Author: Super User

Background: I recently partnered with Dr. Ned Holstein and Fathers & Families in a campaign to protest Florida Department of Children & Families’ actions in the “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami. In that case, Rafael Izquierdo, a fit, loving father, has faced numerous obstacles to reunite with his 5-year-old daughter.

Thousands of you answered our call to action, and the campaign has been covered or cited in hundreds of newspapers. Florida DCF, to its credit, met with us last week. To learn more or to join our campaign, click here.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist (pictured) has sent out the letter below to those who have joined our protest campaign. We knew, of course, that he couldn’t discuss the Izquierdo case directly, but our larger concern is the child welfare system’s disregard for fathers, an issue Crist’s letter doesn’t address.

To be fair, I’ll give Crist credit for responding, and also for acknowledging to the press that it has been a sizeable protest campaign. I suspect that one reason DCF has acted as it has is that Governor Crist seeks the loyalty, votes, and campaign donations of the large Cuban-American community. Crist (correctly) sees defeating Rafael Izquierdo and keeping his five-year-old girl in the US against his will as a way to win Cuban-American votes. In Florida, sticking it to Cuba’s government is a crowd-pleaser, similar to the way politicians win popularity by beating up on “deadbeat dads.”

Crist’s letter is below.

Thank you for contacting Governor Charlie Crist. The Governor appreciates your concerns about the Izquierdo child custody case and asked me to respond on his behalf.

Governor Crist wants to know how people feel about the many critical issues we face. Rest assured, the Governor is committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all children in Florida. The Department of Children and Families is charged with assisting abused and neglected children. The department does this by providing support services to children and their families, and, in some cases, by providing a place outside of the home for children to live while their family problems are resolved in the courts.

Governor Crist appreciates your sharing suggestions for changes to the department”s procedures. It is our understanding the Department of Children and Families has communicated with Dr. Ned Holstein to discuss these very issues.

Thank you again for contacting the Governor”s office. Please do not hesitate to write in the future to share your concerns about issues that are important to you.

Sincerely,

Warren Davis
Office of Citizen Services

This ad for Kohler bathroom fixtures is funny, but, as I’ve said many times before, the “man as idiot” theme got old a long, long time ago.

On the positive side, I wish my plumber looked like that…

To watch the commercial, click here or see below.

To watch some other videos of “dad as idiot” TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.

To see ads that the National Organization for Women considers to be offensive to women, click here.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_RLXfxtouE]

Background: Newsweek magazine writer Lorraine Ali briefly quotes from my co-authored column Rise in Out-of-Wedlock Births Is Bad News for America”s Kids (Washington Times, 12/4/06) in her new piece Knocking Yourself Up–Some women laugh about turkey basters replacing Mr. Right. The ongoing debate over going it alone (Newsweek, 11/5/07). The piece centers around Louise Sloan, author of the new guidebook Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom. Sloan now has a fatherless 16-month-old son. The piece favors women who decide to have fatherless children. To learn more, click here.

In the article, Ali writes “Sloan found herself single at 41, though she’d always considered herself ‘definitely the marrying kind.'” A few comments:

1) This is a common claim made by single mothers by choice but I don’t buy it. Sloan didn’t “find herself single at 41”–she chose to be single at 41. If she wants to be single, fine, that’s her choice, but it’s a choice, not an accident.

The choice probably stems from the excessive pickiness which afflicts some women–they’re always so good at finding reasons why this guy and that guy and all guys somehow aren’t right for them or aren’t good enough. I wrote about this in some detail in my co-authored column Men Blamed for Marriage Decline but Women’s Relationship Wounds Often Self-Inflicted (Chicago Tribune, 1/21/07). Feminist bloggers Catherine Price of Salon.com/Broadsheet and Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon called the column “Hateful” and “Virulent” but sorry, I think it was neither and I stick by it. I wrote:

“The current trend away from marriage and towards divorce and/or remaining single has more to do with overcritical women and their excessive expectations than it does with unsuitable men…

“Nobody would dispute that, in selecting a mate, women are more discerning than men. This is an evolutionary necessity–a woman must carefully evaluate who is likely to remain loyal to her and protect and provide for her and her children. If a man and a woman go on a blind date and don’t hit it off, the man will shrug and say ‘it went OK.’ The woman will give five reasons why he’s not right for her.

