NPO Blog Archive

Los Angeles, CA–Two weeks ago we launched a campaign against Fox’s proposed reality show Bad Dads. Bad Dads unfairly depicts divorced fathers as uncaring and selfish, and publicly humiliates children of broken families by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them.

Fox has received over 5,000 calls, letters, and faxes from our supporters, and our protest garnered coverage in over 300 newspapers. Nearly a hundred educators, mental health experts, and family law professionals publicly condemned Fox’s Bad Dads and endorsed our campaign. We also drew support from advocates for low income families.

As Kathleen Parker noted in her syndicated column, this campaign was an early, preemptive strike. The pilot has not been made yet, and all that has been contracted is a 10 minute promo for a pilot. We now have good reason to believe that we will never see Bad Dads aired.

Given the large response and media coverage, we have made our point to Fox, and have decided to suspend the campaign against Bad Dads. We will continue to monitor the situation, and if in the future we have good reason to believe that Fox will be going ahead with the show, we will renew our efforts. The campaign web page will remain up, as will all relevant information concerning the campaign.

Thanks to all of you who participated in what we believe has been a successful campaign.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ned Holstein, president of Fathers & Families
Dr. Linda Nielsen, president of the American Coalition for Fathers & Children
Glenn Sacks, newspaper columnist/radio host, www.GlennSacks.com

Boston, MA–Nearly 100 educators, mental health experts, attorneys and
physicians have condemned Fox”s possible television show “Bad Dads.’ These
professionals have endorsed our campaign against the show, lending
additional credibility to our cause. We have also garnered support among
advocates for low-income families.

Most importantly, our membership has deluged Fox with over
5,000 letters, faxes and emails protesting the show. These protests are the
result of a cooperative effort between Fathers & Families, ACFC, and Los

Are you in a relevant profession and willing to add your
name?  Then please do so on our blog comments at the bottom.

The list of endorsing professionals follows:

Howie Altholtz
Attorney at Law
Boston, Massachusetts

Marc E. Angelucci, Esq.
Men’s Legal Center
San Diego, CA.

Lloyd Axelrod, M.D.
Mass. General Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Maury D. Beaulier
Attorney At Law
St. Louis Park, MN

J. Michael Bone, PhD, President
JMB Consulting, PA
Winter Park, FL

Dawn Bowie
Attorney at law
Rockville, MD

Jan Brown
Founder and Executive
Director Domestic Abuse
Helpline for Men and Women
Harmony, Maine

Anthony C. Campagna, MD
Senior Staff  Physician
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Lahey Clinic
Burlington, Massachusetts
Assistant Clinical     
Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts

Steven Carlson, The Custody Coach™
Child Custody Coach
Orange County, CA

Michael Carolla, LMFT
Co-Parenting Mediator
Pleasant Hill, CA

Jose David Cohen
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
North Hollywood, CA

Victor Clark Cohen
Attorney, Divorce Mediator
Board Member, Breakthrough
Parenting Services, Inc.
Los Angeles, CA

Gene C. Colman
Attorney at Law
Ontario, Canada

Anthony J. Comparetto, Esq.
Attorney At Law
St. Petersburg, FL

J. Christian Conrad
Attorney at Law
Laguna Hills, CA

Robert Anthony Cornejo, J.D.
School Principal, Attorney At Law
Montebello, CA

Terrence J. Cullen, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Bedford, MA

Mark T. Davis, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
El Paso, TX

Charles H. DeBevoise, Esq.
Boston, MA

Claudia Dias, MSC
Attorney at Law
Family Law Mediato
Domestic Violence Intervention Facilitator
Sacramento, California

Peter J Dimatteo MD,
FACEP
Duxbury, MA

David Dodson, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Wellesley, MA

Brian C. Downs, Esq.
Candidate for Judge of the 17th Circuit Court
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Dr. Donald Dutton
Professor of Psychology
Univeristy of British Columbia,
Vancouver BC.

Christian A. Eades, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Washington, D.C.

