Did You Never See Your Divorce Coming?

A magazine writer contacted me looking for men who never saw their divorces coming. I know that's the case with many of you--if you're interested in speaking with this writer about it, click here.

A Hot Election Issue in Your State?

Is there a ballot initiative or a political race in your state which is significant for our movement? If there is, let me know by clicking here. Please provide links to the issue in question and be brief.

NOW Leader Slams Glenn Over NY Daily News Column

Apparently my co-authored column NOW at 40: Group's Opposition to Shared Parenting Contradicts Its Goal of Gender Equality (New York Daily News, 7/27/06) didn't sit well with the leaders of the National Organization for Women. In the column we chastised NOW for its opposition to shared parenting. Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers & Children and I wrote:

"The National Organization for Women turned 40 this summer, and formally celebrated its anniversary at its national conference in July. NOW President Kim Gandy has proudly recounted her organization's successes in opening up opportunities for women, and says they are 'never giving up the dream of full equality for all.'

"Unfortunately, on some issues--particularly in family law and child custody--NOW's policies and actions contradict its ideals of 'full equality for all.' This is most evident in the group's dogged opposition to joint custody and shared parenting."

Marcia Pappas, the President of the New York state National Organization for Women, and Irene Weiser, Executive Director of Stop Family Violence, have fired back with their op-ed Fathers' Responsibilities Before Fathers' Rights. Their arguments against shared parenting are: domestic violence; fathers are greedy and don't want to pay child support; domestic violence; mothers shouldn't be forced to share custody with their children's fathers if they don't feel like it; domestic violence; shared custody legislation applies a cookie cutter solution, as opposed to current law which gives dads only every other weekend visitation yet somehow isn't a "cookie cutter" solution; domestic violence; domestic violence; and domestic violence. Read their full column here.

Our side handed Pappas and Weiser one last Spring, and the two are sure to note it. They wrote:

"Ironically, it is members of the so called 'father's rights' groups that have engaged in scare tactics. After the mandatory joint custody legislation, A330, was defeated in the New York legislature, NY State Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver received a threat from the co-director of the father's rights group of NY State, an affiliate of McCormick's national organization, implying there could be violence if joint custody legislation is not passed."

What really happened was that a member of a New York father's group wrote an asinine but completely nonthreatening letter to the legislators in Albany after Darren Mack murdered his wife back in June. Like any smart politician, Sheldon Silver, a prominent New York legislative opponent of shared parenting, played it for all it was worth, pretending to be "threatened" by the letter. Now Pappas and Weiser are also exploiting it, and I can't really say I blame them.

(Incidentally, the shared parenting bill we fought for was not "mandatory joint custody legislation"--it would've created a presumption of shared custody for fit parents).

Pappas and I have clashed on numerous occasions in the past. We dueled in a point/counterpoint in the Albany Times Union in March over A330, the New York Shared Parenting bill, and also debated on Fox News' Day Side the previous year.

During our unsuccessful Campaign in Support of New York Shared Parenting Bill (March 7, 2006 - April 25, 2006) Pappas was the opposition's main point person. After we launched the campaign in support of A330, the National Organization for Women and Stop Family Violence counterattacked, both launching action alerts and campaigns against the bill. The number of calls and letters we generated greatly dwarfed those of our opposition--see NY Assemblywoman on NY Shared Parenting Bill: Many Letters in Support, Few Opposed, for example--but we were defeated anyway.

In my co-authored column Brett Myers Case Obscures an Important Truth About Domestic Violence Arrests (Delaware County Daily Times [Philadelphia], 8/2/06)  I wrote:

"Spousal abuse arrests are often dubious, in part because of misguided domestic violence laws and law enforcement policies.

"Seattle police lieutenant Greg Schmidt, who created the Seattle Police Department's domestic violence investigation unit in 1994, says that the mandatory arrest laws of most states force police officers to make arrests 'in petty incidents, often where the abuse is mutual or it is unclear who the aggressor was.'

"Moreover, Schmidt asserts, the dominant aggressor doctrine instructs police to downplay who struck the first blow in a domestic incident, and discourages dual arrests, which are often an appropriate measure. Instead, officers are pressured to see men and only men as the offenders."

I pointed to the Scott Erickson case as an example, noting:

"Erickson was arrested after he called the police during an altercation with his girlfriend in July of 2002. According to the Associated Press, the Baltimore police concluded that Erickson's girlfriend Lisa Ortiz: initiated the fight by hurling objects; decided to come back twice after Erickson carried her out of the apartment; repeatedly kicked the apartment door; caused Erickson two minor injuries, one of them to his pitching arm; and herself suffered no injuries.

"Nonetheless, the police arrested Erickson under Maryland's mandatory arrest law. Afterwards Ortiz publicly stated that Erickson, who did not pursue her either time after carrying her out, 'has never been physically abusive toward me.'"

I've noted that often women involved in these incidents seek to have the charges dropped because they take responsibility for their role in the incident or believe the incident was blown way out of proportion. I have complained publicly that often prosecutors refuse to believe these women, and insist on prosecuting their husbands or boyfriends anyway. The "no drop" policies which feminists have pushed through many states legislatures mean that prosecutors often prosecute domestic violence cases whose evidence is so lacking that they would never even be considered for prosecution were it any other crime.

I've also noted that feminists counter--at times correctly--that these drop requests can at times be motivated by economic dependency, because women are unfairly made to feel guilty for nonviolently "provoking" violent men, because they're in denial about the seriousness of their husbands' or boyfriends' violence, or other reasons.

