The Violence Against Women Act is why Fathers Abandon Their Families

[Modem Butterfly]

:puke:

Phyllis Schafly is off her meds again.

:puke:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7713

Where have all the fathers gone? Some men are irresponsible slobs, but no evidence exists that nearly half of American children were voluntarily abandoned by their own fathers; there must be other explanations.

For 30 years, feminist organizations and writers have propagated the myth that women are victims of an oppressive patriarchal society and that marriage is an inherently abusive institution that makes wives second-class citizens. Feminists made divorce a major component of women's liberation and their political freedom.

During the Clinton Administration, the feminists parlayed their hysteria that domestic violence is a national epidemic into the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This created a gigantic gravy train of taxpayers' money, known as feminist pork, that empowers pro-divorce, anti-male activism.

Billions of dollars have flowed from VAWA to the states to finance private victim-advocacy organizations, private domestic-violence coalitions, and the training of judges, prosecutors and police. This tax-funded network is, of course, staffed by radical feminists who teach the presumption of father guilt.

Legislating a special category of domestic violence is very much like legislating a special category of hate crimes. Both create a new level of crimes for which punishment is based on who you are rather than what acts you commit, and the "who" in the view of VAWA and the domestic-violence lobby is the husband and father.

[annabanana]

1. Phyllis Schafly

She has been loony tunes since the '60's unhinged her. Her Daddy must've whupped her good so's she knows that wimmens is not aktual peoples.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

2. Goes to prove the adage - the good die young. How old is that

witch? 150? 200?

Just another rethug had making a life out of hate.

[donsu]

33. yes, Phyllis has been hating women nearly her whole life, but she

loves powerful, criminal men in suits

[Tsiyu]

3. parents have been abandoning their children since

there were parents and children.

But we'll blame the women anyway.

[Modem Butterfly]

4. This paragraph just KILLS me...

Where have all the fathers gone? Some men are irresponsible slobs, but no evidence exists that nearly half of American children were voluntarily abandoned by their own fathers; there must be other explanations.

Translation: I don't know why fathers leave their families, but I do have an agenda, so I'm going to pull some bullshit reason out of thin air. Let's see, what to say, what to say... Oh, I got it! Men can't beat their partner with impunity anymore, so they just end up leaving. Now, how do I say that in a way that somehow makes feminists into villans?

[bertha katzenengel]

8. Now you've got it!

That "woman" is off her nut.

[cynatnite]

24. It tells me...

she's blaming the women whose husbands abandom them and their children. she's blaming the women who are beaten.

[sam sarrha]

5. here is the evdence.. Men are F'n Dogs. some can be house broken some cant

[cornermouse]

6. Phyllis needs to go work in a women's shelter.

Get a little reality and first hand observation of the very real violence against women in her life.

[Modem Butterfly]

16. None are so blind as they that will not see

I think putting Phyllis Schafly in a shelter would be more damaging to the survivors and rather unenlightening for her. I think it would do more harm than good.

[bertha katzenengel]

7. "legislating a special category of domestic violence" -- eh?

Makes me want to find the stats on how much domestic violence is perpetrated by women and children.

Seriously. I need to learn how to differentiate between radical right wing loons and people who can do REAL damage. Because this getting angry at RRWLs like Phyl here is going to give me a heart attack.

[Yupster]

34. Put Phyllis Schlaffly in the

can do very real damage department.

She may have had the most influential life of any woman alive today.

In the 1970's the Equal Rights Amendment was sailing on its way to an easy passage. Then Phyllis Schlaffly decided to oirganize a group to stop it.

And stop it in her tracks she did. It got to the poiint that state legislatures who passed it even tried to go back and take back their vote.

And that wasn't all. She parlayed that success into building a national organization of Christian activists which was the first inklings of an organzed religious right. Then Ronald Reagan noticed her and they became friends and allies before he was president.

She helped him win the nomination and the general election.

She has had enormous influence through the years of my lifetime. I don't know ho2w much influence she still retains 30 years later.

[USAcitizen]

9. What she is saying is.......

30 years ago when no one reported domestic abuse, things where much better. Some people still just want to hide sexual and domestic abuse in the closet and pretend everything is just fine. Well, so much for the "good ole days"

[EFerrari]

25. She's also saying the a large number of us just can't wait

to get rid of our husbands so we can enjoy single motherhood.

LOL!

[ET Awful]

10. "Congress should not be spending taxpayer money

to deal with marital disputes"

No, in her world, they should be spending taxpayer money to prevent loving couples from getting married.