Stephen D. Finstein, LCSW,
LMFT, LSOTP
Mental Health Consultant
Dallas, TX

Michael Friedman, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Berkeley, California

Sheara Friend, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Boxboro, MA

Matthew D. Gold, M.D.
Neurologist
Associate Clinical Professor
Tufts Medical School
Everett, MA

Stephen A. Gershman, CFLS
Certified Specialist in Family Law
Board of Legal Specialization
Sherman Oaks, California

Glenn D. Herlihy, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Haverhill, MA

Edwin C. Holstein, MD, MS
Clinical Assistant Professor
Mr Sinai School of Medicine
New Your, New York

Robert J. Hundertmark
Attorney At Law
Woburn MA 01801

Stephen J. Johnson, Ph.D., 
LMFT, CRC
Director, The Men’s Center
Los Angeles
Woodland Hills, CA

Karen Jones
Author, Relationship Coach
South Lawrence, MA

Michael Kennedy, JD
Child Support Liberation, Inc.
Upland, CA 91786

Gregory T. Kotonias, M.D.
Assist. Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Boston University
School of Medicine
Boston, MA

Neil Leavitt
Attorney at Law
Hollywood, Florida 33021

Edward H. Lee
Family Law Attorney
Springfield, NJ

Stephen Levine, Esq.
Certified Specialist by
the State Bar of California
Criminal Law
San Bernardino, CA.

Wayne M. Levine, M.A.
Director, BetterMen.org
Agoura Hills, CA

Jayne A. Major, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Breakthrough Parenting

Anthony Mancini, J.D.
Peabody, MA

Jacqueline R Mark, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Reading, PA

Brett W. Martin, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Westminster, CO

Linda G. Mills, B.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., J.D.
Author, Violent Partner
New York University
New York, NY

Enrique A. Monteagudo, J.D
Child Advocate
San Diego Family Law Council for
Children
San Diego, CA

Steven W. Newell, M.D.
Children”s Voices of Colorado, Inc.
Lone Tree, Colorado

Tracy Nightingale
Attorney at Law
St. Louis Park, MN

Michael L. Oddenino
Family Law Attorney
Arcadia, CA

Patricia Overberg, MSW
Former Director, Valley Oasis
Domestic Violence Shelter
Lancaster, CA

Nicholas Palermo, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Boston, MA

Curtis J. Patton
Family Attorney
Pittsburgh, PA

Pat Piper, PhD
Child and Family Therapist
Wellesley, MA

Kevin Polis
Family Law Attorney
San Diego, CA

Jay Portnow, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Clinical Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation,
Tufts Medical School
Boston, MA

Hon. Milton H. Raphaelson, Esq.
Retired Massachusetts District Court Judge

Al Rava, Esq.
Civil Rights Attorney
San Diego, CA

Adam M. Sacks, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Beverly Hills, CA

Shari Schreiber, M.A.
Counselor/Author
Los Angeles, CA

Frederic H. Schwartz, MD
Worcester, MA

Lisa Scott
Family Law Attorney
Seattle, WA

Wendy Sheppard, MSW
Parenting Coach and Therapist
Ambler, PA

David C. Stone, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Anaheim, CA

Paul Stuckle
Attorney at Law
Plano, TX

Henry A. Tenenbaum, PH.D.
Psychologist
Sarasota, FL

Michelle Ventimiglia, MA
Early Childhood Educator
Northridge, CA

Karen Wagner, MA
Parenting Coordinator
Marietta, Georgia

Albany, New York–A bill before the New York State Legislature would require that ALL persons who received restraining orders would be required to wear an electronic dog collar (OK, I admit, it”s actually a GPS ankle bracelet). For more information, see the bill here or here. 

This device would allow the government to track their whereabouts 24/7. It costs about $4,000 per year to monitor a person wearing such a device. The monitoring is carried out by private companies that win contracts with the State to do the job. For about 50,000 restraining order per year in New York, the tab comes to about $200 million per year. But note that the New York State website states that the financial impact to the state would be “minimal.’ That means that they are planning to dun the wearer for the costs.