Well, last week  the feminists' vision of these cases came to life. According to the Associated Press article After wife's request, charges dropped vs. Phils' Myers:

"An abuse charge against Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers was dismissed Thursday after his wife said she did not want her husband prosecuted for hitting her in the face during an argument near Fenway Park.

"Myers and his wife, Kim, arrived at a Boston courthouse on Thursday.

"Boston Municipal Judge Raymond Dougan accepted as fact that Myers struck his wife on June 23 but dismissed the charge -- despite the objection of prosecutors -- after Kim Myers agreed to an 'accord of satisfaction' showing she did not want the charge pursued.

"'There's no violence in our family. That night in Boston we had both been drinking,' Kim Myers told the judge. 'I was not hurt. I was not injured.'

"Authorities say the two were arguing when Brett Myers struck his wife. One witness told investigators he pulled her hair.

"Police responded to a 911 call and found Myers' wife crying and with a swollen face, prosecutors said. Officers found Myers nearby and arrested him. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound Myers was booked by Boston police, and his wife posted his $200 bail.

"'There appears to be no coercion or pressure that resulted in this being filed,' Dougan said of the accord, though he acknowledged it's hard to identify coercion in domestic violence cases.

"The judge noted the couple has been in marriage counseling since shortly after the fight.

"Assistant District Attorney Susan Terrey had wanted Myers to plead guilty to assault, serve two years of probation, enter a program for spousal abusers and undergo alcohol abuse evaluation.

"Kim Myers said the counseling has helped the couple, who have two children, and she denied other physical abuse.

"'This is not something that happens on a daily basis,' she said. 'Or ever.'"

I believe that most women who claim that the domestic violence incident in which they were involved was blown out of proportion by the police and prosecutors are correct. In this case, I don't buy it for a minute. Several witnesses saw Brett Myers beating the hell out of Kim Myers on a Boston street. This wasn't a custody maneuver or a setup--this was wife-beating, and Brett Myers should have done jail time for it.

The Bismarck Tribune came out against the North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative in the editorial Turn down initiative on child custody (10/8/06). They're certainly entitled to their opinion, but their argument seems rather weak to me. They write:

"Commonly called 'the shared parenting initiative,' the Child Custody and Support Initiative, which will appear as Measure No. 3 on the election ballot next month, has provoked a remarkable amount of discussion around the state this year.

"The discussion has tended not to be measured and dispassionate. Many of the voices have been quite heated; much of the discussion has been severely slanted.

"North Dakota voters should reject the initiated measure for several good reasons, but afterward the discussion should resume. There are some relevant issues presented by the initiative that must be considered on their merit.

"It's just that the initiative would make bad law.

"The Tribune's editorial board has heard presentations commending the initiative and urging its defeat.

"Board members listened to both sides saying that the interests of children of divorcing parents matter greatly -- proponents of the proposal claim that to require divorcing parents to develop a shared parenting agreement and to accept 50-50 parenting (barring the provable unfitness of one of them) will benefit the children after the divorce is granted. Both parents are assumed to want to be equally involved in their children's lives.

"The phrase 'shared parenting' has a good feel to it. It feels so much better than 'custody battle' and 'embittered ex-spouses playing tug-of-war with the children.'

"The initiative's feel-good tag notwithstanding, there are flaws. There is a mechanical approach toward custody, a calculation of so much time the children must spend here, an equal period of time there. If the parents want the period to be a six-month bloc, what kind of life is that for the kids?

"The discussion of the issues raised by the initiative has most often run aground when the debate is steered toward money.

"The initiative's backers want the money paid by one spouse to the other to be strictly limited to covering the children's "basic needs," without saying explicitly what they are. The present system for calculating child support is cumbersome and doesn't uniformly work fairly, but it's better than a vague, possibly spartan notion of what a child really needs during the years growing up.

"Opponents have raised a shrill outcry that the initiative's approach toward child support would cost the state $79 million in withheld federal funds, including Temporary Aid to Needy Families.

"That may or may not be, but it misses the point. The focus should not be on whether the state rakes in money, but on how children and those who are raising them are to be supported -- with fairness to the custodial and the noncustodial parents.

"Fundamental issues need much more discussion, such as how justice is to be done to both genders in divorce, in custody and in the financial dealings between former spouses. Quite possibly, laws need to be changed. The legislative session will be a good opportunity for discussion.

"The initiated measure does not adequately address the shortcomings of the present system. It should not pass."

To comment to the Bismarck Tribune about the editorial, click go to the bottom of  this page.

I've always thought that it would have been better to leave child support out of the Initiative and focus instead on the custody aspect, and this editorial supports my point--we get sidetracked on the child support sideshow and ignore the crucial custody aspect of the debate.

Despite this, I support this Initiative, and have co-authored two columns in support of it, North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative Will Help Children of Divorce (Grand Forks Herald, 7/18/06) and North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative Helps Women, Too (Grand Forks Herald, 9/24/06).

Last week there was an interesting debate between readers of the Grand Forks Herald over the Initiative--to read the letters, see Readers React to My Column on Women and Shared Parenting.

North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative Looking for Volunteers

"The sad reality is that even in a simple, accusation-free divorce, I still had to 'win' shared custody. It's also sad that my children will not be able to go to college because of the way the system drains the wallet. I suppose I could have rolled over and saved us all a bunch of money. The system lacks transparency, judges are not honorable and the attorneys see this as a job. Far too much time is spent on these 'extreme' cases. Even on a good day, with simple circumstances, the system fails our children."

Today Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting--a group which often has useful information on domestic violence-related issues--issued a press release which has additional details. In my original comments on the Newsweek piece (Newsweek Bashes Dads, 9/20) I wrote: