Ultimately, Smith was located last spring by
retired social worker Peggy Crist, who was brought
in to help the Department of Children and Family
Services launch a program to find permanent
placements for teenagers who had spent years
in foster care.
"After meeting Melinda -- who told Crist 'the
most important thing she could think of...was
that she wanted to find her father' -- it took
the social worker one day to find Thomas Smith,
who was living with his wife in a comfortable
two-bedroom home in Pine Valley, east of San
Diego.
"Last July, the father and daughter saw each
other for the first time in more than 10 years.
In November, Melinda left foster care and moved
into her father's home...[for years] social
workers misled Melinda and family court officials
by portraying Smith as a 'deadbeat dad,' the
lawsuit said, even though they knew he was paying
child support and had received 'no notice that
his daughter was being detained.'
"Melinda grew up in seven different foster care
placements. For five years, beginning at the
age of 7, she lived in a residential treatment
center alongside older children convicted of
criminal activity because social workers decided
her emotional issues ruled out placement with
foster parents.
"Agency records cited in the lawsuit detail
a litany of behavior problems: She threw toys,
punched windows and walls, and was frequently
restrained by staff members when her tantrums
escalated into kicking and biting attacks.
"When Melinda was 8, her social worker reported
that she refused to speak, suffered from extreme
depression and was so 'oppositional and defiant'
that she was 'not appropriate for adoptive placement'...
"...Crist initiated her search [for Melinda's
father on] May 16, 2005. By May 17, she had
Thomas Smith's current address, along with his
addresses for the last 15 years, the lawsuit
said.
"She enlisted a San Diego social worker to visit
Smith, who called Crist and said that he had
tried unsuccessfully to find his daughter for
years. All that time, he said, he thought she
was living with her mother."
A Story Right Out of a Glenn Sacks Column...
As many of you have written to me, this story
is a perfect example of the problem I laid out
in my recent co-authored column
New Report: Foster Care System Disregards Fathers
(Boston Globe, 6/8/06). In that column
family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"When a mother and father are divorced or
separated, and a child welfare agency removes
the children from the mother's home for abuse
or neglect, an offer of placement to the father,
barring unfitness, should be automatic. Yet
according to a new report by the Urban Institute,
few fathers are able to reunite with their children,
who are instead pushed into the foster care
system.
"...The report contains a shocking finding:
when fathers inform child welfare officials
that they would like their children to live
with them, the agencies seek to place the children
with their fathers in only 8% of cases.
"All fit parents have a fundamental right
to raise their own children without state interference.
Moreover, fathers can offer their children a
sense of permanence, security and emotional
support that a foster family (or a succession
of foster care placements) cannot provide.
"Fathers are also a much better source of
long-term resources and sponsorship. Many foster
children are pushed out of their homes and into
a tenuous existence when they turn 18 and the
foster parents no longer receive state subsidies...
"Many absent fathers are not a part of their
children's lives because mothers have driven
them out by denying visitation, moving far away
or employing spurious abuse charges. Some fathers
only find out that their children have been
put in foster care when they are hit for child
support to repay the state's costs. Many had
no way of knowing that their children were in
peril. Others were brushed aside by authorities
when they asserted that their children were
being abused.
"For example, in one highly-publicized case,
seven year-old Kaili Warrington-Sims was starved
down to 29 pounds and imprisoned in a bedroom
by her mother and her mother's live-in boyfriend
before being rescued by her father, Daniel Sims.
The couple had spirited the girl around New
York state and then to Florida to deny Sims
access. Sims struggled through a maze of bureaucratic
indifference and hostility to get to his daughter.
He arrived just in time--the girl would have
only lived a few more weeks in her condition.
"[The report] makes it clear that many child
welfare workers treat fathers as an afterthought.
The report found that even when a caseworker
had been in contact with a child's father, the
caseworker was still five times less likely
to know basic information about the father than
about the mother. And 20% of the fathers whose
identity and location were known by the child
welfare agencies from the opening of the case
were never even contacted.
"These policies are seriously misguided.
When a mother is deemed unfit to care for her
children, dad shouldn't be just one option out
of many. He should be first in line."
Women's eNews' Man-Bashing Cartoon
Feminists fiercely resent criticism of women's
behavior, or attempts to limit women's "freedoms."
In this Women's eNews
cartoon, a man is taken to task for criticizing
a woman for having a baby at age 60.
However, such criticisms are borne not of a
desire to limit women but instead to protect
children. Spin it how you want, but there's
no way you can tell me that a woman having a
baby at age 60 is a good idea. The cartoon instead
attempts to shift attention (and blame) to the
man's behavior because he is in a relationship
with a younger woman.
While we're on the subject, the stereotype
of older men dumping their wives for younger
women is largely a myth. In my co-authored column
The Rise in 'Gray Divorce': It's Always Hubby's
Fault (Houston Chronicle, 2/19/06)
family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"In both the
United States and Japan, divorce among older
couples is on the rise. The American Association
of Retired Persons detailed the phenomenon among
American seniors in a study last year, and Japan's
wave of gray divorce is expected to swell into
a deluge, since Japanese women will soon be
legally able to claim half of their husbands'
retirement pensions.
"There are
various explanations for the trend but media
commentators agree on one thing--when the husband
divorces his wife, it's hubby's fault. When
the wife divorces her husband, well, it's hubby's
fault too.
"In a recent New York Times article
Terry Martin Hekker, whose husband of 40 years
divorced her, criticizes what she and others
in the media are calling a trend: selfish older
men dumping their wives for younger women...[however]
the stereotype of the husband trading in his
wife for a younger model is by and large a myth.
The women in the AARP study were 60% more likely
to claim that they ended their marriages than
the men were, and men were almost twice as likely
as women to say that they never saw their divorces
coming. In contrast to the Porsche and
trophy wife stereotype, the AARP study found
that these divorced men had many serious concerns,
high among them their fear of losing touch with
their children after their divorces."
To express your view of the cartoon, write
to Women's eNews at
editors@womensenews.org.
