Letters on VAWA and this abuse of Fathers Happening Nationally by Government Funding Incentives
Copied from: http://www.nhcustody.org/VAWA_Letters.htm
A site dedicated to Shared Parents and what is best for children of divorce
Dear
Congress, Executive Branch, Media, and Others,
1.) Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funds are being
misused nationwide to effect anti-fatherhood ideological policies in every
state. The VAWA's draconian provisions
constitute an automatic injunction against a father seeing his children and
result in him being ejected from the family home as soon as his female partner
claims she is in fear. The result is the nastiest sucker punch a
father [and child] could ever experience, thanks to the U.S. Congress, and
a country-wide pandemic of fatherless children. VAWA funds
are also being routed by state domestic violence coalitions illegally toward
lobbying state legislatures in opposition to critically needed equal parenting
protection reforms. Proof is here: http://www.nhcustody.org
2.)
No federal presumption of equal parenting protection law, as such equality
in parenting is supposedly guaranteed by the 14th amendment equal protection
clause in addition to repeated U.S. Supreme Court precedent
rulings affirming the inalienable right to be a parent to one's children
in the absence of a compelling state interest otherwise, means that millions of
non-custodial fathers across the country (75%+) are being ordered into 'visitorship' with their children by the nation's
family courts after 75-85% of all divorces are initiated by
mothers. The resulting national epidemic of fatherless
children and their tendency toward dysfunctional development as a result
of losing one of their parents is well known.
3.)
The VAWA alongside the statistical and empirically understood entitlement
to primary or sole custody of the children, as per family court orders
nationwide, for mothers who divorce their husbands have conspired with
ridiculously high child support awards to create an American social policy
that tears families apart. The wisest men are recognizing
daily in ever-increasing numbers that the risk of starting a family
is too great. Far too many have already been devastated on the
backside of no-fault divorce through the emotional and financial oppression
heaped upon them by family courts nationwide when they are told they may only
see their children a handful of days each month and must turn over a huge
percentage of their earnings to support the lifestyle of the ex-spouse who
divorced them and is alienating the children from them, that same father
ordered into visitorship with his children and
virtual indentured servitude by our Orwellian government.
You can
establish all the marriage incentives that a Congress full of elected officials
could conjure up in a lifetime, you can fund the NFI until the cows
come home, and you can try to teach the next generation of would-be fathers
that the right thing to do is pay deference to the tradition of starting a
family... But, Pandora's Box has opened and word is spreading fast
throughout the country. Young men know that the danger to
themselves and their as-yet-unborn progeny is too great to risk. In
the event you have never experienced the horror of your biological child being
kept away from you even as you both desire to be together I regret to inform
that it is impossible for you to project yourself into such a
situation. You should know that your children and/or grandchildren
may not be so fortunate to evade such a sentence of tragedy from the nation's
family courts in the future. Once your tenure as an elected official is
complete you will no longer be able to protect them...
In case you
care, here is the most scathing indictment of the existing child support
guidelines ever put to pen. It is applicable to virtually every
state and was authored after a multi-year study by a New Hampshire
Government-sponsored Commission that also recommended a rebuttal presumption of
joint physical custody for both mother and father in family court proceedings
when custody is at issue for the true best interests of the children of broken
families.
http://www.cbelow.org/Child
Somewhere
along the way you all started paying too much attention to the special interest
groups and the almighty dollar while the health of the nation's children,
fathers, families, and very social foundation got lost in the noise. The
Congress' national social policy has been, and continues to be, an
unadulterated bipartisan failure.
Please
visit WWW.NHCUSTODY.ORG
for an education on the reality of what U.S. Federal Government policy has done
to the American family. Again, the story is exactly the same in
virtually every state.
Senator Biden was just speaking of his concern about national
security yesterday when he commented on the
What has
happened to the American foundation of the family should be the
real primary national security concern of the Congress. After
all, if the fathers of this country are ever needed to help defend Old Glory
then what freedoms for themselves and their children, and the next
generation of fathers and children after them, would you purport to have them
defend?
Below this
message is a glimpse at a tiny fraction of the damage that has been
done. The story is exactly the same as it is in
Sincerely,
Marc
Snider
http://www.fact.on.ca/news
Page URL: http://www.nationalpost.com
Pilloried, broke, alone
Divorced fathers get a bad rap for not
supporting their children. The truth is, many can't.
And, tragically, some are driven to desperate measures, including suicide
Donna Laframboise
National Post
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Whenever
fathers and divorce are discussed, one image dominates: the 'deadbeat dad,' the
schmuck who'd rather drive a sports car than support his kids. Because I write
about family matters, I'm regularly inundated with phone calls, faxes, letters
and e-mail from divorced men. It's not news that divorced individuals have
little good to say about their ex-spouses. What I'm interested in is whether
the system assists people during this difficult time in their lives, or
compounds their misery. From the aircraft engineer in British Columbia, to the
postal worker on the prairies, to the fire fighter in Toronto, divorced
fathers' stories are of a piece: Though society stereotypes these men
relentlessly, most divorced dads pay their child support. Among those who don't, a small percentage willfully
refuse to (the villains you always hear about).
What you haven't been told
is that the other men in arrears are too impoverished to pay, have been ordered
to pay unreasonable amounts, have been paying for unreasonable lengths of time,
or are the victims of bureaucratic foul-ups.
Today, and on Monday and
Tuesday, the National Post will tell you the stories of fathers who have been
driven to suicide by a system deaf to their pleas. We'll introduce you to a man
who is still paying child support for a 23-year-old employed daughter. We'll
tell you about an executive with take-home pay of $7,455 a month who is left
with $302 after handing over child support and alimony to his ex-wife.
Their lives are being
devastated by courts and governments who consider no measure too punitive in
their war against "deadbeat dads."
Last July, in a run-down
part of
His children, ages eight,
nine and 11, and an older adopted child, have not yet been told how their
father died, so his family has requested that his real name be withheld. We'll
call him Jim.
Jim was tall and thin, with
dark eyes and hair. He worked as a mechanic at an auto dealership, specializing
in transmission repair. In addition to four fatherless kids, he left behind
grieving parents, two sisters and a brother.
And a neatly written,
two-page suicide note: "The last five years has been very difficult
emotionally and financially for me, since the separation I tried my best to
support my children and make a living," it reads. "The end result was
that it forced me into bankruptcy ... This is the only solution because I just
see absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel."
Jim is not the only
divorced father driven to desperate measures. Last week, police recovered the
body of Darrin White, 34, of
In his letter, Jim protests
that "not all fathers are deadbeats" and expresses his anguish at
being stripped of "the right to parent" his children after his former
wife was awarded sole custody.
"Twice in the past
five years I wanted to take my own life but because of the love and the good
times I had with my kids I could not go through with it," he wrote.
"I hope someday my kids will understand and forgive me for leaving
them."
In October, 1995, Andrew Renouf of Markham, Ont., left a similar suicide note.
Describing how the
Mr. Renouf
said in his note that he had no contact with his daughter in four years.
"I do not even know if she is alive and well," it reads. "There
is no further point in continuing my life. It is my intention to drive to a
secluded area near my home, feed the gas exhaust into the car, take some
sleeping pills and use the remaining gas in the car to end my life. I would
have preferred to die with more dignity."
Hazel McBride, a
"These are not unusual
cases," she says. "I had a man who came to see me, and he had cancer
and had to leave his job as a long-distance truck driver. Being self-employed,
he had no long-term disability. His wife had remarried and was living quite
well, and she had the children. The only thing he had left was a house that he
had inherited from his parents. Not a very big house. And once he made his
support payments, he had no money for heat.
"It's one of the
reasons I stopped doing the clinical work," says Dr. McBride,
"because the stories were so terrible and there was so little you could do
for people. This man said, 'I want to go out and kill myself. It won't get
better.' And he was right, it wasn't going to get
better."
Fathers pushed close to the
breaking point rarely attract media attention because everyone assumes they are
deadbeat dads. Government fact sheets call men whose support payments are in
arrears "delinquent parents" who "hide from their child support
debts" and need to be "forced to live up to their obligations."
The
But the issue is far more
complicated. For starters, support-enforcement records are notoriously
unreliable and out of date. Last year, Wayne Sagle of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.,
was told he owed $51,000 in arrears.
Only after the National
Post contacted Mr. Sagle's former wife did the government admit the $51,000 was
an illusion. With the former wife acknowledging the children had lived with
their father since 1990, it became clear the real problem was out-of-date
paperwork.
In another instance, months
after a support payer committed suicide,
In some Canadian provinces,
men who religiously pay support every two weeks on pay day are classified as
being in arrears for half of each month -- because the enforcement agencies'
bookkeeping is based on a monthly cycle.
No research is available on
Canadian child-support payers, but studies elsewhere indicate the vast majority
of divorced men meet their obligations -- and that those who don't often have
good reasons.
According to Roger Gay, an
internationally recognized child-support expert based in
What's more, the highly
publicized garnishments, suspension of drivers' licences,
revocation of passports and jail sentences have accomplished little. Despite
the efforts of the 50,000 people employed by the U.S. child-support collection
bureaucracy -- which costs $4-billion a year -- Mr. Gay says the percentage of
child support paid hasn't changed since the mid-'70s. "We've let too many
years go by without admitting to the public that these measures have been a
failure."
The difficulty in
collecting the remaining 20% to 30% is due largely to the fact that the war
against deadbeats is really a war against the poor -- against men who have
always been economically marginal or have been impoverished by the divorce
process itself.
According to the Institute
on Poverty, half of non-paying fathers in
In 1996, an
"Not only are many
deadbeat dads destitute, it is often their failure as providers which led their
ex-wives to divorce them. I prosecuted one deadbeat dad who had been
hospitalized for malnutrition and another who lived in the bed of a pick-up
truck. Many times I prosecuted impoverished men on behalf of ex-wives who had
remarried successful men and were living in comfortable conditions."
Yet the stereotype of the
divorced father with scads of money who
mean-spiritedly refuses to hand it over persists -- and negatively influences
the courts.
In the words of Pauline
Green, a
Adds Susan Baragar, a
While society insists that
divorced fathers be "held accountable" some researchers are asking
whether our desire for accountability results in persecution.
In Throwaway Dads,
co-authors Ross Parke and Armin Brott
present a litany of horror stories -- including the case of a janitor wrongly
accused of murder. After spending nearly a decade in
Support payers are also
automatically assumed to be in the wrong. In late 1997, George Roulier's former wife, Carol McIntosh, signed a sworn
statement claiming he was in child-support arrears by $1,220. Five weeks later,
the
Rather than conducting an
investigation, the enforcement agency appears instead to take support claimants
at their word. "They told me they tried to send me a letter," says
Mr. Roulier. "I said 'Okay, please send me a
copy of that letter.' And they said, 'No, we won't do that.' "
Seven months later, when
Mr. Roulier presented a judge with his cancelled cheques for the period in question, the judge declared he
had paid "everything owing up to 31 Jan. '98 directly to Carol
McIntosh" and that "there were no arrears of support."
Mr. Roulier
is still trying to get a full refund for the arrears collected that the judge said were not owed. In September, 1998, the enforcement
agency sent him some of the money.