This bill takes away judicial discretion  — in other words, the judge would be required to order the dog collar, rather than judging the need on a case-by-case basis. It is striking that whenever the family court reform movement presses for a change, take shared parenting, for instance, we hear the hue and cry that our proposal would remove judicial discretion – even though most such bills would not. But here we have clear-cut loss of judicial discretion, and they are all rushing to pass this bill.

This bill appears to be identical to a bill that actually passed the New York State Senate last year, but mercifully died in New York”s other chamber, the Assembly. It seems to be identical right down to the following nonsensical sentence, which also appeared last year:

“In 1999 the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services received 55,558 police reports of family offenses involving adult intimate partners. In one out of five of these cases the victim knew the offender . . . . .’   If you read this sentence carefully, it seems to say that only one out of five people who are intimate actually know each other. This gibberish shows just how much thought has gone into this knee-jerk bill.

In February of this year, this bill won Fathers & Families” nationwide contest for worst family court legislation in the country. See the blog post here. Now it has been reborn.

Just in case you”ve been living on another planet and don”t understand what is wrong with this bill, let me tick off some of the problems:

– Restraining orders are given out pretty much on request. In the context of a failed intimate relationship, they are often requested not out of fear, but out of anger, spite, jealousy, desire to evict, desire to save attorney fees, attorney advice, or to gain advantage in a custody dispute.

– No study exists that accurately determines the proportion of restraining orders that have been obtained with false or greatly exaggerated claims. Court insiders such as attorneys and judges give estimates that range from about 25% to 80%. But the subject is so politically inflammatory that they will only speak off the record, so the abuses continue. Even if the lower estimate of 25% is accepted, that amounts to around 500,000 to 750,000 unmerited restraining orders per year. In New York State, it would be around 12,500 to 40,000 innocent people per year required to submit to 24/7 government monitoring.

– About half of the requests do not even claim a violent act or a threat. Rather, the complainant merely states a vague fear that something bad might happen in the future.

– There is no due process in most cases. Restraining order hearings are an evidence-free zone.

– The restraining orders harm children by cutting them off suddenly and without explanation from innocent parents, and putting them in the sole care of parents who are unscrupulous, to say the least. Children are hurt and bewildered when a parent they love disappears without explanation. It is even worse for them when the vengeful parent deceives them by saying their other parent is absent because he is evil, or because he is dangerous, or because he does not love the child.

Boston, MA–Another example of the hazards of Parenting While Male. According to Suspicious incident on-board MBTA bus resolved (5/6/08) from WBZ News in Boston:

“Transit police have identified the man seen with a young girl on-board a bus at Sullivan Station Sunday night.

“Officers have met with both the young girl, and the family member who was with her on the bus.

“A passenger noticed a man holding the child’s hand. That passenger says she overheard the girl say she was hungry, and the man told her to ‘Please be quiet.’

“The police say there was no criminal conduct. They consider the case closed.”

So the man (pictured, with the girl) was a “family member,” probably the father but maybe a different relative. He held his daughter’s hand on the bus and told her to be quiet when she was complaining about being hungry. For this, he’s investigated.

The case reminds me of the Victor Emmer case–see my blog post ‘The police can’t even stick a loitering charge on this guy, and they’ve gone and ruined his life’.

It also reminds me of the Virginia Billboard controversy–see my blog post Rush Limbaugh Covers Our Protest of Man-Bashing Virginia Health Department Billboards.

Fairfield, OH–As anti-male as family courts are, this story is still a little hard to believe. The case is described in the story Man Jailed After Daughter Fails To Get GED (WCPO TV, 5/9/08). Ben, a reader, says:

“Summary:

1) Father was ordered to see to it that his daughter got her GED
2) Daughter’s problems in school were at a time that she lived with her mother
3) Both mother and daughter agree that either one of them should go to jail before the father.
4) Father’s current wife believes he might lose his job of 15 years for being in jail

To their credit, both women in the story–the mother and the daughter (pictured)–accept responsibility for the problem, and say if anyone should be punished it’s them, not the dad.