Not Entirely a Myth...
Of course, while the stereotype of older
men dumping their wives for younger women is
largely a myth, it's not entirely a myth.
We wrote:
"This is not to say that there's no validity
to women's complaints. Radio host Howard Stern
recently interviewed television commentator
Geraldo Rivera, who in 2003 married a woman
less than half his age. Stern was only half-joking
when he asked 'aren't you worried about your
future? Think of it--when you're 75, you're
going to be stuck married to a 45 year-old woman.'
"In this area biology dictates much--if men
found 60-year-old women as attractive as they
found 30 year-olds, the human race would have
died out a long time ago. Yet marriages
break up for a variety of reasons, most of them
having little to do with male perfidy. There's
a big distinction between dumping your wife
for a younger woman, and pursuing a relationship
with a younger woman after your marriage has
ended."
Finally What Child Support Payers
Need
Child Support obligors face
a stacked deck when squaring
off against CS Enforcement's
army of lawyers and agents,
all pitted against some beleaguered
father who's working 50 hours
a week to pay his child support
and support his family. The
burden of proving compliance
with court-ordered support falls
on the obligor, not the custodial
parent or the enforcement agencies.
Very often fathers are forced
to pay money they don't really
owe, or are saddled with fake
arrearages and the concomitant
interest and penalties.
Since the state provides
a ton of free assistance to
custodial parents, fathers need
quality, affordable representation
for these battles.
Child Support Liberation's Child
Support Audits and Record Management
Program helps obligors challenge
arrears by producing professional,
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CSARMP costs only $13 a
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only 30 days notice. To
learn more or to sign up, click
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here. If you have any questions,
write to Michael Kennedy of
Child Support Liberation
by clicking
here.
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Baseball, Domestic Violence, and Me &
Tawny Kitaen
After my comments last week
on baseball and domestic violence--see
The Brett Myers Saga: Baseball Player Beats
Wife on Boston Street
and the following two entries--several
of you wrote to me about the case of former
pitcher Chuck Finley, who was a victim of domestic
violence perpetrated by his then-wife, actress
Tawny Kitaen.
Kitaen was arrested in April
of 2002 for attacking Finley as he was driving
the couple home. Police officers reported seeing
abrasions and scrapes on Finley's body after
Kitaen had allegedly kicked Finley repeatedly
with her high-heeled shoes, grabbed his ear
and twisted it, and put her foot on top of his,
forcing the accelerator to the floor. After
Kitaen's arrest, Finley was granted temporary
custody of their two daughters, then ages nine
and three.
Pam Sheek, a 51 year-old nanny
who has cared for the Finley children for six
years, made a sworn declaration shortly afterward
stating that Kitaen has a severe prescription
drug addiction and that her erratic and abusive
behavior has often put the children at risk.
She described an incident in March, 2002 when
Kitaen turned on the gas in the gas fireplace
log without lighting it and then called the
two children to come into bed with her to go
to sleep. Sheek, suspicious, entered the room
and, smelling the gas, turned off the fireplace,
probably saving the lives of both Kitaen and
her children.
In September
of 2003 Kitaen went on the Howard Stern Show
and denied everything, claiming that she was
the victim of abuse, and that she was getting
railroaded. I criticized her for this on
His Side with Glenn Sacks, and sure
enough I got a letter from Kitaen the next week,
telling me that I was wrong, irresponsible,
unfair to her, etc.
A little while
afterwards I was amazed but not surprised to
see that Inside Edition did an interview
exclusive with Kitaen shortly after the Stern
Show, and in it Kitaen admitted that
she had attacked Finley.
Kitaen's letter
of apology to me must have gotten lost in the
mail...
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New Jersey Divorce and Family
Law
New Jersey family law attorney
David Perry Davis, Esq. can
help you through your divorce.
In Pasqua v. Council
(2006) Davis successfully challenged
New Jersey's unconstitutional
practice of failing to appoint
attorneys for indigent child
support obligors at enforcement
hearings where they face incarceration.
As a result of this suit, trial
courts must apply the same standard
used when a defendant requests
a public defender in a criminal
matter.
www.dpdlaw.com
The Second Wives Club
The Second Wives Club is what
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mature, and intelligent way;
articles and news written by
thought-provoking experts and
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and advice from some of life's
most interesting women.
www.SecondWivesClub.com
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OK, But Why Isn't She in Jail?
From
Bitter Father Wins Ruling: Ex-Fiancee Ordered
To Pay Damages (Hartford Courant,
7/2/06):
"A Superior Court judge has awarded $3.5
million in damages to a local man, saying his
former fiancee falsely accused him of sexually
abusing their daughter during a bitter custody
dispute five years ago.
"It was a bittersweet victory for Ajai Bhatia,
who lost his $100,000-a-year engineering job
and his house, and spent tens of thousands of
dollars in a tumultuous legal battle to clear
his name.
"Bhatia was escorted out of his engineering
job at the Shelton office of Pitney-Bowes in
handcuffs, accused of being a pedophile, on
Dec. 26, 2001. He spent four days in jail. He
endured a long criminal trial, was acquitted
of sexual assault charges resulting from his
fiancee's complaint and has been the subject
of multiple child-abuse investigations involving
the state Department of Children and Families.
"But the whopping monetary award is little solace
to Bhatia, who acknowledges that he will probably
never recover anywhere near that amount from
his former fiancee, Marlene Debek of Bridgeport.
And he remains distraught over the damage the
accusations have caused in his relationship
with his daughter, now 9...
"After Bhatia was acquitted of the criminal
charges in 2003, he filed a malicious prosecution
lawsuit against Debek. Connecticut law allows
individuals to sue their accusers in a criminal
matter if they can prove the accusation was
baseless and made with malice.
"In a ruling in that lawsuit earlier this month,
Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma found
that Debek had no probable cause to accuse Bhatia
of a crime.
"'She did so with malice in that her motive
was to harm the plaintiff and keep him from
having any contact with their daughter,' Aurigemma
wrote. 'In the custody battle, Ms. Debek used
the claim of sexual abuse as the final weapon
in her arsenal against Mr. Bhatia when her other
weapons, false-claims of physical violence and
danger of [his] flight to India, were not effective.'
"Aurigemma awarded Bhatia $2.5 million in damages
for his emotional distress, loss of reputation
and humiliation, which the judge said was 'staggering.'"
A few comments:
1) I salute this ruling as a nice first step,
but where is the criminal prosecution of Debek?
Debek belongs in prison for her crime, a minimum
of several years. Her cellmate should be
Bridget Marks. Yet her only punishment is
a monetary judgment which she'll never pay anyway.
2) Contrast judge Aurigemma's wise words
with the gigantic moral failure of New York
courts and New York media in the
Marks case. Marks gained notoriety in 2004
when she lost custody of her twin four year-old
daughters to John Aylsworth, her ex-boyfriend.
Marks alleged that Aylsworth had sexually abused
both daughters during a supervised visitation.
The neutral experts appointed by the court concluded
that Marks' allegations were false, and that
Marks had coached the girls to make statements
corroborating her charges. All three experts
recommended to the court that custody be awarded
to the father, and Family Court Judge Arlene
Goldberg gave custody to Aylsworth.
Last year a New York Appellate court ruled that
Bridget Marks did in fact coach her 5 year-old
twin girls to make false allegations of sexual
molestation against their father--and then granted
her sole custody of the girls! At the time I
labeled it "one of the most stunning and unconscionable
court rulings of our time." While Marks denies
any wrong doing, every judge who has heard this
case--all five--have concluded that Marks coached
the girls to make the false allegations. The
fact that Marks was still awarded sole custody
of her daughters speaks volumes about the anti-father
bias of the family court system.
In contrast to the New York Appellate court--which
evidently doesn't think false allegations are
a big deal--and the New York and national media,
which was solidly behind Marks, in this case
Judge Aurigemma wrote:
"It is difficult to imagine anything worse than
being falsely accused of sexually assaulting
your own child and having the accuser brainwash
the child into believing the false allegations."
Well said.
3) I'm not crazy about the Courant's
headline for the story, either--Bitter Father
Wins Ruling. Like how could anyone imagine a
father being bitter at a mother over her behavior
in family court...
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Voluntary FatherlessnessOf all the bias and
nonsense on gender issues that has pervaded our culture
over the past 35 years, perhaps none are more ludicrous
than the pretense that men and only men are responsible
for the explosion of out-of-wedlock births. In my column
Do Women Really Want a Male Birth Control Pill?
(Newsday, 4/11/05) I wrote:
"While most women are responsible
and want to have children with a willing, committed
partner, studies show that lack of reproductive control
can be a major problem for men today. For example, the
National Scruples and Lies Survey 2004 polled 5,000
women in the United Kingdom for That's Life!
magazine. According to that survey, 42% of women claim
they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant,
regardless of the wishes of their partners.
"Jo Checkley, the editor of
That's Life!, is correct when she says 'to deliberately
get pregnant when your partner doesn't want a baby is
playing Russian roulette with other people's lives.'
"According to research conducted
by Joyce Abma of the National Center for Health Statistics
and Linda Piccinino of Cornell University, over a million
American births each year result from pregnancies which
men did not intend."
I saw an interesting example of this the other day
while reading Tom Ellis'
The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing Patience with
Feminism, Political Correctness... and Basically Everything.
It concerns his ex-girlfriend Petra and speaks volumes
about the way women are often responsible for out-of-wedlock
births and fatherlessness. Ellis writes:
"A
few years later Petra empowered herself again. I was
in Munich so I stopped by to say hello. I knew what
to expect of her by that time and knew she wanted a
child, so I asked her if she was pregnant. She was.
In fact, the tests had just come back, and I was the
first person to find out. Not even her boyfriend knew.
I got the straight story before she had a chance to
construct the fictional version. Her 40-year-old boyfriend
was divorced and already had three children from his
first marriage and didn't want more. He could barely
afford child support and lived alone in a small apartment.
None of this mattered to Petra.
"She
had a plan.
"She
went off the pill without informing him. She thought
since she was already 36 it would take a few tries,
so she wanted to get started. She figured there was
no need to tell the guy she was off the pill because
she would take complete responsibility for the
child if she got pregnant. It was her idea alone, she
said. She would not ask for his help at all. It wouldn't
be fair, since he didn't want more children. She would
raise the kid by herself. After all, a father is only
necessary as a means of financial support, and she wouldn't
need him for that. Her practice in holistic medicine
would cover it. She wouldn't even ask for assistance
from the government. Petra got knocked up on the first
try. I asked her why she would choose a man to father
her child who didn't want children. What right did she
have to deliberately go against his wishes? Why had
she not even asked me? I may have been willing to contribute
more than just the required raw material. She responded
in the same way as all women when confronted with their
selfish and irresponsible behavior. She cried. I never
felt so free, being able to walk away from the impending
dilemma.
"In
the letters I received from her that year, she described
how furious the guy was. I don't know exactly how she
spun it, but it must have been clear to him that her
pregnancy was the result of a deliberate act. He refused
to speak to her again. By this time, Petra had her official
story ready. She had completely forgotten about the
total responsibility she was going to assume. Now she
was angry at him for not wanting to acknowledge he had
'fathered' the child. She put his name on the birth
certificate and forced him to pay child support. The
pregnancy had been 'unexpected,' and what an awful man
he was for not wanting to be a part of his child's life.
'How can men do that?' she asked. She was also getting
some kind of aid from the German government, which she
complained was not enough.
Ellis
reports that five years later he visited Petra in Munich
again, writing "I met her daughter Gabrielle, who was
simply adorable...this playful 4-year-old child. She
had never met her father."
Teenage mothers see pregnancy as a 'career move'
According to
Teenage mothers see pregnancy as a 'career move'
(The Independent, 7/16/06):
"Teenage girls who get pregnant are deliberately 'planning'
to become mothers in the belief that a baby will improve
the quality of their lives.