But in October, David Costen, acting director of the agency that had failed to
verify information before acting on it, washed his hands of the matter.
"The question of whether or not the recipient has misinformed the plan or
failed to provide accurate information," he wrote to Mr. Roulier, "is a legal matter between you and the
recipient."
At the same time that
society is demanding divorced dads pay up, our courts, governments and social
services fail to recognize the huge effect losing daily contact with one's
children has on men's ability to earn a living.
"No government and no
court should be allowed to take a child from a parent unless there is a very,
very, very good reason," says Dr. McBride. "Because to have a child
ripped from you, it's the same as a child dying. It's absolutely uncivilized,
barbaric and devastating for any parent. It's not uncommon for these people to
suffer depressive breakdowns."
And while a large,
expensive system exists to collect child support from divorced fathers, no
parallel system helps ensure children's and father's rights to close and
frequent contact.
After his marriage broke
down in late 1997,
While no one in authority
will help Mr. Heinz secure his daughter's return, the Youth Welfare Office in
Mr. Heinz has gone bankrupt
trying to fight a legal battle that has spread to two continents. At 41, he now
lives in his parents' basement.
Edward Kruk,
a professor of social work at the
In other words, society's
message to divorced fathers is that the only thing required of them is money.
It's a message some of them find too difficult to bear.
Among Jim's personal papers
are documents indicating that, in the year prior to his death, his financial
situation had worsened. In late 1998, he missed nearly three months of work due
to a back injury. In mid-November of that year he received a letter from the
Saskatchewan Worker's Compensation Board advising him his compensation benefits
were being garnisheed.
According to an affidavit
Jim signed a few months before his death, between August, 1998, and January,
1999, his expenses consistently exceeded his earnings by more than $100 a
month.
Paying a modest $460 plus
utilities for accommodation, he had spent only $40 on clothes in the past year,
and only $52 on tools -- even though mechanics are expected to make regular
tool purchases as a condition of their job.
George Seitz, a friend,
says Jim lived in "a very rough neighbourhood, a
place in
As Jim's affidavit notes,
out of a monthly take-home pay of about $1,650, "My most significant
monthly expense is the [$800] support payments I make in relation to my
children." But that wasn't good enough.
Although Jim had owned the
matrimonial home prior to his marriage, which lasted five years, a judge
granted his ex-wife a half interest in it when the couple divorced. Based on a
formula that valued the house higher than it actually sold for, Jim was ordered
to pay his former wife more than $8,000 and was held responsible for a $3,400
credit-card bill.
Arguing that he had no
conceivable way of raising these funds, Jim attempted to declare bankruptcy. In
March, 1998, Judge Maurice J. Herauf ruled that the
amount of money in question "is not large and should be paid in
full." He added, "It has to be made clear to the bankrupt that he
will be held responsible for his actions."
In June, 1999, the same judge
denied Jim's appeal, declaring that his "intransigence toward paying
anything to his ex-wife on the property judgement is
as apparent now as it was at the time of the discharge hearing."
At both these hearings, an
extra $500 -- to cover the legal fees of his ex-wife, who vigorously opposed
his bankruptcy -- was added to Jim's debt. The judge decreed that the now
nearly $13,000 Jim owed would be deducted in $100 instalments
from every pay cheque for the next six years, leaving
him about $650 a month to live on.
Less than two weeks after
he lost the appeal, Jim's family buried him in a
Three years after Andrew Renouf asphyxiated himself in his car near Markham, Ont.,
because he, too, could see no way out, a small group of people held a memorial
service outside the provincial support-enforcement office.
During his sermon, Rev.
Alan Stewart, of
Copyright � Southam Inc. "National Post Online is a production of Southam Inc.,
Dear
Congress and Executive Branch,
Below
is a letter I wrote yesterday to a local newspaper reporter after she wrote a
supportive article about a thoroughly misleading documentary being used as
propaganda in the war against fathers.
‘Breaking the Silence’ attempts to paint all fathers who want shared
access to their children (75-85% of whom have had divorce filed *against* them)
as batterers. And the domestic violence
coalitions are the power brokers and influence peddlers behind the effort.
This
is what the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has sewn
and reaped on the streets of
Then
even more taxpayer money is being improperly directed by the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) to help spread the lies of these ideologues who want
fatherless children to be the norm in this country (and they’ve been
successful!).
Here
is hoping that one day soon you actually start paying attention and get
educated about the terrible damage the government is doing, even with the best
intentions of preventing violence in relationships, when it rains so much money
down on special interest groups just because a politically correct argument is
made in the absence of factual need.
The regressive nature of American relationships between partners, and
the consequent effect of subversion on the children and families across the
nation is a direct result of the irresponsible funding of radicals using
taxpayer dollars.
And
it is going to be too late to right this listing ship after another 5 years of
the VAWA. Already the halls of Congress
have turned into an Orwellian tower of glass where the citizens (including in
this case, military heroes who have fought for their country) cannot even hope
to be heard by our elected officials when they oppose the pinnacle of
anti-family legislation.
Full
disclosure is below. The American
foundation of society is burning while you toil over meetings, television and
radio appearances, and appease the very people who would destroy (and are
destroying) the American family.
Marc Snider
________________________________________________
Dear Karen,
With respect to
your article on 'Breaking the Silence', which is soon to air
nationally on PBS:
http://www.seacoastonline.com
I hope you will
get educated about what the New Hampshire Coalition Against
Domestic And Sexual Violence has been doing for years, and
continues to do, to actively marginalize NH fathers from participating
meaningfully in their children's lives. What they are doing is
destroying children, fathers, families, and the underlying foundation of
society, point blank.
There are aberrant
parents of both sexes who do terrible harm to their children and who should
have access to their children prohibited for the safety of those
kids. The problem is that 'Breaking the Silence', and Ms. Mattern, attempts to paint the average American father
who longs to be a meaningful part of his child's life as this type of
heinous and atypical parent.
This type of
propaganda (Breaking The Silence) is used by the
NHCADSV and other domestic violence prevention coalitions around the country to
disseminate inaccuracies about the tendency of fathers in general to be
violent. The anti-domestic violence industry has morphed into an
anti-fatherhood industry that is doing terrible harm to NH's and the nation's
children of divorce.
If you'd like I can
send you a long list of atrocities committed by mothers against their children
along with references. The point is that the NHCADSV, of which
Grace Mattern who you quoted in your article is the
chief, has been lobbying against equal parenting reforms in NH for years and
years using the argument that fathers who seek custody (even shared custody) of
their children are batterers. That's right. And I've
included the facts below for you. Please find out the truth about
this biased organization and know that the likes of Ms. Mattern,
Ms. Griebsch, and Ms. Grady make it their life's work
to ensure that fathers will never be provided with a presumption of equality in
parenting as long as the NHCADSV continues to disseminate lies about how
fathers are predisposed to violence.
So, while they toil
every day using public funding to paint fathers who desire equal access to
their children as presumed batterers (the NHCADSV has testified as much to the
NH legislature repeatedly), they argue and lobby at the same time that fathers
should not be presumed to be equal parents to their children just because a
no-fault divorce has been filed against them. This is not
fiction.
Has anyone showed
you these figures from the United States Government Adminstration
for Children and Families (ACF) that show mothers are more than twice as likely
to abuse, neglect, or maltreat their children as are
fathers?
Child Maltreatment
2003: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data
Systems - National statistics on child abuse and neglect (2005)
"Approximately 83.9 percent of victims were abused by at
least one parent. An
estimated 40.8 percent of child victims
were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.8 percent were
maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were abused by both
parents."
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov
And have you seen this
information relaying the facts about child custody decisions in
http://www.nhcustody.org/NH
Included below is a
video of myself speaking in front of about 200
people at New Hampshire Consitution Day on Sunday,
September 25th. Constitution Day was presented by the
The video includes
footage of myself speaking and then
Footage from
www.nhcustody.org/video/NH
Please review this
detailed information on lobbying violations committed by Ms. Mattern's anti-fatherhood organization (the NHCADSV),
including outright lies told to the NH legislature to stymie equal parenting
legislative reforms:
http://www.nhcustody.org
The truth is that
there is a pandemic of false allegations of domestic violence being used around
the country by unscrupulous divorce attorneys and narcissistic mothers who have
come to realize, thanks to organizations like the NHCADSV and people like Ms. Mattern, that the 'silver bullet' (a false allegation) is
the fastest way to get an injunction from the courts keeping the children and
their father apart.
Please have a look
at another perspective on 'Breaking the Silence', wherein a daughter whose
father was falsely accused of sexually abusing her comes clean about what
really happened during those years. Instructively, her mother, the
woman making up the lies, was a prominent player in the same anti-father
industry where Ms. Mattern is such
a prominent figure:
http://www.nhcustody.org/My
Ms. Mattern is a radical anti-father ideologue and
her organization's actions over the years speak volumes about her ideology and
social aims. The NHCADSV is undermining NH's children and families
by working non-stop using taxpayer funds (both federal and state) in the
pursuit of continued discrimination against NH fathers.
Sincerely,
Marc Snider
Dear All,
Below
this message is exactly what your Violence Against
Women Act funds are fomenting. Heinous and
ridiculous stereotypes about fathers that are tearing this country apart.
The power and money you've given organizations like the Georgia Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV) to spew their anti-father
propaganda is disgusting.
"You could even say that everyday is Halloween when Daddy
is the monster, but that's not a fun kind of scary at all."
Have
any of you even looked at the actual figures of who abuses children in this
country, or are you too busy counting special interest votes to consider the
facts?
Child Maltreatment 2003:
Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems -
National statistics on child abuse and neglect (2005)
"Approximately
83.9 percent of victims were abused by at least one parent. An
estimated 40.8 percent of child victims
were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.8 percent were
maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were abused by both
parents."
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov
You don't even give a damn,
do you, about the violations of anti-lobbying provisions in the VAWA by state
coalitions who use the funding to lobby against equal parenting reforms in the
states so that children can't retain meaningful access to their fathers after
no-fault divorces (which are filed 75-85% of the time by mothers)?
http://www.nhcustody.org/NHCADSV/VAWA%20lobbying%20prohibition.htm
And you don't care to add a
provision whereby the number of meritless allegations
of domestic violence claimed to have been committed by fathers during the
course of a divorce or child custody proceeding is investigated, do
you? Because, despite all
your family values lip service, you really don't care at
all about the stability of families and childrens'
ability (and right) to retain meaningful access to both of their fit parents
after breakdown of a marriage
Kill the National Fatherhood
Initiative (NFI), please, and stop pretending you care an iota about fatherhood
and children in this country. Give yourselves a raise or
something instead. Or build a monument to the attorneys, law enforcement,
and radical idealogues you're making rich with
billions of taxpayer dollars used to steal fathers' children and possessions
around the country. A violent dad in the mold of Frankenstein's
monster outside the Capitol should do nicely.
You're already stealing
non-custodial parents' children and stealing childrens'
parents by reauthorizing the VAWA. Why not make it a few more bucks
on top. The icing on the cake, as it were...
Better yet, give the
money slated for the NFI directly to the states' Domestic Violence
Coalitions. That will just expedite the collapse of our society, one
which is fast coming anyway. None of you deserve another
pandering term in office with the assault you have personally waged on American
fathers and their children under the guise of protecting abused women (a goal
we ALL share)...
Even though they don't
deserve it, your children or grandchildren will one day, karma-willing,
feel the sting of the legacy you've left them when they are falsely accused and
have their lives, and their children's lives, ruined through the draconian and
unconstitutional provisions of the VAWA.
Your personal responsibility
as it relates to the demise of this once great country is now solidified.
You should all be ashamed.
To those in the
Executive Branch, please Veto the VAWA. It is unwise, unconstitutional,
and both anti-fatherhood and anti-family legislation.
http://www.nhcustody.org/VAWA_Letters.htm
http://www.nhcustody.org/disaster_const.jpg
Marc Snider
>
From: "Rainie Jueschke"
< Rainie@padv.org>
> Date: 2005/10/05 Wed AM 09:22:02 EDT
> To: "Rainie Jueschke" < Rainie@padv.org>
> Subject: Halloween help for shelter kids
>
> First of all I want to say that you all have been so great. We've
> gotten a wonderful response to my requests for donations- it has been so
> heart warming - you blew us all away.
>
>
>
> Today I have a new, fun request. We'd like to take the children
> sheltering with us to the "Boo at the Zoo" (see details below)
and we'd
> like each of them to have a costume. You can probably imagine that
> celebrating Halloween has been pretty low on the list for kids in homes
> experiencing domestic violence. You could even say that everyday is
> Halloween when Daddy is the
monster, but that's not a fun kind of scary
> at all.
>
> We'd like our kids to have the time of their lives on October 29th at
> the Zoo. What we need are costumes and stage make-up or things that
can
> be costumes with a little imagination. We may have as many as 22
kids
> in the
>
> Can you help us? Many of these children may not have had a chance to
> experience Halloween - controlling abusive fathers would not have
> allowed it. Many of them may not have ever worn a costume. Can you help
> us give them a Halloween they will never forget?
>
> Donations can be brought to our Administrative Offices at 619
> Drive,
> Monday - Friday, though we can may be able to make other arrangements if
> you need to. There is also free parking.
>
> If you'd rather donate money to the cause, that's OK too. You can
mail
> a check to the same address or go to our web site www.padv.org or call
> my number below if you'd rather use a credit card.
>
> Thank you for your help! Without friends like you we couldn't be
here
> for the battered women and their children. Because of you we're
helping
> them to live free from domestic violence.
>
> Rainie
>
>
>
> Rainie Jueschke, CFRE,
Director of Development
> Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV)
> 619
>
> (404) 870-9761 www.padv.org
>
> Supporting Women and their children in their efforts to live violence
> free.
>
> Fax - (404) 870-9611
> Cell - (678) 591-8095
>
> If you can't view this image, click here
> < https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=56452> .
>
> Boo< https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EMailImage.asp?ImageId=23018
> >
>
>
Learn more about Boo at the Zoo
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Dear All,
Please have a look at a
short video segment showing the truth about the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as presented on
"A life
changing thing forever..."
And this man didn't even suffer as tragically as many falsely accused who
have lost access to their children.
Sadly, the above quote from
the falsely accused ex-police officer and military veteran is true for far too
many fathers across the country (and their fatherless children as well).
And make no mistake, the VAWA is being used primarily
against fathers to gain advantage in child custody and divorce
proceedings...
http://video.fox6.com/viewer
The VAWA renewal proponent
appearing in the video states that "The VAWA has helped protect women and
children..."
Though I've sent many of you
the following information before, here are the statistics about who is really
endangering the children of
Child Maltreatment 2003: Reports from the States to
the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems - National statistics on
child abuse and neglect (2005)
"Approximately
83.9 percent of victims were abused by at least one parent. An
estimated 40.8 percent of child victims
were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.8 percent were
maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were abused by both
parents."
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cm03/cm2003.pdf
You are being
lied to by a greedy and power hungry special interest lobby that has been
unwisely created through a decade's worth of taxpayer funding to the
tune of billions of dollars. These idealogues
and self-serving profiteers don't care a lick about the wake of
VAWA devastation in the form of dysfunctional fatherless children and
ruined falsely-accused fathers as long as they continue to get their
billions.
The VAWA is a
plague upon this country and its social foundation of the
family.
Marc Snider
Dear All,
The truth be told by Carey Roberts. The American male is
learning fast and self-protection measures are spreading rapidly. Please
have a good look in the mirror tonight before bedtime and take a moment to
pause and reflect on the role that government policies have played, and
continue to play, in the demise of the American family and American
society.
The day is
coming soon when the ramifications of the policies you have all helped enact
and support will not be able to be camouflaged with worthless window-dressing
like the National Fatherhood Initiative. You likely sense it yourselves,
but the greed and power of the special interests in coordination with your own
selfish career goals conspire for you to leave the legacy of hideous problems
you've created to the next generation of citizens and legislators. And
what an ugly legacy it is...
The American
family, and consequently American Society, is crumbling. And the
responsibility lies with United States Congress, pure and simple.
Marc Snider
------------------------------
http://www.therealitycheck.org/GuestColumnist/croberts040305.htm
The Rise of Big Sister-ism
by Carey Roberts
I have seen their shell-shocked eyes and unbelieving expressions.
Men saddled with crushing child support obligations, forced to live on scraps or else fall into a desperate sea of mounting debt. A few of them are white-collar guys who once held respectable jobs and lived in comfortable houses.
Time marches forward, and the cases only become more bizarre.
Steve Barreras paid $20,000 to support
his daughter, a girl he had never met. In fact, she didn’t even exist. His
ex-wife Viola Trevino took another family’s daughter to court and claimed the
child as hers.
In
Then there are those cases of adolescent boys who were victimized
twice. First by their adult female rapists, and then by an inflexible child
support system that came knocking [www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0310roberts.html].
The voice of justice and outrage asks, How
could this happen in
The answer can be found in our nation’s 30-year crusade to extract
child support payments from mostly minority, low-income fathers, men who now
bear the contemptuous epithet, Deadbeat Dads.
Last year professor Stephen Baskerville of
Charge #1: Most marriages break up because fathers have chosen to
abandon their children, as president Bill Clinton once
put it.
Not true. Margaret Brinig and Douglas
Allen found that women file for divorce in 70% of cases. Likewise,
Charge #2: When women do leave the marriage, it’s to escape
domestic violence and abuse.
False. The number one reason
cited by divorcing moms, according to Braver, is not feeling loved or
appreciated, and not anything to do with violence.
Charge #3: Dads don't pay their child support because they don't
care about their kids.
Absurd. A 1998 Rutgers and
University of Texas study concluded: many of the absent fathers who state
leaders want to track down and force to pay child support are so destitute that
their lives focus on finding the next job, next meal, or next night’s shelter.
The problem is not dads who are dead-beats, the
problem is men who are dead-broke.
Charge #4: Kids don’t really need their dads, anyway.
Absolutely false. This is the most
scurrilous myth of all, because the truth is the polar opposite, and the
harmful effects on children are so great. Virtually every
major social pathology has been linked to fatherless children: violent
crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and
psychological disorders, notes Baskerville.
It is no coincidence that all four of these myths place fathers in
a bad light. And that suits the Divorce Industry, that veritable army of
lawyers, family court judges, custody evaluators, and child support enforcers
-- just fine.
These myths have become so ingrained in our thinking that basic
Constitutional protections are being casually tossed aside. One brief on child
support from the Left-leaning National Conference of State Legislatures made
this stunning recommendation: The burden of proof may be shifted to the
defendant, which of course means, Fathers can be
assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.
Of course, it’s divorce that triggers the
monstrous child support machinery to lurch into motion. The rise of no-fault,
unilateral divorce does not trouble the Sisterhood. In fact, they welcome it.
Over the past 50 years, the National Association of Women Lawyers
has spearheaded the adoption of no-fault divorce legislation throughout the
country, laws that made marital dissolution that much easier. The NAWL now
notes with satisfaction, the ideal of no-fault divorce became the guiding
principle for reform of divorce laws in the majority of states.
A growing divorce rate. Disenfranchised
dads. Children lacking paternal guidance and
protection. An ever-expanding child support apparatus. Careless disregard of Constitutional protections. A growing totalitarian mindset.
That's the Matriarchy at work.
Dear
Esteemed Officials and Staffers,
Included below is a video of myself
speaking in front of about 200 people at New Hampshire Consitution
Day as recorded
The video includes footage of myself
speaking and then
The undermining of the American family,
and more concisely the institution of American fatherhood, as encouraged and
facilitated by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is quickly gaining
recognition now as a critical problem that is endangering our society on an uparalleled level. I hope you will take
the time to view my Constitution Day address and to educate yourselves about
the nature of the problem and the reality of how government pandering to
special interest groups is tragically subverting the very foundation
of American society (the American family).
Footage from
www.nhcustody.org/video/NH_Constitution_Day.wmv
Detailed information on VAWA lobbying violations is here (this is
the information I allude to in my address that was provided to the U.S. Senate
Judiciary Committee and others):
http://www.nhcustody.org/NHCADSV/VAWA%20lobbying%20prohibition.htm
Here is an aggregated list of anti-VAWA renewal letters I've sent
to the Congress:
http://www.nhcustody.org/VAWA_Letters.htm
And here is an appropriate pictorial analogy about what the VAWA
has done to fatherhood, children, and families across our country:
http://www.nhcustody.org/disaster_const.jpg
Please do NOT renew the VAWA. It is a plague upon this
country.
Sincerely,
Marc
Snider
Below is more educational
information that you'll likely ignore since it wasn't provided by a special
interest group receiving Violence Against Women Act
(VAWA) funds. What you people there at the Congress are doing with
the VAWA renewal is truly disturbing.
If Tom Delay
thinks he is being railroaded by a partisan fanatic then he should recognize
that he's getting off easy. If he were falsely accused under the
provisions of the VAWA he could have expected to have been served with a
restraining order [with no advance warning at all] ejecting him from his family
home and denying him access to his own children (and vice versa). And,
yes, just as Mr. Delay has complained he was unable to tell his side of the
story to the Grand Jury that indicted him, he would not have been allowed to
face his accuser as he was denied due process. Further, his accuser (and
her attorney who may well have suborned perjury by influencing her to assert
domestic violence) would never risk any accountability for her heinous
assertions that resulted in Mr. Delay seeing his family home for the last time
and severing the relationship between him and his kids, even if ironclad
evidence showed she was lying.
So, remind him
will you, that he is getting off very easy....
Please kill the
National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) and route those funds to the
Looks like the
*real* family values community needs to redirect its efforts from educating an
uncaring, hypocritical, and pandering Congress to warning wholesale the next
generation of would-be fathers of the danger to themselves and their as yet
unborn progeny...
No thanks for
the legacy you've left all of our children and grandchildren by
supporting VAWA renewal...
http://www.nhcustody.org
The irony is
that one day after you've long since disappeared from public life (and thus do
not retain the power to keep your loved ones from being railroaded like the
rest of falsely accused fathers [and their children]), your male descendents
and their children (of either gender) will be directly endangered by the
unconstitutional and incredibly unwise VAWA law that you renewed for
selfish reasons of political correctness.