According to the story:

“A Fairfield man is in jail because his daughter hasn’t gotten her General Equivalency Diploma (GED).

“A judge ordered the father to stay on top of his daughter’s education months ago and when that order wasn’t followed, Brian Gegner was sentenced to 180-days in the Butler County jail.

“The daughter, Brittany Gegner, says her father shouldn’t be punished for her problems.

“Especially, she says because she’s now 18, an adult.

“‘It’s ridiculously wrong,’ said Brittany Gegner.

“‘Of all the punishments they could have given him, to make him go to jail?,’ she asked. ‘I mean, probation – until I get my GED – would be reasonable, but to send him to jail? That’s overboard.’

“Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not following a court order which required Gegner to be sure his daughter got her GED.

“This comes after ongoing problems of Brittany skipping classes at Fairfield High School and then, Butler Tech.

“While Brian Gegner had custody of her, Brittany says it was while she lived with her mother that she was truant.

“‘I’m about to be 19 and my Dad’s being punished for something I did when I was 16,’ she said.

“‘It’s like I should, if anybody should be punished for this,’ said Brittany. ‘I would way rather me go to jail than my Dad.’

“‘They probably should have punished me if they were going to punish anybody,’ said Brittany’s mother Shana Roach. ‘Because she did live with me at the time, but because he had the custody, that’s why he’s being punished.’

“‘But I don’t understand the punishment all together because she’s going to school, she’s been going for four months,’ said Roach. ‘The only thing that’s holding her back is she can’t pass her math test.'”

Read the full article here.

It still seems like there must be more to this than we’re hearing. If Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus wishes to respond with his side of the story, he may do so by emailing me at glenn@glennsacks.com. I will publish what he sends me.

Los Angeles, CA–Background: Fox recently announced its intention to launch a new reality show called Bad Dads. According to Reuters, in Bad Dads Jim Durham, director of the National Child Support Center, “functions as a sort of ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ for tracking deadbeats…[Durham’s role is as] an avenger of penniless single mothers [who] hunts down deadbeat dads and forces them to pay child support…It’s ambush reality TV.”

We oppose Bad Dads because it unfairly depicts divorced fathers as uncaring and selfish, when research clearly shows that most divorced dads pay their child support and remain a part of their children’s lives, often under difficult circumstances. It also publicly humiliates children of broken families by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them.

I partnered with Fathers & Families and the American Coalition for Fathers & Children in a campaign to ask Fox to cancel Bad Dads, and Fox has received over 5,000 letters, faxes and calls from our supporters. To learn more about our campaign or to join us, visit our campaign page here.

Adam Voiland of U.S. News & World Report covers our campaign in his new piece ‘Bad Dads’ Reality TV Show Stirs Controversy (5/2/08) and does a creditable job.

On a side note, the article is another example of one of my favorite maxims–“No good deed goes unpunished.” I’ve received hundreds of emails about our campaign, and I don’t think I’ve received more than 2 or 3 that were negative or critical. When I got a critical email from a reader named Bruce, I thought I would share it with my readers so the opposition perspective can be seen. And guess what happens?

Based only on that one letter, my buddy Adam writes “There are people protesting the protest, too.” Sigh…

For aficionados of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, I guess I did a Brutus when I should have done a Marc Antony…

Los Angeles, CA–Apparently the filming of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is being plagued with problems. While listening to McIntyre In The Morning on KABC in Los Angeles this morning, I was dismayed when KABC entertainment reporter Debra Mark (pictured) lightly and semi-laughingly mentioned that one of the film crew had been “stabbed in a domestic dispute.”

In fact, according to the UPI article she was reading from (see below), the man almost died. Host Doug McIntyre (pictured below) and co-host Rob Marinko, both normally reasonable men, seemed mildly amused, too.