"An extensive study published today reveals that
girls as young as 13 are making a career choice' by
deciding to have children, since they see parenting
as preferable to working in a dead-end job.
"The findings from the Trust for the Study of Adolescence
challenges the assumption that schoolgirl mothers are
all irresponsible adolescents who are ignorant about
using contraception. The revelation that teenage girls
are actively choosing motherhood is backed up by official
figures obtained by this paper which show that nearly
a quarter of pregnancies to under 18 are second children...
"interviewees were well aware how to protect against
pregnancy and were strongly anti-abortion. Nearly three-quarters
were in steady relationships with the father of their
child. Only a handful of girls said they regretted getting
pregnant."
Read the full article
here In the US when these voluntary teen pregnancies
occur, boys are often turned into child support debtors,
usually to repay the state for the welfare costs the
mother has accrued. In my co-authored column
Women Have a Choice--Men Should Too (Saginaw
News, 4/2/06) family law attorney Jeff Leving and
I wrote:
"One and a half million American women legally walk
away from motherhood every year by adoption, abortion
or abandonment, yet somehow nobody labels them 'deadbeats'
or 'deserters.' In over 40 states a mother can return
the baby to the hospital within a few weeks of birth--completely
opting out of motherhood with less hassle than it takes
to return a DVD to Best Buy. Yet if the mother decides
she wants to keep the child, she can demand 18 (or in
some states 21 or 23) years of child support from the
father, and he has no choice in the matter."
As
usual in family law, it's her choice--and his responsibility.
Has Your
Career Been Impacted by Custody Issues?
After empowering people's careers for over 20
year, I was duly initiated into family law just
like you--through a 30 month, $520,000 custody
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the financial shackles while still experiencing
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Concerned about Financial Issues in Your Divorce?
If you're concerned about financial issues in
your divorce, contact
Jim DiGabriele
of DiGabriele, McNulty & Co by email
here or at
973-243-2600.
Letters From a Deadbeat Dad
Have you ever been framed as a "deadbeat dad"
while you were just trying to be a father?
Have you ever been forced to pay child support
while being denied your basic rights?
Have you ever had to explain Parental Alienation
Syndrome to your own child? Have you ever heard
about fighting family law battles outside the
law by following principles of non-violence--and
winning? Read
Letters From a Deadbeat Dad by
Cosmo
Monkhouse.
|
Column: Protect Children from AlienationMy recent
co-authored column
Protect Children from Alienation (Providence
Journal, 7/7/06) defends the controversial Parental
Alienation Syndrome. Because of the progress our movement
has been making in raising awareness about PAS, a backlash
against it is developing. Some recent examples can be
found
here,
here and
here.
In the column family law attorney Jeff Leving and I
wrote:
"Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those
involving Parental Alienation Syndrome. In PAS cases
one parent has turned his or her children against the
other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children
and the target parent once enjoyed. Unfortunately,
women's advocate Rev. Anne Grant misunderstands PAS,
portraying it as a nonexistent fraud in her June 27
column 'The discredited 'Parental Alienation Syndrome.''
Grant claims that judicial recognition of PAS has had
'devastating effects' on families, and cites a few cases
where abusive or allegedly abusive fathers have used
PAS to win shared or sole custody.
"Grant is correct that there are fathers who have
alienated their own children through their abuse or
personality defects, and who attempt to shift the blame
to their children's mothers by falsely claiming PAS.
Yet parental alienation is a common, well-documented
phenomenon. For example, a longitudinal study published
by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700
'high conflict' divorce cases over a 12 year period
and found that elements of PAS were present in the vast
majority of the cases studied.
"In family law cases, false accusations of any and all
types of maltreatment, including PAS, are used to gain
advantage. Since false accusations of domestic violence
and child sexual abuse are common, should we then conclude
that battering and molestation don't exist?"
To write a Letter to the Editor of the Providence
Journal concerning
Protect children from alienation (7/7/06), write
to letters@projo.com.
|
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High Profile Cases Cited by Critics of PAS Are
Often Not What They're Claimed
In the column we wrote:
"Courts lean heavily towards mothers as custodial parents,
and are hesitant to undo existing custody arrangements.
Even in the high-profile cases publicized by critics
of PAS, the courts usually had good reason to transfer
custody from the mothers to the fathers.
"In one case highlighted by PBS in Breaking the Silence:
Children's Stories, their 2005 documentary on PAS,
the filmmakers claimed that the mother had unjustly
lost custody of her daughter to her ex-husband. Yet
it was subsequently revealed that a California Juvenile
Court had found the mother culpable of multiple acts
of child abuse and the court transferred custody to
the father to protect the girl.
"The two most famous PAS cases of recent times are the
Bridget Marks and Amy Neustein cases. In both instances
mothers lost custody of their daughters after making
false allegations of sexual abuse. Marks garnered widespread
media sympathy from Bill O'Reilly, Dr. Phil, Larry King
and others, yet all five judges ruling on the case concluded
that Marks had coached her girls to believe they had
been sexually molested by their father.
"Neustein's now adult daughter, Sherry Orbach, publicly
refuted her mother's claims last year, writing that
when she was a child her mother 'would begin by telling
me a sordid--and false--story about my father...She
then instructed me to repeat the story word for word
until she was satisfied with my rendition.' According
to Orbach:
"'My father never sexually abused
me...I...owe my existence as a normal young adult to
the family judges...who helped me reunite with my father
in the face of considerable opposition in the media.'"
The PBS case we referred to is the
Sadia Loeliger case, a bombshell we exposed and
detailed during our
Campaign
Against PBS's Father-Bashing Breaking the Silence.
To learn more, go
to
PBS Portrays Known Child Abuser as Hero: Juvenile Court
Found Mother Culpable of Multiple Acts of Child Abuse.
How Parental Alienation Hurts Kids
In the column we quoted family
law mediators J. Michael Bone, Ph.D. and Michael R.