Et tu, Brute?,
Marc Snider
By
Trudy Schuett
http://desertlightjournal.blog
“The fact of that bigotry
and arrogance goes a long way toward explaining why VAWA is so damaging to
today’s American society while doing so little to address whatever the actual
need may be… We don’t know what that
need is. That’s because those who stand to benefit financially from the proposed
billions of federal dollars have seen to it that this is an issue not fully
understood by anyone.”
Dear Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and
Others,
Below
is a recently written article that is absolutely right on the money in its
explanation of what is happening to the
American family in the wake of the Violence Against Women Act
(VAWA). The author provides specifics about how the
VAWA has broken down the foundation of American society (the family),
placed American fathers in an untenable situation with respect to protecting
themselves against becoming the VAWA's next victim,
and the reality of what awaits those fathers (and commensurately their children
who are often denied their fathers) in the nation's courts.
This
information is critical reading as relayed by an attorney who is an expert on
these matters.
The
intended audience are fathers who may well face
false allegations in the context of divorce and/or child custody
dispute. Attorney Beaulier explains the
way the system functions to prospective victims of false allegations, in
addition to warning them to be prepared (though he admits there is no real
preparation that works).
Please be
educated about the truth of what is causing the breakdown of the American
family before renewing the VAWA and perpetuating the misery for so many...
Fighting
False Allegations of Domestic Abuse
Maury Beaulier, Esq.
http://www.dadsdivorce.com
"However, it is also a
time to reflect on our laws, the inequities that they create and how you
protect yourself against false allegations of abuse in a flawed legal
system."
Sincerely,
Marc Snider
Dear Legislators, Staff, and others,
Please get educated as to what is really going on around this
country in the context of divorce and level the playing field so that so many
American children are not doomed to suffer the same fate as the Kaduce children. And please sunset the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). It is
being used as a weapon in child custody disputes all over the country and the
lies it is facilitating and encouraging, with no danger of accountability or
sanction for the false accuser, are damaging the social fabric of
By BOB FENSKE, For The Globe Gazette
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2005/09/11/local/doc4323a56107f90179944961.txt
Marc Snider
Dear Congressman Coble and Executive
Staff,
Please take a
few minutes to pay close attention to the information below. I've
provided documented evidence about how the VAWA is undermining the American
family, and consequently the very health of our society. I have pointed
specific violations of federal law as well.
If you must
renew the VAWA then please at least consider plugging the loophole whereby
Domestic Violence Coalitions are using VAWA funds (in contravention of existing
law) to influence family law in every state.
State domestic
violence coalitions funded by the Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA) are breaking federal law all over the country.
Please follow the link below and see the specific details of how it is
being done in
http://www.nhcustody.org
Doesn't
the Congress even care that the law is being ignored (and violated) by
these monstrous coalitions as they go about their business undermining the
American family using VAWA funds to fuel their misandrist
rampage against fatherhood?
Other letters
containing objective information about what the VAWA has done to the American
institutions of fatherhood and family, to the nation's children of divorce, and
how it so endangers our very society are here:
http://www.nhcustody.org/VAWA
If the VAWA is
renewed the Senate Judiciary Committee's July 19th hearing exclusion of those
opposed to VAWA renewal will live on as amongst the lowest points ever in
American 'democracy'. The VAWA has created a taxpayer
funded gang of rich radical constituents who are literally destroying this
country's fabric and have now even succeeded in destroying the opportunity for
democracy to function such that those opposed to family destruction can be
heard by the Congress.
It would seem
that things are the same in the halls of the Congress as they
are in the family courts across the nation. God help this
country...
Marc
Snider
The
National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) will do nothing to reconcile the
devastation wrought upon American fatherhood, families, and
children in the wake of the VAWA.
The
worst part is that this disaster is truly man-made...
Please
kill the VAWA, stop the political pandering before it's too late for our
country, and start cleaning up the destruction in earnest.
Marc
Snider
Dear
Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
The story below
should give you great pause. Why don't you commission a study on
how many of the pregnant teenagers at
Instead of
wasting time and money on the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is just
another government bandaid attempting to heal an
open festering national wound, Congress would be
far better served to sunset the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
If not, then
please consider renaming it the Anti-Fatherhood Act (AFA), because it's
draconian provisions and massive funding provided to radical ideologues is
encouraging, facilitating, and realizing the undermining of Fatherhood and
incremental demise of the American Family.
The sooner you
realize that funds poured into the NFI will just be washed away by the funds
provided through the VAWA the better. You'd be far better off just
dropping both the NFI and the VAWA so as to allow American Fatherhood to return
to a natural state where it is not under constant attack from the state
domestic violence coalitions that Congress has turned into an anti-family
monster of Frankenstonian proportions.
Please kill the
VAWA.
Marc
Snider
______________________________
http://www.lasvegassun.com
Ohio High School Has 64 Pregnant Students
By CONNIE MABIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dear Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
Please see the information I have provided below this letter.
I ask you why the King County Division of Child Support decided to retire
their own visitation enforcement packet and adopt one created by the Northwest
Women's
Particularly when the Northwest Women's Law Center lobbies for the right
of the 86% of primary residential parents who are women to move away from the
non-custodial parent with their children?
If 86% of primary residential parents are women, the only constituents
the NWLC supports the rights of, then what interest does the Northwest Women's
Law Center have in protecting the rights of non-custodial parents (86% of which
are men according to the NWLC) to retain visitation access to their children?
This organization lobbies for the right of mothers to move their children
away without regard for the children's relationship with their father. This
organization also lobbies against and has in its own words 'repeatedly
defeated' legislation that would provide for a presumption of equality in
parenting for both mother and father. Then it references fictional
(non-existent) study data that supposedly agrees that fathers shouldn't be
considered equal parents.
So, why is this organization granted special access to the
I'll tell you why. The Violence Against Women
Act (VAWA) is why. The huge amount of funding provided through the VAWA is
being used for anti-father purposes all over the country and allowing groups
like the NWLC to infiltrate the entire family law infrastructure. Just like in
King County, where the fox is watching the henhouse while children and their
non-custodial parents (namely fathers) are kept apart and denied visitation
enforcement because the NWLC visitation enforcement policies are put in place by
the county government while the same NWLC lobbies constantly and ferociously
against equal parenting protections for fathers (and also against equal access
rights for children to their fathers).
This is ridiculous. Can't you see what the VAWA has done to this country
and how the funds are being abused?
The men of the country do see it, and recognize that it is not safe to
start a family. The VAWA and family law in this country are
one in the same, and the draconian provisions and massive funding provided by
the VAWA are being used nationwide to marginalize fatherhood. The
children of this nation are suffering terribly because of it, and the National
Fatherhood Initiative will do nothing to stop that suffering.
I hope you
recognize how hypocritical it is for some hollow national initiative to
convince fathers to be active in their children's lives while you rain down
VAWA funds on the radical ideologues who are using that money at every
turn to separate fathers and their children in America's family courts.
The unconstitutional abrogation of due process for those accused of committing
domestic violence are doing wonders for the ideologues as well.
The continued
incremental demise of the American family is imminent if you renew the
VAWA. Please do NOT do so.
Marc Snider
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs
Modification of Child
Support Orders; Enforcement of Visitation Rights; Customer Service (
"We recently retired our own
visitation enforcement packet and adopted one created by the Northwest Women's Law Center. We continue to maintain and distribute our own packets
for child support modification."
"The anticipated demand for
visitation enforcement packets never materialized. We conclude that although
people complain frequently about visitation problems, they must not see court
enforcement as a realistic solution, particularly if they have to do it
themselves."
______________________________
Northwest Women's
Advancing legal rights for women
The Northwest Women's
http://www.nwwlc.org/familylaw/
Amongst the Northwest Women's
Important
Cases
- Working
to ensure that primary residential parents may move with their children when
necessary. (Stoneman v. Drollinger;
Horner v. Horner; Wade v. Wade)
- Successfully
arguing for the constitutionality of
Changing the Law Through the Legislative
Process
- Successfully working for passage of
- Repeatedly defeating "friendly parent"
legislation, which would put mothers at risk of being labeled with the
unfounded "parental alienation syndrome" for raising legitimate
concerns about the other parent in custody disputes. Lobbying
to protect child support schedules.
- Successfully lobbying to protect children's
rights to adequate post-high school financial support.
- Repeatedly defeating legislation that would
create a presumption that awarding joint physical and legal custody of children
is in the child's best interest. Recent studies have shown that the current
system, which grants judges limited discretion to order joint custody, provides
better protection to children.
http://www.nwwlc.org/violenceag
Helping Women Help Themselves
- Providing free self help packets on specific
areas of family law to domestic violence victims and shelters statewide, on request.
Dear Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
When all you
have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The organizations
receiving VAWA grant funds make money finding "violence"
under every rock and bush. If you don't think this is an
*industry*, think again. Please see below how this industry is no
different than any other and how the domestic-violence seekers are undermining
this country by using the Violence Against Women Act funding both directly and
indirectly to increase their numbers and to increase the number of domestic
violence incidences, so they can yet again try and get more money from the
Congress.
VAWA is a plague
upon this country and is incrementally destroying American society. It is
the Violence Against Women Act, not the propensity of
men to commit violence against women that is responsible for the continuing
demise of the American family.
When the
Congress passed the VAWA in 1994 due to political correctness in the face of
skewed statistics they fixed a problem that did not exist. Now
the massive amount of taxpayer dollars the VAWA provides to radical
anti-male and anti-father idealogues has become an
anti-family, anti-society, monster of Frankenstonian proportions. This is a problem
that *does* exist. And this is why the breakdown of the American
family continues and the consequent demise of American society is imminent if
the VAWA is not reconciled.
I ask again when
the Congress will mandate a national investigation to determine how often
domestic violence allegations are made against fathers, as opposed to childless
men, and how often these allegations are made without basis?
The provisions of the VAWA are being used as a weapon to gain advantage in
child custody cases from coast to coast. That is the truth about
the VAWA.
Please do not
renew the VAWA. It is a plague upon this country.
Marc
Snider
Merrimack,
NH
Dear Congress, Staffers, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
Below is more
reality on what is happening in the nation's family courts during child custody
proceedings. Men are recognizing the truth more so every day as the
devastated fathers who have suffered through the bias of the country's
family courts along with their children after 75%+ of divorces are initiated by
mothers inform them about the reality that awaits them in America's 'family
justice' system. It will take years to roll back the effects caused by
the VAWA which the radical ideologues have connived the Congress into
supporting in order to appear politically correct. If you don't start the
reversal now, though, we will soon have a society where the majority of men
refuse to start families. And they are wise to believe that starting a
family is far too risky with the bias that exists against fathers in the
nation's courts. A man can risk his life overseas to defend this
country's purported civil liberties and freedoms, but he can't protect his own
children on American soil and continue to meaningfully retain his natural right
to be a father to them after his spouse decides she no longer wants to be
married.
Thanks to the
Congress' political correctness and pandering to radical feminist anti-father
ideologues our country is now full of singly parented fatherless children,
boasts of a 50%+ divorce rate, and the institutions of marriage and
family are clinging to their last breaths.
Child Custody: Where Men Hit a Glass Ceiling
The VAWA is a
tool of the anti-father and anti-family ideologues who are enroute
to destroying this nation. Please fix the devastation the Congress has
facilitated and encouraged through the VAWA over the last decade.
This nation cannot bear another 5 years of the VAWA.
This is a
critical time in American history. The freedoms this country so often
lays claim to are little more than hollow propaganda when fathers across
the country are removed unwillingly from their children's lives through false
allegations of domestic violence. It is a pandemic that has
left a generation of the nation's children dysfunctional after forcing them
into being raised largely (or wholly) fatherless.
Do you even
realize how many of these kids are clinging to Daddy's leg at the end of
'visitation' time? Or how many of them are crying for their fathers while
being told that Dad doesn't care about them and isn't interested in being
involved in their lives by the same people who've falsely accused Dad of being
dangerous and had him removed by the police from the family residence after
claiming to be in 'fear'? Please admit the mistake you have
made by funding the VAWA and directly encouraging and facilitating the crisis
of the American family.
And please stop
the political doublespeak and lip service to family values and FIX the
problem. DO NOT RENEW THE VAWA.
Soon the
Congress will need to institute a draft because the men of this once great
country will no longer fight to defend the rights that we now know do not
exist. Please pay attention...
Marc
Snider
Dear Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
The data just
keeps on coming. For the first time in our history the most common living
arrangement in
“By 2000,
however, the nuclear household fell 1.7 percent to 24.6 million households
while the single-adult homes rose 21.4 percent, from 22.4 million to 27.2
million. The single-family home includes those living alone for any reason, as
well as the single-parent home.”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com
Men now
recognize it is not safe to start a family and women recognize that they have
much to gain and nothing to lose by abandoning their husbands, and driving a
wedge between the children and their father through claims of 'fear'
(read: domestic violence, for they are one in the same according to the VAWA).
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has been, and continues to be, a
plague upon this country. Our children are growing up fatherless,
and our fathers are being made childless all because the ideologues like those
who stacked the Senate Judiciary Committee's July 19th VAWA hearing are being
given billions of dollars of taxpayer funds under the guise of preventing
violence toward women, but in reality those funds are being used to destroy the
American family through the draconian denial of due process for falsely accused
fathers.
1) The VAWA is based on a
lie. Men (and particularly fathers) are NOT predisposed to violence
against women. That is why human civilization had incrementally
progressed in the direction of a stable family unit for thousands upon
thousands of years prior to enactment of the VAWA.
2) The numbers of domestic violence allegations across the nation
continues to skyrocket. Why? Because the VAWA is a
self-fulfilling prophecy, just like any government program that involves so
much money being handed to so many special interest groups who then recycle the
money they've been handed in the pursuit of more government bureacracy
and consequently more money for their cause.
3) More men than ever are choosing not to start families, and also
recognizing that the rights of fathers are akin to the rights of African
Americans prior to emancipation.
This country is
going straight down the sinkhole and the VAWA is the largest reason
why. You are the people that can fix this. I hope you
are all having a long look in the mirror on occasion even as you contemplate
your future political careers. The country's life blood (our children and
our families) is being sucked dry by the parasites who have connived
the Congress into believing their vile misandrist
bunk.
These are the
same EXACT people who are rallying all over the country (in virtually
every state) and using those VAWA taxpayer funds to oppose equal parenting
rights for fathers after more than 3/4 of all divorces are initiated by mothers
(who often make false allegations of domestic violence to gain advantage
because they know they *can* without any chance of accountability).
Here is the
latest NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Abuse
(NHCADSV) anti-fatherhood contribution. They've been lobbying the NH
legislature for years using VAWA funds in opposition to equal parenting rights
for fathers. The story is the same all over the country:
http://www.nhcustody.org
Please wake up and
look at the facts.
Marc
Snider
Dear
Congress, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
Just in case any
of you are actually reading mail that opposes VAWA, I include below a just
released article that is absolutely accurate with respect to how the Violence Against Women Act has been affecting our country's families,
the institution of fatherhood, the nation's children of divorce, and the
commensurate health of our society.
The implications
of VAWA renewal for the
Once again, I
hope and pray that you are paying close attention. Political expediency
may yet cost this country more than can be imagined. Our social
fabric is crumbling and if you renew VAWA you may well put the nail in the
coffin of the American family. Fathers are not nearly as foolish as
they have been made out to be. There IS a way they can protect
themselves, and that is by refusing to start families. The U.S.
Congress and its political pandering to the ideologues is
leaving them with little choice...
Marc
Snider
Violence Against Families
Fathers fall victim to domestic-abuse laws
Dr. Stephen
Baskerville
The American
Conservative, vol. 4,
no 16 (
Violence
Against Families.
Fathers fall victim to domestic-abuse laws
Dear Legislators, Staff, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Others,
The
'Psychologist' referenced below is exactly the type of radical feminist
ideologue the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is
empowering to spew her society-weakening bunk. I hope you recognize that
present government policies (primarily the VAWA and a lack of equal parenting
protections for fathers as well as mothers) are both emboldening and
encouraging people like Dr. Peggy Drexler to pursue
the elimination of fatherhood entirely.
The assistance
provided to her in the form of the VAWA is the pot of gold that her and her ilk
have successfully used to undermine the American family and, consequently,
American society. Please be aware that American men
are realizing that radicals like Dr. Wexler are provided a forum to
spew their hatred of fatherhood and disdain for the needs of children to be
raised by both parents when the United States Congress sets up a rubber stamp
hearing as the Senate Judiciary Committee did on July 19th relating to the VAWA
renewal.
This country is
falling fast and the Congress is the power broker providing the radical
ideologues the sledgehammer whereby they are destroying the American family and
American children through the imposition of dysfunctional single parent
upbringing.
These people do
not believe that children need fathers and they are using the VAWA as the most
powerful tool ever known to implement their agenda. The weakening of our
country is continuing at breakneck speed thanks to the VAWA and those who use
it to gain advantage in divorce and child custody proceedings.
Please see Dr.
Wexler's radical and absolutely inaccurate diatribe here. These are the
type of people that the Congress is soliciting and
receiving testimony from, while the Congress at the same time refuses to
hear American war veterans who are also fathers testify about how the VAWA
was used against them to keep them from their children.
"In
"Raising Boys Without Men," research psychologist Dr. Peggy Drexler says that boys raised in households headed by just
mothers can grow up emotionally stronger, more empathetic and independent than
boys raised in traditional two-parent households. "
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA
I hope the
responsibility of your decisions and their direct impact on the health of this
country, as well as the health of millions of American children of
divorce, is not lost on you...
Do you know why
the number of Domestic Violence restraining orders are
continuing to increase across the country? Because
of the VAWA and its use to gain advantage in child custody and divorce
proceedings.
If you believe
that the American father is, in general, more and more violent toward women as
the years go by then I think you need to answer why society is spiraling
downhill so fast (due to the increasingly violent American man?) after so many
millennia of human progress toward stability in the family unit. I
also urge you to conduct a study as to how often domestic violence is alleged
against fathers as opposed to men who have no children. I suspect
strongly that you will find the overwhelming number of domestic violence
allegations are made against fathers, and not against childless men. The
reason is clear: the VAWA is a tool being used by the likes of Dr.
Wexler and her ilk to render the American father extinct.
And thanks to
the inattentiveness and political pandering being exercised by the U.S.
Congress, the plan is working...
Marc
Snider
Dear Senator Santorum, Legislators, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Staff, and Others,
I heard Senator
Santorum interviewed today at length on the Laura Ingraham
radio program. I wanted to both compliment and chastise the good Senator,
in light of what he had to say.
While it is
about time that a prominent elected official stood up and proclaimed the
need to change the way the government does business so as to stop undermining
the American family, Senator Santorum missed the most obvious and overt
problems with national family law policy which are directly responsible for the
weakening of the American family, and consequently American society.
He spoke at
length about the need to provide financial incentives for married
couples. He spoke at length about the need to protect traditional
marriage between a man and a woman. He spoke at length about counseling
fathers on how to stay involved with their children. And he spoke at
length about how 'children need both a mommy and a daddy'.
None of the
above suggestions will result in any meaningful change in American culture with
respect to the insitutions of marriage and family
until the *real* underlying problems are resolved.
What Senator
Santorum failed to mention, and I suspect fails to recognize, are the following
critical problems with American family law, nationally, that are directly
undermining the American family in every state:
1) The Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA) has made it law that men are presumed to be violent toward
women and that a woman's mere assertion of 'fear' must result in a man being
removed from his home and his children. This assertion of 'fear' is being
wielded as a weapon, in pandemic fashion, in divorce proceedings from
coast to coast by mothers who want out of marriage.
2) Family courts all over the
country are relegating fathers to second-class parents when they are made
non-custodial parents who are ordered to serve as wallets, and little else, for
their children after they have initiated less than one quarter (25%) of all
divorces.
3) Children's and fathers' rights
advocates across the country are fighting in virtually every state,
unsuccessfully, for legislative reforms which would explicitly provide for
statutory presumption of parenting equality for both mother and father when
child custody is at issue. VAWA funds are being further used, by
the way, to oppose these reforms nationally.
These are the
primary problems that are encouraging and facilitating the breakdown of the
American family. Bandaids will not fix
these problems. The roots of the problem must be addressed.
The bottom line
is that fathers across this country are being removed from their children's
lives, with the exception of being ordered to provide the entirety of their
children's financial support, and relegated to visitors who are allowed access
to their children only a handful of days each month by the state family
courts. These orders are occurring after 75% plus of
divorces (in families with children) are initiated by mothers who know
that they have much to gain and nothing to lose by getting
divorced.
The 'deadbeat American
dad' pandemic has been created by the family courts,
The reality in
the American family home of today is that fathers are presumed to be
violent toward women (as specified by VAWA) and treated worse than common
criminals (because they are denied due process) when a spouse proclaims
she is in 'fear' as a means of gaining advantage in divorce or child
custody proceedings. The same fathers are fighting with everything
they have to get laws passed in the states that would merely emphasize the 14th
amendment equal protection clause with regard to their right to be presumed
an equal parent to their children during family court proceedings.
Presumed to be
violent toward women, and unable to be presumed an equal parent, the American
father of 2005 is facing a conspiracy of political correctness and political
expediency that panders to the special interest feminist ideologue
lobby. The American father of 2005 can no more be blamed for
the 50%+ divorce rate in America and the unconscionably huge number of
singly-parented American children than can a beaver who is relocated from his
den because he is no longer a desirable resident of the pond that was long
his home.
The real
sufferers are the children of
The trend toward
self-protection is already beginning, and the most intelligent stocks of
American men are learning that starting a family is an extremely risky
proposition. Prepare for the incremental weakening of American society as
the most worthy men amongst our people recognize it isn't safe to begin a
family with the reality of the VAWA and national lack of parenting equality.
Senator Santorum
is right that 'It Takes a Family'. Unfortunately, the statistical
likelihood that a given American father will be allowed to retain meaningful
access to his family (if only his children) after his wife decides she's had
enough of marriage is very slim indeed.
Natural urges
are strong. The American male is adaptable though. And he is
learning quickly...
