New Column: Persecuting Low Income Parents

As some of you may have read, Kentucky launched a new jihad against deadbroke/"deadbeat" dads recently. My latest co-authored column, Persecuting Low Income Parents (Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post, 8/26/05), criticizes the campaign. To learn more, see the Associated Press' article Jefferson to publicly expose deadbeats (7/25/05), in which my co-author, family law attorney Jeff Leving, was quoted, and Child-support ad pays off in tips (Louisville Courier-Journal, 8/2/05).

If you have an opinion about the column or child support issues, I suggest you write a Letter to the Editor by clicking here.

In the column we discuss Frances Borgia's attempted courthouse suicide, which I had previously covered on His Side. To hear my radio commentary on Borgia, click on Deadbeat Dad or Deadbroke Dad?

I criticized Kentucky's humiliating 'Deadbeat Dad' lists on the Martha Zoller Show on WDUN AM 550 in Gainesville/North Atlanta on Thursday, August 11, and on Dave Krusenklaus' "Kruser and Krew" afternoon drivetime show on WLVK AM 590 in Kentucky on Wednesday, August 10. To learn more about the lists, see my new co-authored column Persecuting Low Income Parents (Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post, 8/26/05).

His Side on Fox News

His Side was filmed and I was interviewed for a recent Fox special about paternity fraud victim Taron James. To watch, click here.

As part of Operation Northern Watch, James carried out hazardous reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines aftermath of the Gulf War. He earned four service medals and three ribbons before his honorable discharge in 1994. Yet his reward for his service has been a decade of unremitting government harassment, financial deprivation, and a struggle to stay out of jail.

James was the victim of a false paternity declaration made while he was serving overseas. To learn about Taron's story, see my co-authored column Defrauded Veterans Have Mixed Emotions on Veterans Day (Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 11/11/03). I told Fox of my exasperation that this case--which should have been open and shut--has dragged on so long.

The good news is that this month the paternity judgment against Taron--for a child he never knew, much less fathered--was finally, finally overturned. Congratulations to Taron, and also to Marc Angelucci, Taron's attorney.

Also congratulations to Raegan Phillips, James' longtime fiancee who has stood by him during this battle. Any man would be lucky to have such a loyal partner.

The battle against paternity fraud in California has been a long one. To learn more, see my column Paternity Fraud Victims Need Justice (Los Angeles Daily News, 3/15/02), concerning the Paternity Justice Act of 2002 (AB 2240). The bill passed the legislature but was vetoed by then Governor Gray Davis at the urging of the California National Organization for Women and other feminist groups. I blasted Davis' veto in my co-authored column Preserving Paternity Fraud (Orange County Register, 10/3/02).

We turned the tide on paternity fraud in California last year, due in large part to the work of advocates like Michael Robinson, Marc Angelucci,  Men Enabling New Solutions, the National Coalition of Free Men Los Angeles, and numerous others.  AB 252 passed and is now law. Also, in the Navarro case last summer, Second District Court of Appeal Justice Rubin spat on Los Angeles County child support enforcement, telling them that his court refused to "sully its hands" by enforcing false paternity judgments. To learn more, see the His Side show Appeal Court to LA County: 'We Won't Sully our Hands' Enforcing False Paternity Judgments (8/8/04).

The Fox show also contained some bizarre clips of arch-feminist California legislator Sheila Kuehl waxing nostalgic about two of her usual targets--tradition and fatherhood. In arguing against AB 2240 (so that men would still be compelled by the state to pay child support for children who are not theirs), Kuehl informs us that fatherhood is more than "donating genetic material," and pointed to the loving bonds between fathers and children. Yet Kuehl has done everything she could to destroy fathers in California.

For one, she has sponsored and helped pass domestic violence legislation which makes it easier for unscrupulous mothers to drive fathers out of their children's lives by false charges of domestic violence. Also, Kuehl very much opposed the LaMusga decision and our campaign to preserve it. To learn more, see my co-authored column Is a Pool More Important than a Dad? (San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Daily News, 5/4/04), and California Senate Leader Pulls Anti-Child Bill in Face of Huge Opposition (MND Newswire, 8/16/04).

On the Fox special Kuehl also defended the ancient tradition that any child born during a marriage is presumed to the child of the husband, thus allowing mothers to force divorced dads to child support for children they conceived through adulterous liaisons. Kuehl emphasized that we must stick with tradition. This touching faith in tradition is very odd coming from Kuehl, a lesbian who would have been treated very cruelly and unfairly in any traditionalist society.

Glenn Quoted in Dallas Morning News on TV Dad Bashing

I'm quoted on TV dad bashing and stay at home dads in the news story Homer, make room for real dads (Dallas Morning News, 8/17/05). The article also discussed the His Side Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial. To learn more about TV dad bashing, see Father Knows Best? (CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, 6/19/05), in which both I and Warren Farrell appear, as well as my column Why I Launched the Campaign Against Verizon's Anti-Father Ad (Pasadena Star-News, 11/18/04).

The Dallas Morning News article also discussed CBS' new dad-mocking reality TV show Meet Mister Mom. To watch excerpts of Meet Mister Mom, click here. To comment on Meet Mister Mom, click here.

To learn more about the contributions fathers make to their families, see my co-authored column Indiana Woman's 'Housework Strike': Maybe It's Husbands Who Should Strike (Gary Post-Tribune, 11/8/02) and my column Stay-at-Home Dads: A Practical Solution to the Career Woman's Dilemma (Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/29/02).

Debtors' Prison in Michigan?

While in Kentucky fathers are being hounded and publicly humiliated for being poor, in Michigan Louie Joe Kalman is being imprisoned for it--see Debtors' prison claimed in appeal (Daily Telegram, 8/23/05). His attorney argues that the two- to four-year prison term he was given in December amounts to debtors' prison. As we've discussed before, there are many fathers who are jailed or imprisoned simply because they were unable to pay the child support amounts the state demanded.

There is another interesting element of the Kalman case--the cruel and insane policy of most states that allows child support to be charged to incarcerated men, so that when they emerge from prison they are way behind on support. In my column California Child Support Bill Will Help Newly Released Prisoners Rebuild Their Lives (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 5/9/02), I quoted Elena Ackel, senior attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, on the genius of this policy:

"The wonder of the current system is that everybody loses. The state tries to beat astronomical child support arrearages--$20,000 or $30,000 in many cases--out of dead broke, unskilled, and unemployed people who just got out of prison. Some of these people even end up back in jail because they couldn't pay the child support which accrued while they were in jail. Who benefits from this?"

Kalman is certainly no prize--he served a decade in jail for auto theft, bad checks, and attempted robbery. Still, my view of ex-convicts has always been this--I don't care about punishing them, I just want them to not commit more crimes. Also, Kalman's debt to society was repaid through his many years in prison--the punishment is supposed to end when he is released. Piling a staggering fake child support arrearage on an ex-con only guarantees that he'll slip back into crime, live on the margins of society, or, as in this case, go back to jail. Apparently most if not all of Kalman's staggering $37,345 child support debt in Lenawee County, Michigan piled up during his decade in prison.

In 2002 former Los Angeles Assemblyman Rod Wright introduced AB 2245 into the California State Assembly to solve this problem. The bill was killed in committee about a week after my column supporting it was published. Wright is one of the few politicians in the nation to pay attention to fathers' issues, and has done a lot of good work on paternity fraud and child support enforcement abuses. Wright was termed out but will be running for the legislature again next year--I will be supporting him and will let you know what you can do to help.

Feminists, Men's Activists Clash at LA Movie Screening

Feminists and men's activists clashed during a screening of the documentary "Before the Fact" at the Raleigh studios in Los Angeles on Wednesday, August 17. The film is the work of filmmaker Michael J. Holland and focuses on violence in intimate relationships. Holland was arrested for shoving his wife in an argument, and accepts full responsibility for what he did. However, he contends that his wife, who he says did everything she could to provoke him, should also be called upon to examine her own behavior. It was an interesting and provocative film.

I sat on the discussion panel along with reverend Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), gender studies professor Dr. Hugo Schwyzer, lobbyist Michael Robinson, and Marc Angelucci, president of the National Coalition of Free Men Los Angeles.

I clashed with Peterson, who make several wild and insulting generalizations about women, including "99% of [family] violence is coming from women." After I distanced myself from his comments he accused me of wimping out, and he and got into a brief, angry jawing match in front of everybody.

To read Schwyzer's perspective on the panel, click here. Schwyzer's depiction of the events is accurate enough within the context of (sigh) Hugo's pro-feminist blinders, but I would dispute a few points. For one, since the film focused on men's violence against women and never mentioned women's physical violence against men, it was appropriate to discuss the convincing evidence that heterosexual men are also often the victims of their female intimates' violence. To learn more about male victims of domestic violence, see my column Plaintiff in Suit Against LA DV Shelters is Right to Demand Services for Abused Men (Los Angeles Daily News, 6/12/03).