Walsh on what it is like for children caught in PAS
situations. According to Bone and Walsh, these children
"live in a state of chronic upset and threat of reprisal"
and fear abandonment. They note that when children
"express positive approval of the absent parent, the
consequences can be very serious...The child is continually
being put through various loyalty tests...the alienating
parent thus forces the child to choose [between] parents...in
direct opposition to a child's emotional well being."
Bone is the director of
Tree House
Solutions, a resource designed to meet the emotional
and informational needs of parents who are going through
divorce and those already divorced. He can be reached
at
MichaelBone@TreeHouseSolutions.org.
Help for Maryland Fathers
Family law attorney
Dawn Elaine Bowie works to protect
parents' relationships with their children
and reduce post-divorce conflict. She
practices in Montgomery, Anne Arundel
and Prince George's Counties. Contact
her at
attorneydawn@marylandfamilylawfirm.com
or go to
www.marylandfamilylawfirm.com
Tree House Solutions
Tree House Solutions, LLC is
a growing and evolving resource designed
to meet the emotional and informational
needs of parents who are going through
divorce and those already divorced.
Tree House activities are composed of
live, real time teleconferences on a
weekly basis. These sessions are conducted
by two highly experienced mental health
practitioners, versed in high conflict
divorce. Drs. Bone and Evans offer a
wide spectrum of suggestions and education
regarding the divorce process and co-parenting
with difficult former spouses.
www.treehousesolutions.org
Tom Ellis
Rides Against the Wind
Congratulations to Thomas Ellis
on selling 1,000 copies of his self-published
The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing
Patience with Feminism, Political Correctness...
and Basically Everything. It's
quite an accomplishment, given that
the publishing industry gives vastly
more attention to Women's Studies books
than Men's Studies.
Rantings describes the rise
of feminism from the mid '70s to the
present, through Ellis' personal experiences,
and is loaded with outrageous stories.
Available at
Amazon and
in Bulk.
|
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Sharing a Gallows with Wendy McElroy
Apparently some men's rights/fathers' rights "radicals"
want to arrange a necktie party for Wendy McElroy and
I over our views of the Darren Mack situation. Few in
this movement are the target of more incessant stupid
criticism from these "radicals" than McElroy, and I'd
be happy to stand on a gallows with her any time. (And
as I've mentioned before, the word "radical" is a misnomer,
since most of this "radicalism" is confined to internet
bluster, as opposed to the admirable civil disobedience
committed by English and Canadian fathers' activists).
I'm being criticized for my statements on Mack
here and
here, and McElroy is being attacked for her new
FOX News column
Fathers Rights Movement Must Condemn Darren Mack
(6/27/06). In the column she writes:
"When a bullet ripped through Nevada Judge Chuck
Weller on June 12th, the public debate surrounding the
family court system shifted.
"Reno businessman Darren Mack is suspected of shooting
the judge whom he blames for the 'unjust' conditions
of his divorce. He is also charged with slashing his
estranged wife Charla to death.
"Through years of effort, father's rights activists
had pried open the lid of debate on whether family courts
are biased against men. Mack may well have slammed it
shut again.
"If he is guilty of either crime, then Mack is the walking
stereotype of an abusive man from whom society and children
need to be protected...
"Mack no more represents alienated fathers than Andrea
Yates who murdered her five children represents American
motherhood. But, judging from his past behavior, Mack
will present himself as a rallying point for fathers
who have been estranged by family court judges...
"If Mack and his supporters convince the public that
he represents oppressed dads, then the father's rights
movement may be damaged beyond repair...
"To retain any credibility, father's rights advocates
must distance themselves from Mack at breakneck speed
and they must do so definitively.
"The veteran advocate Glenn Sacks has stated, 'I condemn
without qualification the crimes allegedly committed
by Darren Mack.'
"Sacks acknowledges that 'some on the not insubstantial
lunatic fringe of the fathers' rights movement see Mack
as some sort of freedom fighter...'; he utterly rejects
that interpretation.
"He writes, 'Mack is not a good man trapped in a bad
system. He is a bad guy. Because of men like him the
system had to create protections for women, and unscrupulous
women have misused those protections to victimize countless
innocent men. Men like Mack aren't the byproducts of
the system's problems--they are the problem.'
"I hope the father's rights movement en masse adopt
Sacks' hard line -- not the soft line of 'I don't condone
his actions BUT I understand them.'
"There is no BUT about Charla's murder. A strategically-placed
BUT only insulates the speaker from blame while he proceeds
to excuse the inexcusable. It lets the listener know
that the speaker is condoning the action on some level.
"Nothing condones the murder of Charla Mack."
I would add, and I'm sure Wendy agrees, that nothing
condones the premeditated attempt to murder Judge Weller
either.
McElroy and Sacks--'Scared Chickens'?To give
one a sense of the opposition, let's consider the words
of Men's Rights bloggers Rick Bansha and Angry Harry.
Bansha writes:
"Darren Mack, despite what the pundits i.e. Glenn
Sacks, say is a true martyr for the cause. He gave all,
his very life ultimately, to draw attention to injustice.
Some say he went too far. Others say what he did was
terrorism. Still others say he is a hate blinded criminal.
These people are all MRAs mind you, not feminists screaming
for more blood...
"He killed his parasite and tried to kill his tormentor.
He didn't have to do that to try to retain his wealth.
He could have just taken a powder. He did it to call
attention to injustice. That begs the question, why
didn't he use a legitimate form of protest? He did.
It took one killed and another wounded to get noticed.
If he had not done what he did, we would never have
heard of Darren Mack. His message would be lost.
"In my book, Darren Mack committed no crime. His actions
qualify as a legitimate defense of honor. Instead of
resolving matters like men, pistols at dawn, Weller
and his ilk use proxies to do their fighting. Like Paris
cowering behind big brother Hector, Weller would never
face Mack mangina to man. If Weller can use the pigs,
then Mack can use a rifle and scope. Even Steven. I
consider the matter honorably settled."