All together now–“If a wife was stabbed and almost murdered by her husband, would we be amused by it?”

As we’ve discussed before, this light dismissal of male victims of domestic violence is common in the media. I detailed one of them in my co-authored column Suppose Roles Had Been Reversed in Clara Harris Case (Houston Chronicle, 1/27/07).

Worker on new ‘Bond’ film found stabbed
UPI, May 4, 2008

DORNBIRN, Austria, May 4 (UPI) — A 58-year-old working on the Austrian set of “Quantum of Solace,” the latest James Bond movie, has been stabbed in a domestic dispute, police say.

A police spokesman said the unidentified technician was in “critical” condition after allegedly being attacked by a woman in Dornbirn, the Mail on Sunday reported.

“The woman appears to have attacked the man with a steak knife in the bedroom,” an unidentified police spokesman said.

“He suffered deep cut wounds to the head and hands, and the first policeman to arrive thought he had died as his pulse was so weak and there was so much blood.”

The discovery of the wounded crew member Saturday morning marked the third unusual event involving the production of the 22nd Bond film, the Mail said.

The British newspaper said a 29-year-old crew member survived a car crash two weeks earlier in Italy and a stuntman was seriously injured six days later while filming a chase scene.

Los Angeles, CA–My recent His Side with Glenn Sacks radio commentary for KLAA AM 830 in Los Angeles discusses a recent legal victory for Michael Shannon, whose two sons were abducted to Egypt.

To listen to the commentary, click here or on the audio button below.

To learn more, click here.

His Side with Glenn Sacks radio commentaries are broadcast daily on KLAA AM 830, a 50,000 watt talk station in Los Angeles and Orange County. KLAA AM 830 is owned by Arte Moreno, owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

From 2003-2005, His Side with Glenn Sacks ran in a syndicated talk show format in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and other cities. To listen to show archives, click here.

[audio:http://www.glennsacks.com/hsrc/mp3/hsrc-abduction.mp3]

Washington–Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writers Group–whose columns run in over 300 newspapers–just came out with a scathing piece criticizing Fox’s Bad Dads and supporting our Campaign Protesting Fox’s Reality Show Bad Dads. Parker writes:

“Of those everyone loves to hate, few can compete with the deadbeat dad for longevity.

“How much do we hate him? While we’re counting the ways, Fox TV may try to help America organize its contempt and put a face on this loathsome character. Bad Dads, redundant in these male-bashing times, is the name of a new reality show Fox is considering. While the network reviews the pilot, outraged fathers’ advocates are trying to nip this bad seed before it buds…

“Executive producer JD Roth describes his creation as ‘justice.’

“‘It’s a show that depicts the sacrifice and heartache of incredibly brave women on behalf of their kids and then ends in the most gratifying way possible.’ Really? How gratifying can it be for children watching television to see fathers humiliated in front of the world? Not much is an easy guess.

“For that reason, among others, fathers’ advocates are justifiably outraged at this new exploration of human prurience. Glenn Sacks, a Los Angeles-based dad advocate and radio personality, along with Fathers & Families and the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, has launched a pre-emptive strike against Fox on his Web site (www.glennsacks.com/foxbaddads)…

“Bad Dads is just the latest insult to men and especially fathers who feel, appropriately, that they’ve been maligned and minimized through television programming and advertising. In sitcoms, men are typically buffoons. And fathers, if they exist, are inept and unreliable, while Mom is a paragon of virtue and competence…Bad Dads reinforces a stereotype that is neither accurate nor fair. The rich pig who leaves his wife and kids for a pole-dancing aerobics instructor — or who enjoys extended martini lunches with his golf pals — is far from the norm.

“The more accurate picture of a deadbeat dad is an unemployed or underemployed bloke who sees more jail cells than golf courses. A common sequence of events for the poorest deadbeat dads goes something like this: Fall behind in child support, get arrested and put in jail, lose your job, fall further behind in child support.”

Parker’s full column is “Bad Dads” a Bad Idea (5/2/08)