| Some
of you have contacted me concerning
donations to our PBS campaign.
It is certainly true that
this campaign has been costly
both in terms of money and
time. If you'd like to donate
to support our efforts, click
here. Thanks to those
of you who have already donated.
Boston
Globe Columnist Criticizes
Breaking the Silence,
Urges PBS to Cover Fathers'
Views
Columnist
Cathy Young criticized PBS's
Breaking the Silence: Children's
Stories and urged PBS to air
fathers' views in her new
column
PBS's negative picture of
fathers (Boston Globe,
11/21/05).
In the column
Young noted "Film producer
Dominique Lasseur told me
he was shocked by the backlash"
to the film. This is
true, but not in the way one
might think.
Lasseur
and his cothinkers are accustomed
to having carte blanche to
bash men and fathers. Lasseur
isn't surprised that there
are people who don't like
his film--what surprises him
is that this time his opponents
organized themselves properly
and lit him up. A PBS internal
memo sent out after we launched
the campaign gives a sense
of PBS's surprise and coordinated
effort at damage control--see
PBS Internal Memo Tells Affiliates
to Stonewall Protesters
(October 23, 2005).
Lasseur
is now learning the lesson
that
John Burton,
Todd Goldman,
Verizon,
Mike Cox and others have
learned--while the fathers'
movement still has a long,
long way to go, we are now
a credible force quite capable
of organizing popular protests
and gaining media attention.
Young debunks
claims made by law professor
Joan Meier, one of the film's
main experts, that ''75 percent
of contested custody cases
have a history of domestic
violence" and that about
two-thirds of fathers ''accused
or adjudicated of battering"
win sole or joint custody
of their children.
She also
discusses the case of Tom
Gallen, a father who lost
custody of his children to
an abusive wife and who approached
Lasseur about being in the
film. Though Lasseur concedes
that Gallen's case was "well-documented,"
he declined to include Gallen
or any other male victims
in the film.
In her writing
Cathy Young works hard to
be fair to both sides of an
issue, which is commendable.
However, in discussing the
Loeliger case, there are
a couple of problems.
For one,
she writes that there were
"fairly serious child
abuse allegations against"
Sadia Loeliger. There were
plenty of allegations, many
of them quite serious. But
more importantly, there were
court findings of multiple
acts of child abuse. The
victims were Scott & Sadia's
daughter Fatima (interviewed
and dubbed "Amina"
in the film) and also Sara,
Sadia's niece who lived under
her care. For this reason,
all three of the children
living under Sadia's care
were adjudged as dependents
of the juvenile court.
Young also
writes "The documents
also reveal a messy, complicated
case in which most evaluators
concluded that both parents
were behaving 'abominably.'"
In the context
of nightmarish custody battles
with accusations on both sides,
it is tempting (and often
accurate) to throw up one's
hands and say "a plague
on both your houses."
In this case, however, it
hardly seems appropriate.
Sadia Loeliger
committed numerous acts of
violence
against the children under
her care,
against Scott Loeliger,
and against
others. As one of the
judges in the case noted,
she also waged a long and
ultimately successful campaign
of
parental alienation against
Scott.
Scott is
criticized at times by the
evaluators and third parties
in this case, but there's
nothing credible in the record
which compares to Sadia's
behavior. And there's not
even an allegation that
he ever physically abused
either his alienated daughter
Fatima or his ex-wife Sadia.
The column
also contains a nice plug
for
Fathers and Families of Massachusetts--let's
hope it helps them. Their
leaders, Dr. Ned Holstein,
M.D, M.S. and Dan B. Hogan,
J.D., Ph.D., have a tough
row to hoe in pro-feminist
Massachusetts. Massachusetts
family courts are known for
their anti-father custody
bias, no evidence required
restraining orders (209As),
and a child support guideline
that is one of the
most unfair in the nation.
PBS Miami
Affiliate Announces it Won't
Run Breaking the Silence
WLRN, PBS's
Miami affiliate, will not
be airing Breaking the Silence,
according to Heather Stever,
the station's Audience Response
Coordinator.
The Air
War
Now that
we're in the holiday season,
getting media will be increasingly
difficult. However, since
the airing of Breaking the
Silence last month we have
generated a good deal of publicity
for our side. By contrast,
the opposition--despite being
vastly better funded and much
more connected--has made few
inroads in the media since
the original broadcast.