Angry Harry posits that Mack may have been a victim
of what he calls "Battered Fathers Syndrome." In posts
here and
here he writes:
"'The problem' was caused less by aggressive men
like Darren Mack, and caused more by the failings of
timid men like Glenn Sacks...[McElroy and Sacks] run
away like scared chickens and wash their hands of Darren
Mack, they actually condemn him outright without even
knowing what happened and why...
"McElroy and Sacks are simply desperate to distance
themselves from Darren Mack - for obvious reasons -
but, in my view, they should be more honest with themselves
and with their readers. These two authors are forever
pointing out that fathers are being cheated by the family
courts, and for them to pretend that their publicly-expressed
sentiments will not add fuel to the anger that so many
men already feel - quite justifiably so, in my opinion
- seems cowardly and disingenuous."
Certainly there are many men who are angry about the
court system, and they often have good reason to be.
And I understand that there are basically decent men
who, placed in a terrible position, might explode in
a moment of anger. If Mack had, for example, tried to
slug Weller during a hearing and was restrained and
dragged away by bailiffs, I could still at least consider
the possibility that this might be a decent man driven
too far.
(When I was a kid my dad coached my baseball team
and he had to go bail one of our assistant coaches out
of jail because he had gotten in a physical altercation
with a judge. I still thought he was basically a decent
guy. It wasn't a family court matter, by the way).
Mack, however, is different. Mack stabbed and murdered
his daughter's mother while his little daughter was
upstairs. He planned and carried out a murder attempt
on a judge. Given the explosives and other weapons found
in his house, he may have planned much worse. Sorry,
but I can't accept that this was a decent man driven
too far, because decent men don't do things like that.
Not My Readers...
There have been some apologists
for Mack posting on various men's and fathers' chatrooms.
However, I've seen very little support for Mack (and
a lot of condemnation of Mack) from my readers. The
Sackson Horde ain't stupid...
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Clara Harris and Darren Mack
Mack's defenders remind me of those who defended
Clara Harris, the Houston woman who repeatedly ran over
her husband with her Mercedes, killing him. Just as
some are defending Mack as a good father who "snapped,"
many defended Harris, saying she was a good, loyal wife
who exploded over her husband's affair and deserved
sympathy. I don't buy it. I discussed this on the
His Side with Glenn Sacks show
Oprah Whitewashes
Clara Harris' 'Murder by Mercedes' (5/1/05) after
Oprah played clips of me on her special about Clara
Harris. I said:
"Why are we accepting the idea that Clara was this
perfect angel and that David was a bad guy for wanting
to leave her and that she was just this wonderful wife
until one day she snapped. How gullible are you?
Doncha think that any person capable of slaughtering
a man as the man's daughter begged her not to kill her
father might not have been the perfect wife? That maybe
David Harris had damn good reason for wanting to get
away from her?
To listen to the full audio of that show, click
here.
I've also discussed the Clara Harris case in my columns
"Convicted
Murderess Can Get Custody but Decent Fathers Can't"
(Houston Chronicle, 9/19/03) and "In
Defense of David Harris" (LewRockwell.com,
3/4/03), as well as the
His Side show
CBS' 'Suburban
Madness': It's OK to Kill Your Husband (10/10/04).
Help for California Divorced Dads
The Divorced Fathers Network helps dads
in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Santa
Cruz. Local chapters sponsor free
weekly co-parenting classes, individual
mentoring for fathers and much more.
www.divorcedfathers.com
Help for Boston Dads
Boston family law attorney Nick
Palermo is a shared custody advocate
who believes that divorced dads are
parents, not visitors. The Law Offices
of Nicholas Palermo is a dedicated and
committed trial law firm which has worked
to make shared custody for all fit parents
the law of the land.
LAW OFFICES OF NICHOLAS PALERMO
|
|
Feminists Get a Bad Rap on Clara Harris case
Men's activists often claim that it was "feminists"
who defended Clara Harris. This is false--support for
Harris was broad-based, and also included many conservatives
and Christian conservatives. As I explained in
In Defense of David Harris:
"A murder trial recently concluded in
Texas wherein a woman who killed her husband was defended
by the husband's own mother, brother and father, who
explained that, aside from what might be described as
some unpleasantness on a bad day, the woman is really
a good, law-abiding person.
"The press on both the left and the
right has poured derision upon the murder victim, referring
to David Harris as a 'creep,' a 'rat,' a 'a lying, cheating
scumbag' and Clara Harris' 'unfaithful dog of a husband.'
Feminist Susan Estrich asked 'Who could blame [Clara]
for getting into her Mercedes and running him over?'
and seemed a little sad that the jury did. She fantasized
a Cochranesque defense for her, noting:
"'Every day across America, women crowd
into the offices of plastic surgeons and beauticians
and aestheticians, spending money we don't have on painful
procedures we don't really need, trying to hang on to
men who don't deserve us...with their votes, the Harris
jury could have sent a shot across the bow to all those
cheating men. If you cheat on your wife, she can kill
you and get away with it. If he deserved to get hit,
you must acquit.'
"Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive
officer of WorldNetDaily, penned a column entitled
'Free Clara Harris!' in which he wrote 'I'd give her
a medal....she did the right thing. That creep deserved
what he got' and urged readers to 'live like her.' John
Kasich, guest host on The O'Reilly Factor, also
expressed sympathy for Clara who, he claimed, had been
'mentally tortured' by her husband.
"On the radio and the Internet many
observers expressed similar sentiments, such as: 'If
at first you don't succeed, run over him again'; 'I
feel much compassion for Clara but absolutely none for
her husband the victim...[he's] not worth killing';
and, of course, 'You play, you pay.'
"Even the prosecutor, Mia Magness, apparently
quibbles with the killer only over her choice of methods,
expressing a preference that, instead of killing David
by her own hand, she should have driven him to suicide
by divorcing him and '[doing] like every other woman...get
his house, car, kids -- make him wish he were dead.'