“A woman’s discerning, critical nature doesn’t disappear on her wedding day. Most marital problems and marriage counseling sessions revolve around why the wife is unhappy with her husband, even though they could just as easily be about why the husband is unhappy with the wife. In this common pre-divorce scenario there are only two possibilities-either she’s a great wife and he’s a lousy husband, or she’s far more critical of him than he is of her. Usually it’s the latter.

“Despite this week’s media homilies, it’s doubtful that many men or women are truly happy alone. Much of women’s cheerful ‘I don’t need a man/I love my cats’ reaction has a hollow ring to it, and sounds a lot more like whistling in the dark than a celebration.

“Yes, there are some men who make poor mates, but not nearly enough to account for the divorce epidemic and the decline of marriage. While it’s easy and popular to blame men, many of the wounds women bear from failed relationships and loneliness are self-inflicted.”

2) The degree to which women are (or claim to be) in denial about how they “find themselves single” as they approach or pass 40 has surprised me on numerous occasions. One example was during my debate on the Roman v. Roman Texas frozen embryo case on Fox’s nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in June. In the case, the couple had tried for several years to have a child (and had one miscarriage) before undergoing infertility treatments. The day before the embryos were to be implanted, Randy Roman told his then-wife Augusta that he was troubled by certain aspects of their relationship and wanted to wait to implant the embryos until they had resolved their problems. They went to counseling for six months and later divorced. Augusta, 47, still wants to have the children, and Randy has refused.

On the show I debated the issue with Augusta Roman and her attorney Becky Reitz. The co-hosts, Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, were sympathetic to Augusta, and Juliet at one point got annoyed over my suggestion that Augusta could adopt a child instead of having one herself. I also questioned Augusta’s decision to blame the fact that she never had a child on Randy, pointing out that she’s 47 years-old and had had many opportunities.

Huddy got very angry at me, saying that what I said could apply to her (at age 37) and that it wasn’t her (Juliet’s) decision to not have had a kid yet. I didn’t want to push the issue too far because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and it wasn’t central to what we were debating, but we sparred briefly over it and I found it hard to believe that Juliet could claim that she hadn’t exercised a choice in the matter. To watch the video of the odd exchange, click here.

“[Going to a strip club] is ABUSE. It is no different from hiring a hooker for sex except that you don’t stick it in…the man did deserve an ashtray in his skull (or perhaps the loss of one important piece he needs to get excited for strippers)…”

Syndicated columnist Amy Alkon (aka “The Advice Goddess”) often emails me amazing stories, and this one is no exception. Recently one of Alkon’s readers sent her the following letter:

“My husband of two months has always treated me very well, and is usually thoughtful. But, one week before our wedding, he broke a promise. I hate the whole stripper thing, so he agreed to a coed party at a dueling piano bar. There was a strip club next door, but he promised he wouldn”t go in. All was well until I learned that he and his brother (who”s nothing but trouble) were at the strip club. I went over and went crazy and tossed an ashtray at his head. I was kicked out, they followed, and his brother yelled at me. I wanted to call off the wedding, but we still got married. Since then, I keep bringing this up and he keeps begging for forgiveness, saying he”d never been so drunk, and he didn”t know what he was doing. I just can”t understand how he could hurt me this way.–Still So Angry Inside”

Alkon responded:

“If your husband tossed an ashtray at your head, do you think he”d be describing himself as ‘Still So Angry Inside’ or ‘Still In Court Trying To Get The Charges Reduced’?

“It doesn”t take much for domestic violence against men to be taken seriously…usually, just a chalk outline where a man”s body used to be. The rest of the time, people tend to shrug it off or even find it cute: ‘Well, well, well, she”s quite the firecracker!’ Granted, male abusers can do much more damage with their fists, but put a heavy object in a woman”s hands, and good morning brain damage!”

Alkon then received the letter below:

“I just had to write back over this one. My mother sends me your articles and this one just set me off. Just like the woman whose husband went to a strip club, so did my husband of 10 years (we have 3 kids together). I have to say that I had much the same reaction as she did. I do not advocate any type of abuse from either side of a relationship, but going to a strip club IS JUST THAT….ABUSE. It is no different from hiring a hooker for sex except that you don’t stick it in. I find it disgusting that you attack this woman for her reaction, and then advocate this strip club behavior as ‘normal’…I think the man did deserve an ashtray in his skull ( or perhaps the loss of one important piece he needs to get excited for strippers)…This behavior should not be legal ANYWHERE…”

Alkon’s full post, including her response, can be seen here.