Dejectedly, but with most sincerity,
Marc Snider
Dear Congress, Staffers, and Others,
Please see the
article below explaining how the Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA) makes a great tool for getting a restraining order against a
Grandma on Daddy's side of the family who wants to share in the youth of her
grandchild.
VAWA is
destroying this country, plain and simple, and the Congress has been tricked
into supporting it through a lack of understanding about how it is being used
on the streets of
Please put aside
the shallow political correctness and political expediency and pay close
attention to the truth about the VAWA and how its supporters are using its
funding and provisions in selfish pursuit of their radical ideology by wiping
out fatherhood and dooming our nation's children to dysfunctional single-parent
upbringings.
This is not a
sound-bite issue that centers on preventing violence against women. We
ALL want to prevent violence against women, and against men, and most
importantly against children (which by the way is overwhelmingly perpetrated by
mothers, as reported by the ACF). The VAWA is instead an
issue the centers around the destruction of the American family unit by
facilitating and encouraging the most devastating sucker punch (an invented and
bogus domestic violence allegation) ever felt in a father and child's lifetime.
Millions of
grandmothers are being removed from children's lives as well, in addition to
aunts, uncles, cousins, and entire paternal sides of the
family.
Restraining Orders for Abusive Grandmas?
Carey Roberts
RenewAmerica.us
http://www.renewamerica.us
More educational
and accurate information on the problem from Carey Roberts
A
Government Program is No Substitute For a Bear-Hug.
Carey Roberts
NewsWithViews.com
http://www.newswithviews.com
Sincerely,
Marc
Snider
Dear Congress, Staff, and
Others,
Please have
a look at the just released (
---------------------
The NSDUH Report: Substance
abuse and dependence among women based on SAMHSA's
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). This reports shows the
rates of abuse and dependence among various groups of women in the genera l
population
"Based on SAMHSA's 2003 National Survey on Drug Use & Health, an
estimated 5.9% of women aged 18 or older met criteria for abuse of or
dependence on alcohol or an illicit drug in the past year."
At: http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k5
----------------------
You will
not hear these scientifically gathered statistics relayed by the special
interest groups who support VAWA because such groups are not interested in
propagating the truth. And the truth is that there is NO pandemic
of violence against women by men. Additionally, if there IS a pandemic of
violence against children then it is being perpetrated by mothers against their
own children. I have previously sent you the ACF data showing as
much (that 40.8% of abused or neglected children are maltreated by their
mothers acting alone, while 18.8% are maltreated by their fathers acting
alone).
These same
special interests who were the only witnesses allowed to testify at the Senate
Judiciary Committee's July 19th rubber stamp hearing on VAWA, while those
opposed to this law that undermines fathers and children and families across
the nation, are using inflated domestic violence statistics to get the VAWA
renewed.
Now that
they've gotten the law (VAWA) enacted to provide for the
expression of 'fear' as constituting another instance of domestic
violence the numbers on paper will only continue to rise. Such numbers
are bogus and are being used to obfuscate the true purpose of the VAWA and the
underlying agenda of the radical idealogues.
Their true purpose is to undermine fatherhood and that is how the VAWA is being
used nationally as a weapon by unethical attorneys (who only care about
financial profits), radical anti-male coalitions directly funded by the VAWA,
and whimsical mothers who no longer want to be married.
You are
giving the radical idealogues the tools to destroy
the foundation of the American family unit, and they have used it masterfully
and will continue to do so. VAWA is the sledgehammer of despair for
millions of children of divorce and falsely accused fathers, and the Congress
is providing that sledgehammer to the idealogues
without paying attention to the reality of what this law means to America's
present and future health where it is being applied on the nation's streets.
The point is that mothers are NOT better parents generally, and
the statistics on child maltreatment by mothers along with the statistics on
drug/alcohol abuse by adult women should make anyone think twice about
generalizing. If you want to make a generalization then use
scientific facts to do so: for example the ACF facts and the SAMHSA facts
to generalize that children are no better off with their moms than their dads.
In the end, children need both parents and NEITHER is better
suited for a worthless stereotype to be broadly applied to them (as in
men/fathers should be presumed to be violent). In light of the
statistics available from our own
The truth
about women and substance abuse should be a revelation to you. Between
these statistics and the ACF statistics on the maltreatment of children, would
it not be wise to remove the VAWA sledgehammer whereby children of divorce
around the country are being exposed to unnecessary danger when their falsely
accused fathers are railroaded out of the family home and issued an injunction
against seeing their kids???
Sincerely,
Marc Snider
Dear
The Department
of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, has just released a study on the
sexual violence that took place in the nation's prisons during 2004.
The report
states that:
'In State
prisons 69% of victims of staff sexual misconduct were
male, while 67% of perpetrators were
female'.
The
statistic above explaining that 67% of the prison staff perpetrators
of sexual misconduct were female
comes directly from the U.S. Department of Justice and was discerned from a
comprehensive study conducted within a controlled system (namely, the
The special
interest VAWA lobby, which is using the financial and operational
provisions of the VAWA to undermine American fatherhood and the American
family unit has been feeding you stories to obscure the truth about the
reality of domestic violence.
Sexual
Violence Reported by Correctional Authorities, 2004
Bureau
of Justice Statistics
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
Here is the an audio link to the National Public Radio
(NPR) trailer on the study that aired today:
http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php
Please don't let
them continue to fool you this way. Violence by men against women was NOT
a pandemic, as the special interest anti-family ideologues convinced the
Congress, back in 1994 and it is NOT now. The real pandemic is the one
involving false allegations of domestic violence used by these same ideologues,
unethical divorce attorneys, and less-than-dedicated mothers around the country
that provide an easy exit from marriage by railroading non-violent fathers into
the gutter, sans due process, through the draconian provisions of the
VAWA.
Men, and fathers in particular, are not
inherently violent toward women as you've been continually told.
They are not predisposed to violence any more than they are predisposed to
abandon their children, yet these same ideologues also argue that fatherlessness is caused overwhelmingly through
abandonment. There is a very bad cycle in place now where the humongous
amount of funding behind the VAWA is being used to cause fatherlessness
across the country. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy of the ideologues
as facilitated and encouraged by the draconian provisions and bottomless
funding of the VAWA...
VAWA has turned
the mere assertion
(false or not) of 'fear' into the trigger that instantaneously
turns non-violent American fathers into homeless and childless outcasts
from society. And it is doing things just as terrible to the children of
these fathers who are being made fatherless. The American family
unit, and the development of
Here again, are
the most recent U.S. Government ACF statistics on the maltreatment, abuse, and
neglect of American children, along with a comprehensive annotated
bibliography of studies showing the truth about violence in
relationships perpetrated by men and women:
Child
Maltreatment 2003: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data Systems - National
statistics on child abuse and neglect (2005)
"Approximately
83.9 percent of victims were abused by at least one parent. An
estimated 40.8 percent of child victims
were maltreated by their mothers acting alone;
another 18.8 percent were maltreated by
their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were
abused by both parents."
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov /programs/cb/publications/cm03
******************************
REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON
THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Martin S. Fiebert
Department of
SUMMARY:
This bibliography examines 172 scholarly investigations: 136 empirical
studies and 36 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as
physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with
their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed
studies exceeds 162,500.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert
******************************
Below
please find a comprehensive, rational, and informative list of accurate recent
national articles written on the deep problems created by the VAWA:
VAWA
is as big a danger to this country's future health as the radical fanatics who
would destroy our country if given the chance. VAWA, however, with the blessing
of our elected officials, is even more insidious as it is destroying the
country from within... Truly.
Please do NOT
renew the VAWA. It is the precisely the fuel by which the foundation
of American social fabric, the family, is being undermined and it is
directly endangering the future health of our country.
Here
is a letter I wrote to many Senators and several Representatives:
http://www.nhcustody.org/VAWA_July_4.pdf
Very Sincerely,
Marc Snider
------------------------------
Ending Bias In Domestic Assault Law
By Cathy Young
Time to Dispose of Radical Feminist Pork (VAWA)
By Phyllis Schlafly
http://www.townhall.com
/columnists/phyllisschlafly /ps20050718.shtml
Scream
By Lisa Scott
http://www.therealitycheck.org
Family's Feud With a Fascist Future
By
Kathleen Parker
http://www.townhall.com
Congress Should Kill Discriminatory Domestic Violence Act
By Wendy
McElroy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160968,00.html
VAWA: MAKING DIVORCE EASY, PROFITABLE, AND FUN
http://www.newswithviews.com
By Carey Roberts
Dear NH Legislators,
I very much hope
you will take the time to read the study statistics and recent national
articles below and become familiar, if you aren't already, with the adverse
impact the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is having
on fatherhood, child development, and the stability of the
American family across the country. I recognize this letter
is long and contains a large amount of information, but I hope you
will find the time and desire to read through it and learn the truth about
what is occurring in NH, and across the country. On a related note,
I have also made a specific suggestion (and request) for legislation to be
introduced during the upcoming session toward the true 'best interests' of
NH's children.
The truth is
that across the country there is a virtual pandemic of false allegations and
invented domestic violence incidents being wielded upon non-violent fathers and
their children (essentially having their fathers taken away) by mothers who see
an easy way out of marriages they no longer want. With no risk of
redress, as it is a fact the courts unequivocally refuse to prosecute or
even sanction those proven to have made fraudulent allegations, on
the advice of unethical divorce attorneys and radical idealogue
domestic-violence coalition representatives, mothers have learned to take great
advantage of the system.
The 'silver
bullet' is a legal sucker punch which provides an instant injunction against
fathers without due process, and often finds a man who hours before was an
upstanding member of society and dedicated father to his children out on the
street with nothing but the clothes on his back after being confronted by the
police with a restraining order.
The unjust cycle
continues with accused fathers frequently being unable to obtain equal custody
of their children because the judges have been trained by the same idealogue domestic violence coalitions (like the NHCADSV)
that fathers should be presumed to be violent. As stipulated by the
VAWA, it is simple enough that a woman's expressed 'fear' is enough to remove a
father from his children and thus begin for him and his children a nightmare of
forced separation that you cannot possibly imagine if you haven't experienced it.
The Constitution is apparently alive and healthy when it comes to the debate
over the treatment of terrorists, but the treatment of American fathers falsely
accused of domestic violence (and the numbers are huge) clearly is not
consistent with the same Constitution.
The NHCADSV is
anti-father, period. The coalition refuses to recognize the importance of
fathers in their children's lives as shown by a voluminous number of studies, and lobbies at every opportunity (improperly, in my
view) in Concord in opposition to child custody reform, child support reform,
and any number of other gender-centric legislative matters to prevent the
reform of laws which have been mistreated fathers and their children for far
too long. The Coalition also encourages mothers to maintain they are in
fear of their husbands as a means of gaining advantage in divorce, just as many
NH divorce attorneys do with a wink and a nod to mothers who want primary
custody of their children. In addition, the Coalition refuses to take a
stand against fraudulent allegations of domestic violence and does everything
in their power to keep the laws and courts from holding perjurers to account
(even when such fraudulent allegations result in the separation of children and
father).