"In Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear,
Lear is abandoned by his family with the exception of
one loyal daughter, Cordelia. In the Texas tragedy David
Harris has been abandoned by his family except for his
loyal daughter Lindsey, who loved her father and begged
her stepmother not to kill him. The murder of her father
and the betrayals of her grandmother, grandfather and
uncle have exacted a high toll on her, driving her to
four suicide attempts in the past six months.
"What did David Harris do to deserve
this cruel fate? He had an affair. As Shakespeare's
Marc Antony said of the fallen Caesar's 'ambition,'
David's infidelity was 'a grievous fault--and grievously
hath he answered it.'"
California Feminist Leader Slams Glenn
Nancy K.D. Lemon, a board member of the
California Partnership
to End Domestic Violence,
slammed me in the Sacramento News & Review
last week, saying that I "dragged out ancient myths
about spousal rape" in opposing SB 1402, a spousal rape
bill. Lemon has drafted and testified on behalf of many
California domestic violence statutes.
I had criticized SB 1402 in my co-authored column
Kuehl's Spousal Rape Bill Will Harm Innocent Men
(Sacramento News & Review, 6/15/06) because it
would make it easier for spurious spousal rape allegations
to be used against fathers during custody battles. Current
California law already provides adequate protections
for victims of spousal rape.
As I previously noted, SB 1402's supporters are garnering
support for the bill in part by playing on the false
idea that the American "patriarchy" condones spousal
rape because a wife is considered to be her husband's
property. Lemon's letter is a good example--there are
no "ancient myths" or patriarchal baggage in our column,
only legitimate concern over false rape allegations.
Lemon says that under current law "there are unfair
constraints on the victims of spousal rape. Unlike other
rape victims, they must report the rape within a year
or come up with other corroboration, a burden many victims
cannot meet. Marital rape is often brutal. Spousal-rape
victims are often victims of years of beatings and brainwashing."
Such cases are rare, but Lemon is certainly correct
that there are women brutalized in this way, and they
deserve protection. In the column family law attorney
Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"Victims of spousal rape deserve protection, and
current California law provides it. In order for the
state to prosecute a spousal rape charge, the accuser
need only to have mentioned the violation within a year
of its occurrence to any of a wide variety of medical,
law enforcement, clerical, legal or psychological personnel,
or there must be corroborating, independent, court admissible
evidence.
"SB 1402, sponsored by Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles),
eliminates the distinction between spousal rape and
other rapes, thus allowing for spousal rape prosecutions
six years later, even if there was no mention or independent
evidence of the crime in previous years."
Read Lemon's full letter at
SB 1402 is a good change.
It's a Man's World
Another critical letter to the Sacramento News
& Review cast doubts on the case of William Hetherington,
which we said provided "an example of how spousal rape
accusations can be used strategically." Maya Beneli,
a feminist true believer, wrote:
"It is difficult to believe that a 1980s family court
would convict a man for rape under questionable evidence.
They mention that, despite 'evidence that some believe
casts doubt on the conviction,' the accused remains
in jail...Further, it is inappropriate and irresponsible
to allude to this convicted rapist as a 'good father.'"
Hetherington was convicted by a criminal court, not
a family court. In the column we wrote:
"Hetherington was convicted and incarcerated in the
middle of contentious divorce proceedings in which he
was likely to win custody of his children because his
wife had abandoned the family and moved out of state.
"As Hetherington fought the spousal rape charge the
family law court froze his assets (as is common in divorce
cases), leaving him unable to afford a lawyer. However,
the criminal court refused to provide him legal representation
as an indigent, since he was employed in the automobile
industry.
"After being convicted Hetherington was unable to raise
funds for an appeal, since his ex-wife won his home
and all his assets (as well as custody of his three
children). Substantial evidence, including photos taken
at the crime scene and obtained through a public records
act a decade later, cast grave doubts upon the spousal
rape claim.
"The accused needn't be convicted to suffer egregious
harm. The cost of criminal defense is often ruinous,
and the emotional toll can be worse."
Beneli is correct that in general it is "inappropriate
and irresponsible" to refer to a convicted rapist as
a "good father." However, if there are significant doubts
about the convicted man's guilt--as there is in this
case--the rules change. Also, we never made any judgment
on whether Hetherington was a good father or not.
Beneli asserts that "If his guilt were truly questionable,
the man (in what is still a man's world) could secure
a new trial." Lady, you must be kidding...
Read Beneli's full letter at
It's a Man's World.
Michigan Legislator Who Was Denied Her Father
Supports Shared Parenting
In
this article Michigan state Rep. Leslie Mortimer
discusses HB 5267, the Michigan Shared Parenting Bill:
"A bill sponsored by one of Lenawee County's state
representatives to change the way child custody cases
are handled is still in committee, but its author says
it has the votes to pass.
"The bill, which is supported by fathers' rights advocates
but opposed by the National Organization for Women and
the state bar association, would mandate joint custody
of children except in certain instances...
"Last fall, Rep. Leslie Mortimer, R-Horton, introduced
House Bill 5267, which says, 'The court shall order
joint custody unless, by clear and convincing evidence
a parent is (proven to be) unfit, unwilling, or unable
to care for the child.' The joint custody measure was
sent Oct. 6 to the committee on Family and Children's
Services. She said the issue is expected to be voted
out of committee this fall.
"'We've got the votes. Right now, though they are waiting
for a marriage package to go through, which contains
a parenting plan,' Mortimer said...
"She said she has found support for the bill both in
the committee and on the House floor. Mortimer said
it is important, when couples split and children are
involved, to start off on even ground.
"'Shared parenting is the way to go,' Mortimer said.
'Research shows children do better socially, academically
and have better life outcomes. Divorce is devastating
enough, but to lose one parent over another makes it
even worse (for a child).'
"Mortimer said the proposed legislation was drawn from
her own experience as a child of divorce.
"'My parents divorced when I was 5 and I only got to
see my father every other weekend - Sundays, really,'
she said...
"Mortimer noted that in custody cases in 2002, 64
percent resulted in mothers being awarded physical custody;
10 percent of the time, physical custody was awarded
to the father; with some form of joint custody 23 percent
of the time."