Schwyzer wrings his hands that there was such a somewhat lengthy discussion of "statistics." While I agree that it went on too long, I also believe that since feminists have so often used fallacious statistics to vilify and stigmatize men, it is appropriate and necessary for men's activists to correct the record.

Schwyzer contends that the feminists in the audience walked out in protest, though I'm not sure that that's what happened. There was a lot of commotion and the camera lights were so bright in my face that it was hard for me to see exactly what was happening. There were certainly many heated exchanges.

Schwyzer criticizes the screening for having an all-male panel with only one pro-feminist panelist. However, filmmaker Adryenn Neuenburg, who organized the event, says she invited several women's groups and feminist activists to be on the panel but they declined.

BTW, Hugo is getting married next week--I congratulate him and wish him luck.

English Fathers' Rights Protestors Go Free After Bridge Occupation

Four English fathers' rights protestors involved in a high profile bridge occupation last November walked free this week--for details, see Fathers' rights protesters walk free after Severn Bridge demo (ic Wales - United Kingdom, 8/16/05).

The popular support these protestors have is evident both in the outcome of the case and the judge's courtroom comments. The bridge protest featured the heroic Jolly Stanesby, a divorced father of one who has been involved in several daring, creative protests. Stanesby handcuffed himself to the English anti-father "Children's" Minister Margaret Hodge at a family law conference in Salford in November, 2004.

Stanesby also spent seven days on Tamar Bridge in Plymouth, England in January, 2004, refusing to come down from his freezing perch despite being told "you could die up there," and then enraging British police by cleverly eluding capture. Stanesby is a registered child care provider and is thus allowed to care for any child in England except his own, who he is barred from calling and is allowed to see only four days a month. Stanesby , who became a registered child minder in the hope he could spend more time with his five year-old daughter, also made news in 2003 as the "Ms. Doubtfire Dad." Stanesby appeared in court dressed as a woman, making the point that if he switched genders he would be treated more fairly.

To hear Stanesby on His Side, go to Nonviolent Resistance by British 'Dads Army' Rocks UK (2/15/05). I also discussed Stanesby in my Address to the 2004 Men's Rights Congress in Washington DC The Future of the American Father (6/19/04). In that speech I defended Fathers 4 Justice's tactics and called for them to be expanded into the United States.

Militant Grandmas Fight for Shared Parenting

Three Sides to Every Story is an organization set up by militant grandma Bessie Hudgins to help fathers in their fight to stay in their children's lives after divorce or separation. Hudgins has fought a 16-year battle to keep in touch with three of her granddaughters. Her son is a divorced dad who was pushed out of his daughters' lives. Bessie can be contacted at three3sides@aol.com or at 706-882-2897.

Shared Parenting Advocate Runs for State Legislature

Shared parenting advocate Ron Grignol of Fathers for Virginia has won the Republican Party nomination for a seat in the Virginia state legislature. Grignol is campaigning against Democrat Mark Sickles for the House of Delegates in the 43rd district, and is making shared parenting one of the key issues of his campaign. If successful in the November elections, Grignol hopes to become part of the Civil Law subcommittee of the Courts of Justice Committee of the House of Delegates, which handles family law matters.

Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, calls Grignol a "strong, consistent advocate for family law reform and shared parenting."  David Levy, Esq., president of the Children's Rights Council, says he personally knows Ron Grignol to be a "strong shared parenting advocate who believes in father involvement with their children" and supports his candidacy.

Are You Looking to Earn Money Working from Home?

If you're tired of working long hours away from home and are interested in starting a home based business, check out www.EntrepreneurfromHome.com. Many people are earning good incomes working from the comfort of their own homes, while also being there for those special moments with their children. To learn more, go to www.EntrepreneurfromHome.com or call 1-800-705-0528. Don't your kids deserve to have a happy parent at home?

Congratulations to Tom Ellis for selling out his first printing of The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing Patience with Feminism, Political Correctness... and Basically Everything. Tom will have a new edition out soon. Rantings describes the rise of feminism from the mid '70s to the present, through Ellis' personal experiences.  Not for the faint of heart, The Rantings of a Single Male is loaded with outrageous stories. The Rantings of a Single Male is available only on Amazon.com. To learn more, click here. 

Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com
HisSide.com

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