[Note: If you or someone you love is being abused, the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of domestic violence and their families.]

Newsweek magazine writer Lorraine Ali quotes from my co-authored column Rise in Out-of-Wedlock Births Is Bad News for America”s Kids (Washington Times, 12/4/06) in her new piece Knocking Yourself Up–Some women laugh about turkey basters replacing Mr. Right. The ongoing debate over going it alone (Newsweek, 11/5/07). The piece centers around Louise Sloan, author of the new guidebook Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom. Sloan now has a fatherless 16-month-old son.

As you could guess, the piece favors women who decide to have fatherless children–the only named opposition to the practice in the piece is my short quote. Ali also quotes Rosanna Hertz, author of Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice. Hertz and Peggy Drexler, author of Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, are the leading feminist gurus of voluntary single motherhood.

[To read my previous critique of Hertz and her book, see my co-authored column Are Single Mothers the ‘New American Family?’ (World Net Daily, 9/28/06). To see my previous critique of Drexler and her book, see my column Raising Boys Without Men: Lesbian Parents Good, Dads Bad (World Net Daily, 9/10/05)]

Obviously I disagree with much of what Ali (and Hertz and Drexler) have written, but I’ll limit myself to just two:

1) Ali tries to denigrate the importance of fathers in children’s lives by downplaying the numerous studies which show the vast differences in child well-being between single mother and two-parent households. She is correct that this difference is narrower when looking only at highly-educated, economically-secure mothers. However, the difference is still there.

2) Not all “well-being” can be measured by social scientists. Are there any adults who really believe that it won’t matter to Sloan’s 16-month-old boy that he doesn’t have a father?

Ali’s article is below.

Knocking Yourself Up–Some women laugh about turkey basters replacing Mr. Right. The ongoing debate over going it alone
By Lorraine Ali
Newsweek, 11/5/07

Sex And The City’s” Carrie Bradshaw once asked, “What if Prince Charming had never shown up? Would Snow White have slept in that glass coffin forever? Or would she have eventually woken up, spit out the apple, gotten a job, a health-care package and a baby from her local neighborhood sperm bank?” Though it’s hard to say how Disney would have grappled with a no-show prince, if Ms. White were to awaken alone today, it’s possible she’d take the advice of Louise Sloan, author of the guidebook “Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom.”

Sloan found herself single at 41, though she’d always considered herself “definitely the marrying kind.” Determined to become a mother, the Brooklyn-based writer inseminated herself with sperm from an unknown donor she refers to as No. 2, “a tall, handsome green-eyed actor (Favorite color: blue. Favorite pet: dogs)” in the attic of her conservative family’s Kennebunkport, Maine, summer house. Sloan now has a 16-month-old son, and uses her experience–as well as those of almost 50 more unpartnered, educated and financially independent straight and gay females over 30–to propel her humorous “how to” book for aspiring single moms. She offers practical advice on choosing the right donor and informing prospective grandparents in chapters titled “Oops, I Forgot to Have a Baby” and “Trysts With the Turkey Baster.”

Sloan’s amusing take on this provocative subject is already spurring caustic feedback online, though it’s the lightest offering among several recent books that include Rosanna Hertz’s academic account, “Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice,” and Mikki Morrissette’s firsthand account/guide, “Choosing Single Motherhood.” “We’re in a transition period–people are not just getting married because that’s what you do if you want to have kids,” says Sloan. “Women now have careers, are financially independent and waiting until they find the right guy. Most of us want to meet the perfect person and live happily ever after, but sometimes we don’t.”

Whether by choice or circumstance, the evidence suggests that more and more women are considering single parenthood. Unwed births among 30- to 44-year-olds rose 20 percent from 1991 to 2006, and last year alone, four in 10 U.S. babies were born outside of marriage even though teen pregnancies hit their lowest point in 65 years. Fairfax Cryobank, one of the biggest sperm banks in the United States, says its single-female clientele jumped 20 percent in the last decade and now accounts for 60 percent of its customer base.