To learn more about the Michigan shared parenting
bill, see my co-authored column
HB 5267 Will Help Michigan's Children of Divorce
(Lansing State Journal, 5/28/06). In the column
Mike McCormick, the Executive Director of the American
Coalition for Fathers and Children, and I discuss the
research showing how shared parenting benefits kids,
and examine the opposition's arguments against shared
parenting.
Are
You Really the Father?
Find out the underlying flaws in the DNA paternity
testing system and learn how a man with results
in the 90%, 95% or even 99% positive range may
not be the father. Learn what most lawyers and
judges don't know about paternity testing.
www.paternitytestflaw.com.
Congressional Candidate Takes Strong Stand for
Noncustodial Parents' Rights
In 2004 Libertarian presidential candidate Michael
Badnarik had a strong noncustodial parents'
rights
platform. Badnarik is clearly aware of and
sensitive to the basic problems fathers today
face, particularly the sole custody norm and
the denigration of noncustodial parents to "second
class parent" status. Badnarik is running for
Congress in 2006--to learn more, go to
www.badnarik.org.
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Fathers' Activists Disrupt WimbledonI love it.
According to
Fathers' rights campaigners try to play tennis with
Federer:
"Two fathers' rights campaigners were arrested at Wimbledon
today after attempting to play tennis alongside Swiss
ace Roger Federer.
"The men, both wearing T-Shirts with a version of
the Wimbledon logo with Family Law It's a Racket emblazoned
across it, came onto Centre Court during the defending
champion's match against Mario Ancic of Croatia.
"One served a tennis ball towards the Royal Box while
the other stood on the opposite side of the net before
security men rushed onto court and ushered them off
shortly after 3pm.
"The men - Simon Wright, 30, from Brighton, and Alan
Jamieson, 41, from Manchester - said they were both
members of Real Fathers 4 Justice, a breakaway group
from Fathers 4 Justice.
"Before being led away, Wright said: 'There have
been 20 family law court cases and still I don't get
to see my child and this is what I have had to resort
to.'
"Jamieson said: 'I don't get to see my children.'
A police spokesman confirmed the men had been arrested.
"Two persons tried to disrupt play and they were
swiftly arrested," he said.
"This is the second incident in just two days.
"Yesterday, 29-year-old streaker Sander Lantinga
from Berkhout, Noord-Holland, in the Netherlands, received
a caution after stripping off on Centre Court and doing
a cartwheel close to Russian star Maria Sharapova.
"A spokesman from the All England Club said more
permanent security measures could be put into place
if similar antics continued.
"'It will be a shame if the antics of a few selfish
idiots were to ruin it for everyone else in the future
and that it meant we may have to put more permanent
measures in place to prevent people gaining access to
the court,' she said. 'Clearly, we hope this will not
be the case.'"
I wonder--if this lady had had her children taken
away from her without cause, would she still see
the protesting fathers as "selfish idiots"?
|
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|
Glenn Discusses Eve Ensler's 'Until the Violence
Stops: NYC' on the Dennis Prager Show
I discussed feminist Eve Ensler's "Until the Violence
Stops: NYC" and an anti-male California
domestic violence bill on the Dennis Prager Show
on the Salem Radio Network on June 26. The most interesting
part of the show were the callers, many of whom had
experienced the anti-male bias of the domestic violence
system firsthand.One gentleman recounted the case
of a blind, wheelchair bound man in his neighborhood
who was frequently the target of physical abuse from
his wife, a police officer. In the end she shot him
and killed him--and received a whopping 7 year sentence.
I discussed abuses within the system in my co-authored
column
Some Progress for California Fathers, but Still a Long
Way to Go (Pasadena Star-News & Affiliated
Papers, Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 6/18/06).
Family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"The OJ Simpson case helped usher in draconian domestic
violence policies which have victimized many innocent
men. State-mandated mandatory/presumptory arrest policies
exhort police to make arrests on domestic violence calls,
and 'primary aggressor' policies pressure officers to
view men as the instigators of domestic violence incidents.
As a result, many men have been arrested on flimsy evidence,
or when they were acting to defend themselves against
attacks by their female partners.
"Nearly 250,000 domestic violence restraining orders
are currently active in California. A recent article
in the Family Law News, the official publication
of the State Bar of California Family Law Section, explains
that the bar is concerned that "protective orders are
increasingly being used in family law cases to help
one side jockey for an advantage in child custody."
The authors note that protective orders are "almost
routinely issued by the court in family law proceedings
even when there is relatively meager evidence and usually
without notice to the restrained person....it is troubling
that they appear to be sought more and more frequently
for retaliation and litigation purposes."
"Such orders are generally done ex parte,
without the accused's knowledge and with no opportunity
afforded for him to defend himself. When an order is
issued, the man is booted out of his own home and can
even be jailed if he tries to contact his own children.
His first chance to defend himself against the charges
is usually two weeks later, at the hearing to make the
order permanent. Yet these hearings generally last no
more than 15 minutes. The due process they afford the
men can be gauged by the State of California's advice
for men contesting restraining orders:
"'Do not take more than three minutes to say what
you disagree with. You can bring witnesses or documents
that support your case, but the judge may not have enough
time to talk to the witnesses.'
"Restraining orders turn ordinary men into criminals
by forbidding many routine behaviors. Men are being
arrested for violating their orders by such acts as:
returning their children's phone calls; going to their
children's school or athletic events; sending their
kids birthday cards; or accidentally running into them
at the park or the mall.
"Research shows that these orders often do not even
involve an allegation of violence. Usually all that's
needed is a claim that the person to be restrained "acted
in a way that scared me" or was "verbally abusive"--what's
known as "shout at your spouse, lose your house."
Yet under a 1999 California law these farcical orders
can be used to deny these so-called "batterers" joint
custody of their children."
To learn more about the new California domestic violence
bill, see my co-authored column
AB 2051 Moves California in Wrong Direction on Domestic
Violence (Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 6/1/06).
Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com
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