As arguably the
most powerful and influential woman in New Hampshire, the Policy Director
of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV),
Linda Griebsch maintains an extremely close
relationship with both the NH Legislature and Judiciary. The Coalition's
constant lobbying of the legislature and training of judges in the state,
training which is predicated on the same false premise [that men are
predisposed to violence against women and children, and that women never make
up fraudulent allegations] as the VAWA is based upon, has resulted in a
situation where fathers frequently find themselves fighting for sanity
amidst the emotional and financial devastation wrought upon them even
while they fight at the same time to retain access to their own children.
The relationship
that Ms. Griebsch enjoys with the Executive branch is
clearly also one of great deference. In addition to directing public
policy at the NHCADSV I've come to learn that Ms. Griebsch
has just had her appointment as the Chair of the New Hampshire Guardian Ad
Litem (GAL) Board extended until 2008. As you
know, the Chair of the GAL board also has a tremendous amount of power and
influence as relates to how GALs conduct their
investigations into the 'best interests' of NH's children when custody is
at issue.
The laws in the
state have changed with respect to child custody (HB640) and will hopefully
change again soon for the better (HB529). The GALs
in the state need to be held accountable for the critical decisions they are
making on behalf of the state's children of divorce and legal separation.
The present GAL board, with Ms. Griebsch as the
Chair, is incapable of holding the GALs in the state
responsible in any measure when they make poor, lazy, or inaccurate findings in
child custody cases. Further, the amount of time the current
GAL Board has been in place without implementing constructive procedures for
redress by the public makes one wonder what exactly the Board *is* actually
doing at all...?
The fact that
Ms. Griebsch, who wrote the following letter in
opposition to HB529 (for equal parenting reform) this past fall on behalf of
the NHCADSV, has actually been serving, and will now continue to
serve until 2008, as the NH GAL board Chair is truly unconscionable:
http://www.nhcustody.org
A bigger
conflict of interest (that is incidentally terribly impacting the children of
the state while the GALs have so much influence over
what happens to these children's lives, yet are never held accountable for lazy
or disengenuous investigations) is hard to imagine.
To
rectify this situation in
Further
comprehensive information on VAWA, which directly funds the NHCADSV and
provides the foundation for its agenda, including national articles,
statistics, and an opposition letter I've recently written the U.S . Congress follows after this letter (the
letter above this one addressed to the
Thank you sincerely for your
consideration of this critical matter,
Marc Snider
Dear Congress, Staffers, and Others,
Charley Reese
doesn't explicitly reference the Violence Against
Women Act in his recent article below, but he should have. The VAWA
is the tool whereby the collapse of society as Reese alludes to will be
actualized.
The natural
evolution of human civilization and American society has been engendered by a
basic human urge for stability, and toward ever-increasing stability of
the family unit. It is not men in general who have undermined the
American family, the American institution of marriage, and doomed a generation
of children to dysfunctional singly parented upbringings.
It is the VAWA
that has done this. And it is the VAWA that is truly endangering
the country's social health. Truly...
Men are not predisposed
in general to violence against women, nor are they predisposed to abandon their
children (another false assertion that derives directly from the VAWA and
the radical groups of ideologues that support it). Indeed,
children have more to fear, in general, from mothers who are more than twice as
likely to abuse their own children than are fathers according to ACF
statistics.
The special
interest groups that benefit so from VAWA funds have convinced the Congress of
untruths and have themselves, via the VAWA, endangered our country's health in
pursuit of their own selfish interests and idealogical
anti-father agenda.
The VAWA is the
most powerful anti-family tool the free world has ever seen. In a pinch
its humongous amount of unscrutinized funding
and draconian provisions provide unethical divorce attorneys, radical
state domestic violence coalitions, and mothers who want out of marriage the
'silver bullet' of doom for American fathers and their children.
It seems the
Congress is the only group that doesn't understand what this act really means
to the nation's family structure and society's future health. Even single
men, as yet unaffected, are learning and are thus more likely to
avoid starting families because the risk is too great.
If you do
nothing else to the VAWA then at least change the name, please, to the
'Violence Against Fathers and Children Act' because that is exactly what the
VAWA facilitates, encourages, and is being used to great effect for across the
country... To separate fathers from their
children...
This country
cannot endure another 5 years of VAWA.
Marc Snider
------------------------------
Feminist bunk will cause society's collapse
By CHARLEY REESE
Columbia Daily Tribune
http://www.showmenews.com/2005
Dear Senators, Staffers, and Others,
Please pay close
attention to the scientific *facts* relating to domestic violence and to
the maltreatment of children. That men
are predisposed to become violent and abusive toward women and children is
a falsehood invented by the idealogues who have become
the most powerful special interest group in the country with the benefit of
VAWA funds.
Please learn
about the real data I have provided below and fix the VAWA properly
or do not renew the legislation at all. The VAWA has
tremendously undermined this country's social fabric and will continue to do so
unless you do something about it.
The draconian
provisions of VAWA are being wielded like a weapon by state domestic violence
coalitions, unethical divorce attorneys, and vengeful mothers who are sick of
their husbands and/or family life all over this country. And the
Congress is giving them all the biggest stick imaginable in the form of VAWA to
assault the father/child relationship and doom the country's children of
divorce to being largely fatherless. The fatherlessness
crisis in
The unequal
application of family court 'justice' across this country must be
reconciled if the stability of our nation is to be ensured. And the
unequal application of family court 'justice' is indeed largely predicated on
the draconian provisions of VAWA and the lack of accountability for accusers.
A mother's expressed 'fear', as elicited or suggested by an unethical
divorce attorney or radical 'victim's advocate', is enough to get her
husband ejected without due process from the family home instantaneously
and also enough to prevent any contact between the children and their
father. Meanwhile an abused man finds it almost impossible to get
any measure of protection from the courts or support from organizations
receiving VAWA funds.
The provisions
of the VAWA, divorce, and child custody are all insidiously intertwined in
reality in the family courts around the country, just as intended by the
special interest groups that benefit so greatly from VAWA funds.
Please stop
believing the lies and fueling the destruction of the American family with the
VAWA.
Most Sincerely,
Marc Snider
******************************
A Measure of Court Response to Requests for Protection
Journal of
Family Violence
Publisher: Springer
Science+Business Media B.V., Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V.
ISSN: 0885-7482
(Paper) 1573-2851 (Online)
DOI: 10.1007/s10896-005-3653-x
Issue:
Volume 20, Number 3
Date: June
2005
Pages: 171
- 179
Study link: http://www.springerlink.com
Milford, July
11, 2005 – A study of how one court in Massachusetts applies the abuse
prevention statute (MGL ch.209A) as measured by the issuance of "209A
restraining orders" has just been published in the June issue of Journal
of Family Violence, an academic journal on domestic violence issues.
"A Measure of Court Response to Requests for Protection," by the
Fatherhood Coalition's Steve Basile, examined the 209A
restraining orders issued in Gardner District Court in 1997. The study reveals
a clear double standard in the court response to alleged victims of domestic
abuse/violence. In each of the benchmarks, women plaintiffs
(victims) were treated more favorably than men, and likewise, male defendants
were treated more harshly than their female counterparts.
------------------------------
"The message couldn't be clearer. If you are a father suffering domestic
violence, using the legal system to gain protection for yourself is a high risk
proposition that may result in you losing custody and even contact with your
children."
─ Steve Basile, study
author
------------------------------
Among the study's findings:
When compared with other attributes of the litigants, sex was by far the
greatest predictor of whether or not a restraining order would be issued and of
the severity of the restrictions imposed on the defendant.
At ex parte hearings, where only the victim is
present and the defendant is unaware of the proceedings, men were 240% more
likely than women to be denied the immediate protection of an emergency
restraining order.
Women were 38% more likely than men to be granted an emergency protection order
at an ex parte hearing.
At follow-up 10-day hearings, when victims seek an extended or
new restraining order, men were 383% more likely to be denied protection.
Women were 32% more likely than men to be granted a new restraining order when
protection was pursued at the follow-up10-day hearing.
Overall, with and without children in common, men were 29% more likely to
be evicted than women and 110% more likely to be evicted if they shared a
common child.
The Fatherhood Coalition is especially concerned about the use of 209A restraining orders as "first strike"
weapons in divorce/custody battles. The study also analyzed court
response with respect to granting of custody of minor children when the litigants
are parents.
Mothers were 288% more likely than fathers to receive custody of children as a
direct provision of the 209A order. However, in the few cases where fathers
received custody, which was only at ex parte
hearings, none of the fathers secured long-term custody of their children
at the 10-day hearing.
According to Basile,
"The message couldn't be clearer. If you are a father suffering domestic
violence, using the legal system to gain protection for yourself is a high risk
proposition that may result in you losing custody and even contact with your
children."
The first phase of the study was published in the Journal in February, 2004.
That report provided a qualitative analysis of all of 382 non-impounded 209A
restraining orders issued in the courthouse, examining the type and degree of
abuses categorized by the sex and relationship of the litigants. For both
phases, every available restraining order docket from 1997 was examined, to mitigate against any seasonal abnormalities or any
accusations of selective sampling. Typically, domestic violence research
explicitly excludes male victims of female domestic violence.
While the results of the first phase confirmed that women disproportionately
seek legal protection from domestic violence, the qualitative examination of
the data in the dockets, which includes
the victim's affidavit, showed that the nature of the abuse claimed was roughly
similar between men and women.
However, the second phase reveals a disturbingly high correlation between the court
decisions and the sex of the litigants.
The study analyzed the response of the court to requests for protection at ex parte hearings, where only the victim is present, and at
the follow-up 10-day hearing.
209A abuse protection orders grant the "victim" enormous power over
their alleged abusers. Provisions include removal from one's own
home, granting of immediate custody of minor children to the alleged victim
with a consequent assignment of child support.
According to Coalition Spokesman Mark Charalambous,
"It's important to understand that a 209A order taken against a father,
besides removing all legal and physical custodial rights to his children, also
extends the no-contact provisions to those children."
Since a violation of any of the provisions of a 209A order is a criminal
offense subject to 2 ˝ years in jail and $10,000 fine, any contact a father may
have with his children, direct or third-party
or even unintentional, holds him criminally accountable. This is done without
the criminal protections afforded defendants in criminal cases because the
issuance of 209A order is civil,
requiring only the minimal standard of evidence ("preponderance").
"This is why a 209A restraining order is often referred to as the nuclear
first-strike in the commencement of a divorce action," Charalambous
emphasizes.
The Fatherhood Coalition is supporting the "209A Reform Bill" (S965,
H833), presently in committee, that addresses many of the law's most serious
flaws.
# # #
Study link: http://www.springerlink.com
******************************
REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON
THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Martin S. Fiebert
Department of
SUMMARY:
This bibliography examines 172 scholarly investigations: 136 empirical
studies and 36 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as
physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with
their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed
studies exceeds 162,500.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert
******************************
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
Child Maltreatment
2003: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data Systems - National
statistics on child abuse and neglect (2005)
"Approximately
83.9 percent of victims were abused by at least one parent. An
estimated 40.8 percent of child victims
were maltreated by their mothers acting alone;
another 18.8 percent were maltreated by
their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent were
abused by both parents."