Not everyone is embracing the unorthodox version of mommy. Fifteen years after Vice President Dan Quayle admonished TV’s Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, a recent review of “Knock Yourself Up” on Salon.com generated plenty of criticism, like that from someone who identified himself as “straight, married white male, three biological children.” He wrote that Sloan is an “upper-middle-class white woman pursuing her pregnancy fantasies.” And recently, blogger Glenn Sacks wrote on the Fathers & Family Web site that the rise of single mothers by choice was a “disturbing” phenomenon and is “bad news for America’s children.” “It’s provocative, this question of ‘Do men bring something unique in the raising of a child?’?” says Hertz, chair of the women’s studies department at Wellesley College…

Read the full article here.

Below are some recent articles and items of interest from Fathers & Families’ latest News Digest.

Larry David’s divorce mirrored on ‘Curb’ (Associated Press, 10-23-07)

More seniors consider divorce (The Korea Times, 10-23-07)

Divorce will put woman on stand at first-degree murder trial (Vancouver Sun, 10-23-07)

Center for Family Development serves in many ways (Shelbyville Times-Gazette, 10-24-07)

Domestic Violence Laws Require Reform, Groups Say (Hawaii Reporter, 10-24-07)

Divorce: a better way out of marriage (Telegraph, 10-24-07)

African American divorce rates outpace other races (Kansas City Call, 10-24-07)

Separating with civility (The Globe and Mail, 10-25-07)

Couple’s divorce experience helps others (SunHerald.com, 10-26-07)

Kansas high court rules against sperm donor (Kansas City Star, 10-26-07)

Background: Last week I partnered with Dr. Ned Holstein and Fathers & Families in a campaign to protest Florida Department of Children & Families’ actions in the “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami. In that case, Rafael Izquierdo, a fit, loving father, has faced numerous obstacles to reunite with his 5-year-old daughter.

Thousands of you have answered our call to action, and the campaign has been covered or cited in hundreds of newspapers, including by the Associated Press, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writers Group, Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, and over a dozen Florida newspapers. Florida DCF, to its credit, has agreed to meet with us. To learn more or to join our campaign, click here.

In our letters and faxes to Florida DCF we asked that they contact Dr. Holstein and meet with him to discuss the issues put forward in our protest. As the Miami Herald reports below, today that meeting occurred. In addition, Dr. Holstein met with embattled father Rafael Izquierdo. The article is Fathers’ rights group meets with Cuban dad (Miami Herald, 10/24/07).

According to the Herald:

“A national fathers’ rights group has taken on the cause of a Cuban father trying to gain custody of his daughter, an effort that included sit-downs with key players in the case Wednesday.

“Dr. Ned Holstein, president of the Boston-based nonprofit Fathers & Families, flew to Miami to meet with the father of the 5-year-old girl at the center of the dispute, Rafael Izquierdo.

“Holstein was also scheduled to meet with staffers at the Department of Children & Families Wednesday afternoon to ask them to drop their efforts to keep the girl in the United States.

”’We’ve been following this very closely,’ said Holstein, who said members and supporters of his group have sent more than 2,000 e-mails to Gov. Charlie Crist’s office and DCF in recent weeks.

”’I don’t think there’s bad faith here,” Holstein said. ‘But I think we’re involved in a culture in which a father is considered irrelevant’…

“Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jeri B. Cohen has ruled that Izquierdo is a fit parent. A second phase of the trial — to determine whether the girl will be harmed if removed from the Cubas home — is scheduled to begin Monday. Holstein, a physician who founded the nonprofit advocacy group following his own divorce, said he was impressed with Izquierdo’s ‘dedication to his daughter and determination to do the right thing.'”

Read the full article here.

Below are some recent articles and items of interest from Fathers & Families’ latest News Digest.

Larry David’s divorce mirrored on ‘Curb’ (Associated Press, 10-23-07)

More seniors consider divorce (The Korea Times, 10-23-07)

Divorce will put woman on stand at first-degree murder trial (Vancouver Sun, 10-23-07)

Center for Family Development serves in many ways (Shelbyville Times-Gazette, 10-24-07)

Domestic Violence Laws Require Reform, Groups Say (Hawaii Reporter, 10-24-07)

Divorce: a better way out of marriage (Telegraph, 10-24-07)

African American divorce rates outpace other races (Kansas City Call, 10-24-07)

Separating with civility (The Globe and Mail, 10-25-07)

Couple’s divorce experience helps others (SunHerald.com, 10-26-07)

Kansas high court rules against sperm donor (Kansas City Star, 10-26-07)

My new co-authored column, From a Felony to a Phone Call: Texas Prop 13 Will Allow Innocent Men to Be Jailed Without Bail (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Austin-American Statesman, 10/22/07), criticizes a Texas Proposition which has drawn the support of many state newspapers. The column appears below.