Concerning
opinion columns, ours include:
Cathy Young's
PBS's negative picture of
fathers (Boston Globe,
11/21/05)
Wendy McElroy's
PBS Film Ignites Fathers'
Rights Debate (Fox News,
11/7/05)
Jeff Leving
& Glenn Sacks'
Film Goes Too Far as Advocate
for Cutting Fathers Off From
Kids
(Los Angeles Daily Journal,
San Francisco Daily Journal,
11/1/05)
Jeff Leving
& Glenn Sacks'
Film gives distorted view
of family law
(Albany Times-Union, 10/20/05)
Jeff Leving
& Glenn Sacks'
PBS's Breaking the Silence:
Family Law in the Funhouse
Mirror
(Norfolk Virginian Pilot,
10/24/05)
To my knowledge,
the only column published
on the opposition's side was
Critics of Child Abuse Film
Miss the Point in Rush to
Defend Fathers (Los Angeles
Daily Journal, San Francisco
Daily Journal, 11/1/05).
We have
also received significant
media attention on radio shows
and other media. These include:
nationally-syndicated radio
talk shows such as the Dennis
Prager Show and the Michael
Reagan Show; networks such
as American Family Radio and
Focus on the Family Radio;
and local shows like NPR's
CrossTalk and the Scott Sloan
Show in Cincinnati.
We have
also appeared on PBS affiliates
in Houston, Texas, Columbus,
Ohio and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
An Answer
to Trish Wilson
As I noted
last week, feminist blogger
Trish Wilson, a longtime opponent
of the fatherhood movement,
has decided to become Sadia
Loeliger's defender. Trish
has described my work around
the Loeliger case as "heinous"
and "horrid."
One of Trish's
main accusations against me--repeated
many times on her blog--is
that when I first set up the
Loeliger page on my website,
I listed a
statement posted on the
internet in Fatima Loeliger's
name in a section called "Opposition
Views." Trish wrote:
"A
teenaged girl's own story
of abuse at the hands of her
father and stepmother is seen
by fathers' rights activists
as 'The Opposition.' As I
have noted elsewhere, that
was one hell of a Freudian
slip."
I posted
Fatima's letter on my website
because I like my audience
to be able to read and hear
what the other side has to
say on any issue I'm discussing.
Trish, by contrast, does not
have a single link to my work
on Loeliger on either her
blog or on the
website she set up for
defending Sadia Loeliger.
Both in last week's enewsletter
and on my website I urged
my readers to go to Trish's
site and read her material.
I listed
the statement written for
Fatima Loeliger and posted
on the internet in her name
in the section called "Opposition
Views" because the views
expressed are the product
of Sadia Loeliger's long,
relentless and ultimately
successful Parental Alienation
campaign. They are Sadia's
views, and Sadia is the opposition.
I later
switched it from "Opposition
Views" to
Sadia Loeliger's Side of the
Story because feminist
blogger
Ampersand--who I respect--wrote
me and told me that my wording
was "tacky." I hate
to be "tacky", so
I changed it.
There are
times when I ask myself why
fatherhood advocates and feminist
organizations are at such
odds. Since I was an activist
in the feminist movement in
the '80s and early '90s, the
question is particularly relevant
for me personally. I think
the clash between Wilson and
I helps answer this question.
When we released
the Loeliger revelations
someone asked me what I thought
Wilson's reaction would be.
I told them "Trish will
sit this one out." I
honestly believed that even
a dedicated opponent such
as Wilson would not want to
defend a mother with such
a long and well-documented
history of violence and child
abuse.
Sad to say,
it turns out that I was wrong--Wilson
has decided to become Sadia
Loeliger's defender, posting
Sadia's problem-riddled defense
of herself on her website.
According
to Wilson, "most heinous
of all is that with the help
of one of the named fathers
in the documentary, they [Sacks
& Co.] have taken to attacking
one of the [film's] protective
mothers."
Here Wilson writes that
"fathers' rights activists
are attacking a protective
mother and her abused child.
The campaign against the documentary
shows how horrid fathers'
rights activists really are."
(Sigh)...Sadia Loeliger, "protective
mother." I would
pose Ms. Wilson and her co-thinkers
a few questions. In custody
cases where there are accusations
back and forth, both parents
often claim to be the "protective
parent." If we declare
Sadia Loeliger to be a "protective
mother," could we ever
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