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cm03/cm2003.pdf
Dear Congress, Staffers, and Others,
Here is another
update from the father I referenced below in a recent message to
you. He cannot see his son because of the mere allegation of
domestic violence against him which has been used as a weapon to keep him
from his son.
There was no due
process, the allegations are very likely false, they don't even involve
him personally having committing any act (violent or otherwise), yet his son
remains fatherless.
This is the
truth about VAWA. And the consequences on American
children, fathers, and families are playing out daily in huge numbers.
Marc Snider
On
I just found out
we won't have a show cause hearing until August 12!
My ex-wife was able to get a hearing to request taking a 10 day
vacation in just two days! At that hearing, my attorney discussed
with the judge what would happen if my ex refused to give me parenting
time again. The judge said that if she violated the order again, he
would throw her in jail. Now he says he doesn't want to have hearings
every other week and I can just wait to see my son. So it will be
three weeks minimum before my son and I have time together and the
judge has essentially told my ex it is ok for her to violate his
orders. What a crock!
Dear Congress, Staffers, and Others,
Please learn
about the truth below. This is happening every day on a huge scale in
this country. That is the truth about VAWA and what it is being
used for around the country.
Marc Snider
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: k9doctor2b < k9doctor2b@yahoo.com>
Date:
Subject: Ex-wife immune to the law
I got arrested Monday night when I went to pick up my son for
parenting time. She didn't even show up, violating the custody
order. That was the eigth time she has violated a
custody order,
with no consequences for her! I was charge with aggravated stalking,
a five-year felony and spent the night in the
with a $20,000 bond. I found out she had accused me of getting a
friend to call and leave her threatening messages, so it's not even
my voice on these tapes they have. The magistrate left the previous
order regarding custody in place and I was released when I put up
the $20,000. My attorney went to the first day of my referee hearing
today and her attorney, on the record, said that they were not going
to allow me parenting time. My attorney faxed her a
copy of the
bond, showing that I still have parenting time. I left my attorney's
office an hour after the referee hearing was done for the day and
went to the FOC office to request a copy of the transcripts from the
hearing (at my attorney's request). When I pulled into the parking
lot, I saw my ex's car parked there. I turned around immediately and
was pulling out of the lot when I saw my ex and her attorney outside
the court house. I turned in the opposite direction so I would not
even pass in front of them. I just found out they accused me of
stalking her by being at the court house! So now there is a good
chance the police will be by tonight to pick me up for violating the
bond. Meanwhile, she violated the custody order again today and said
I will not have any time at all. My attorney is filing for a show
cause hearing, but that will be several weeks away. So my poor 16
month old son goes without seeing his dad and my ex gets away with
it again and again and again. Any suggestions on how to proceed
would be greatly appreciated.
Dear NH Elected Officials and Others,
Below please
find a recent message I've sent the U.S. Congress related to VAWA.
I hope you are interested in the facts I have represented, as they relate
directly to
Most Sincerely,
Marc Snider
Dear Congress and Other Interested
Parties,
I think (and
hope) you will be interested in the following exchange as it relates to VAWA
and the terrible harm it is causing to the foundation of
Most
Sincerely,
Marc Snider
------------------------------
This is
certainly a germane point. The Judiciary, and particularly the family
court, has been tainted nationwide by VAWA as these huge state-based coalitions
have grown rich with the backing of VAWA funds. In NH the NHCADSV (
http://www.nhcustody.org/My
Of course they
will never mention the true Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
statistics wherein the facts show that mothers are more than twice as likely
(40.8% vs 18.8%) to abuse, neglect, or maltreat children
than are fathers.
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov
http://www.nhcustody.org/My_Homepage_Files/child_maltreatment.html
The propaganda
spread by these state coalitions knows no boundaries and the federal funds
backing them have turned them into the most powerful lobbying,
advertising, and 'training' organizations in the country. It's
no wonder that fatherhood and the American family unit have fallen so far, with
disasterous consequences for the nation's children of
divorce.
Here is the
most egregious example of conflict of interest and political insidiousness as
encouraged by the VAWA that I have ever seen (though there are many egregious
examples nationally): In New Hampshire, the woman who is
arguably the most powerful legislative lobbyist, judicial trainer, and
anti-fatherhood advocate in the state in her capacity as the Policy Director
for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV)
is also the Chair of the New Hampshire Guardian Ad Litem
(GAL) Board, and is thus also the most powerful person in the state as regards
NH's Guardians Ad Litem who are ostensibly
supposed to be representing the best interests of NH's children of divorce in
custody proceedings.
Is it any
wonder that these GALs, who need no evidence at all
in court to back up their subjective opinions about what access children should
have to their own fathers overwhelmingly recommend the
path of primary physical custody for the children's mother instead of joint
physical custody? After all, they would have to answer to the chief
anti-fatherhood advocate in the state should they not recommend wisely.
Could do a number on their GAL revenues, couldn't it?
http://www.nhcustody.org/My
The
infiltration of American social fabric has been completed by the state domestic
violence coalitions and they continue to undermine the family unit through the
vast tools provided them in the form of the VAWA. The future does
not look good if VAWA remains as it is...
Marc Snider
On
If we get
VAWA fully exposed (I have been faxing legislators too), this paragraph in
particular from Baskerville's recent article inspired me to consider redress
for past harms incited by VAWA as worthy a mention:
Especially questionable is federal
funding of lobbying by judges, who are professionally obligated to be apolitical.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) – consisting
of judges who sit on actual cases and are required to be impartial – receives
federal support to attack fathers' groups and fathers themselves for being
"at odds with the safety needs of the rest of the family." Can
fathers summoned before these judges expect equal justice? NCJFCJ advocates
administrative termination of paternal rights, termination of fathers' rights
to their see their children with no evidence of violence, ignoring officials
who question abuse allegations, ignoring visitation orders, re-education of
judges, and labeling law-abiding American citizens who criticize the government
as "dangerous ."
In other
words, fathers separated from their children due to VAWA-induced impartiality
by judges should have a means for redress. That to me personally would be
the ideal amendment to VAWA.
July 28, 2005
Dear Congress, Staffers, and Other
Interested Parties,
Please see the
commentary below from yet another woman who knows the truth about
VAWA. More and more fathers, and men in
general, are recognizing that the rights purported to be upheld by this country
are nothing but smoke and mirrors. VAWA is the great lie and it is
polarizing and dividing the country at a dangerous rate.
So many fathers,
and many of them military veterans, have seen the inside of the nation's family
courts now and lost their parenting rights, their ability to pursue happiness
after the emotional and financial devastation visited upon them and their
children, and all without the due process that the aged and no longer used
Constitution claims to protect that the Congress is truly endangering the
future health of our country. No longer can our elected officials claim
to be upholding the civil rights of fathers in
Do any of you
ever wonder why 75%+ of the nation's divorces in families with children are
initiated by mothers? I'll tell you why: Because of
VAWA. The state coalitions are special interest groups who are bent on
eliminating fatherhood, not preventing domestic violence. And the divorce
attorneys around the country know the truth and tell every client that walks in
the door the reality. It is sickening.
Who is going to
defend this country and fight for the rights of the state domestic violence
coalitions to continue to attack fatherhood and empower the pandemic of fraudulent
domestic violence allegations without redress for perjurers that is so rampant
nationally? Fewer and fewer men, that's who...
Before you know it you will need to be authorizing a draft.
Volunteers are already becoming more and more scarce...
It would seem
time for the nation's fathers and other supporters of equality in parenting and
equality in civil rights to begin the search for a 3rd party candidate in
earnest. With no other option to ensure the stability of the nation's
family structure, the rights of children to retain access to both parents at
the time of divorce, and the ragged refuse that the Constitution has become
this is apparently the only plausible course of action.
I hope the
Congress proves me wrong and either truly fixes VAWA or kills the bill
entirely. Hope does not spring eternal, however...
Marc Snider
Comments from '
the "AS IS" of VAWA (Violence Against Women
Act) ...
To all. My name is Deborah Fellows and I am the founder of New York Civil
Rights Council.
I am here to register my opinion about VAWA. I just finished writing an
affidavit for a plaintiff in the Schenectady County Supreme Court. The first
line was:
Because of the abuse I have suffered with the relationship between the
defendant and myself I suffer from a version of posttraumatic stress disorder,
battered women's syndrome and memory loss.
The first page was one of 10. In this situation the plaintiff asked for an
order of protection over a month ago. It still hasn't been issued. The
application for the order stated that the defendant is using excessive
litigation, slander
and libel,and harassment. It
went on to contain letters from the plaintiff's insurance company stating how
the defendant has been calling there threatening and harassing them because the
plaintiff changed the car insurance with the defendant's permission. They have
lived apart for 3 years and there is an order stating that they are entitled to
do such things.
It also contained a letter from the plaintiff's psychologist stating how the
defendant has been calling him and threatening and harassing him. The defendant states that the plaintiff
didn't have permission to introduce their 2 teenaged children to the doctor.
What is the importance of this affidavit I sent out? The plaintiff is a male.
He has been abused most of his adult life by his wife. It's documented by the 6
doctor's involved in this case including the defendant's psychologist of 18
years.
I find VAWA offensive, unconstitutional and just plain wrong. Why is it OK in
the
While thousands of our troops are giving their lives to defend the freedom of
"3rd World Nations", to free women from their Burka's
and circumcision, right here on our own soil I am defending our men.
Violence is violence is violence and VAWA MUST become gender neutral. If it
doesn't maybe someday another country will have to step onto our soil and free
our men.
Deborah Fellows
The
Debby Fellows -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group
http://www.fafny.org
http://www.ken-rohling.com
Unbelievable. So, this guy was separated from his wife in 2004, and then not allowed to date while the separation persisted? The story linked below doesn't give all the details, but the action taken by the military seems ludicrous on its very face...
You're damn right,
Mark, that it will be a wonder if this country is able to keep recruiting
men to fight for it. Why anyone would defend this country's right to
curtail the civil liberties of men in Orwellian fashion strictly because of
gender is a very reasonable question. Our current social policy
nationally is incredibly shortsighted from a national security standpoint.
As more and more
young men recognize the truth about the inherent dangers of starting a family,
or even of entering into a relationship that is sanctioned by the state, we'll
have fewer and fewer men willing to engage in personal risk to themselves for a
country that pays only lip service to freedom.
Sadly, in the
The emperor has
no clothes.
Those who have
enacted, and/or continued to defend, the family law policies that predominate
nationwide are the TRUE dangers to American national security. No
lie. The expensive suits and hollywood-style
media fame heaped upon our elected officials shouldn't fool anyone.
Our present elected officials are not only trodding
on the rights of non-custodial parents (overwhelmingly fathers, through VAWA,
title 42, and no presumption of parenting equality) and children of divorce, they are also endangering the health of our
country at a very dangerous time in modern history.
The threat from
abroad grows stronger and stronger, whether from Muslim fundamentalists, from a
strengthening and mobilizing
What rights have
we, the devastated non-custodial parents of
Marc Snider
On
In today's
WASHINGTON
| August 13,
2005
General Disobeyed Orders to End Affair, Officials Say
By
DAVID S. CLOUD
A four-star general relieved of his command
for adultery was ordered last January to break off the affair, two senior Army
officials said.