I co-authored the piece with Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

From a Felony to a Phone Call: Texas Prop 13 Will Allow Innocent Men to Be Jailed Without Bail

By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks

Texas voters will decide on November 6 whether to approve Proposition 13, a dangerous measure which will harm innocent men by greatly eroding the rights of those accused of domestic violence. The measure grants judges the ability to hold without bail those accused of nonviolent, trivial, or accidental violations of temporary restraining orders.

Under current Texas law, the only defendants ineligible for bail are those accused of capital crimes. In addition, judges are provided discretion to deny bail to those who have been both charged with a felony and convicted or indicted for a previous felony. To deny bail, there must be “evidence substantially showing the guilt of the accused.’

Prop 13 obliterates this, and opens the road for many innocent men to be held without bail. Like many states, Texas has adopted aggressive arrest procedures on domestic violence calls. The result has been that men are sometimes arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence based on thin evidence. After the arrest, Emergency Protective Orders are entered against the accused, typically barring him from going home or having any contact with his children. Fathers can violate the orders by innocent acts such as calling their own children, accidentally running into them and their mother in the mall, or going to their Little League games.

Under Prop 13, judges will have the power to incarcerate without bail men who violate their EPOs. Moreover, the Proposition lowers the evidence standard from Substantial Showing to Preponderance of the Evidence, which can rapidly degenerate into a “he said/she said’ contest that men usually lose.

Even worse, Prop 13 also encourages the legislature to pass a law which would allow fathers who violate temporary ex parte protective orders to be jailed without bail. Women can obtain these orders by claiming their male partners abused them, and the men are then booted out of their own homes without ever having a chance to defend themselves in court.

It is true that ex parte protective orders can be a useful tool to help protect battered women. However, as the Family Law News, the official publication of the State Bar of California Family Law Section, recently explained:

“Protective orders are increasingly being used in family law cases to help one side jockey for an advantage in child custody…[the orders are] almost routinely issued by the court in family law proceedings even when there is relatively meager evidence and usually without notice to the restrained person.’

These orders have become so commonplace that the Illinois Bar Journal calls them “part of the gamesmanship of divorce.’

Dallas/Ft. Worth criminal defense attorney Paul Stuckle explains:

“Judges pass out ex parte protective orders like Halloween candy. If judges read the estranged spouse’s affidavits, it is typically a cursory review. The judges are handed a stack of these ex parte applications when they arrive in the morning, and they usually just rubber stamp them. There is rarely any meaningful judicial review.”

According to the Texas House of Representatives” House Research Organization, Prop 13″s proponents claim that accused men “would retain all their rights to due process and other protections. For example, the determination to deny bail would have to be made at a hearing in which the defendant could appeal the denial of bond or make a case for another bond.’

This ignores the fact that protective orders–both the Emergency Protective Orders Prop. 13 will apply to or the ex parte protective orders Prop. 13 encourages the legislature to include–often seriously impair men”s ability to obtain legal representation and defend themselves. Protective orders make men homeless and can cut them off from their financial resources. In cases where they work with or near their wives, or operate businesses partly or wholly out of their homes, their incomes can disappear overnight. By contrast, women obtaining protective orders are afforded free legal services by victim advocates at local domestic violence shelters, and remain in the marital home.

The House Research Organization also states:

“The proposed amendment also could have unfair consequences relating to legislation enacted by the 80th Legislature – HB 1988 by Martinez – which allows some protective orders to be in effect for life. This could result in someone being denied bail for one mistake after years of following a protective order.’

Prop 13 is reflective of a dangerous legal trend. Laws and police policies for those accused of domestic violence have been made increasingly draconian, clogging court calendars with weak or evidence-free cases which, were it any other crime, wouldn”t even be acted upon. At the same time, the judicial system hasn”t devoted substantial additional time and resources to investigating and adjudicating domestic violence claims. The result is often assembly-line justice in Kangaroo Courts. Prop 13 will accentuate this trend, and victimize many innocent men and fathers.

This column first appeared in The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram and the Austin-American Statesman (10/22/07).

Mike McCormick is the Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. Their website is www.acfc.org.

Glenn Sacks” columns on men’s and fathers’ issues have appeared in dozens of the largest newspapers in the United States. He invites readers to visit his website at www.GlennSacks.com