[Cats Against Frist]

13. And spending money to "promote" heterosexual marriage

This woman is a nut job. I like that the title of her book is called "The Supremacists," because that is exactly what she and her conservative Christo-fascist ilk are -- supremacism is one of the fundamental components of religious tyranny.

[sendero]

11. It's been a while..

.... since I've seen a screed so utterly unable to substantiate a single claim made.

I'm not particularly wild about hate-crime or special domestic violence legislation simply based on the fact that I don't believe in giving prosecutors infinite tools to nail someone with - but men leaving their kids? That's 99.9% the fault of the men and nobody else.

[Solly Mack]

12. She came into this world an idiot & she'll leave this world an idiot

and inbetween she'll spout ignorance.


That's the sum total of Phyllis Schafly.

[Pathwalker]

14. So, THAT'S why my old man left us back in the 50's!

and here all this time I thought it was because Mom said to choose either the booze or us, and he chose the booze! :sarcasm:

[Avalux]

15. I'm speechless

Ol' Phyllis obviously doesn't live in the real world - such a shame. I think there's a special place in hell just for her, where she's beaten continuously by an authoritarian male.

[iconoclastic cat]

17. What an outrageous load of crap!

The "game" is that mothers can assert falsehoods or trivial marital complaints and thereby get sole custody orders that deprive children of their fathers. This "game" is based on the presumption (popularized by VAWA and the domestic-violence lobby) that fathers are inherently guilty and dangerous.

You know, I've never heard of this "game." How could it be happening on such a large scale?

Feh. Idiocy.

[BiggJawn]

18. There is a tiny bit to that.

The assumption that Men are ALWAYS the guilty ones.
I became Custodial Parent of my daughter when she was 11. After her mother stopped paying support, I tried to get the Court to help collect, like she did with me when I went through a financial hardship (commonly referred to as an ex-wife who blew everything, including the water bill money)
Do you wanna know what their first reaction was?

"There must be some mistake. Men PAY support, they don't get support!"

Their second reaction? "Do you REALLY need that $25 a week?"

It's not a game, it's misanthropic hide-bound dogma.

It's ALWAYS the MAN'S fault.
Men are Scum.
Men ALWAYS abandon their kids. Any Father worth the name will not let a "little thing" like a 600-mile round trip keep him from visiting EVERY weekend (useful for proving "abandonment")

It's a racket. And it chews up just as many fathers as it does mothers and kids.

[iconoclastic cat]

19. But what you're talking about is a problem of bias in the legal system.

Which I agree is a huge issue. There is not, however, some conspiracy among feminist mothers to con fathers.

[BiggJawn]

31. No, not amongst the mothers...

I did notice some kind of odd hostility in the system. Custodial fathers are viewed as an aberration, it Does Not Compute. Goes against EVERYTHING they picked up along the way to their MSW degrees....

[EFerrari]

21. I've talked to many dads who have been victimized by the

stereotypes that hurt us all.

I remember being cut my youngest's kindergarten teacher because I had shared custody with his dad. Obviously, I wasn't a good enough mother.

[LeftyMom]

35. The same thing happened to my father

and now he has to pay 100% of my sister's college tuition because the gov't assumes the same mother who hasn't paid child suppourt since kid sis was in diapers is paying her share of her educational expenses.

[Yupster]

36. Sympathies BigJawnn

I think it's pretty much universally awknowledged that the court systems need to be changed to eliminate or at least dampen down the biases between mother and father.

My own pet peeve is forcing men to pay cild support for children once they find out the kid is not theirs. There's a pretty famous case near me where a guy had three kids with his wife. They got divorced because of his wife's cheating, and he was required to pay child support. His wife moved in with her boyfriend.

The kicker was when the wife informed the man that the kids weren't his anyway- they were her boyfriend's.

He got bloodtests and sure enough, two of the three kids are the boyfriend's not his.

So the situation is the mom is living with three kids and her boyfriend. The ex-husband is sending a check for the three kids from his blue collar job. So the man who got cheated on is sending a monthly check to the home of the guy who cheated on him to pay for the cheater's kids, not his own. Could that be any more fucked up? But it's the law.

He stopped paying for the two kids that weren't his, was arrested as a deadbeat dad, and had his wages garnished. Then he was arrested again when he told one of the kids why he stopped paying. The court had ordered him not to tell the kids that fact.

And the mom? Her and her boyfriend are living fine with their kids, and they get a check every month from some poor schmuck because the law says he has too.

This situation made the papers and even tv but it's not that uncommon. Usually there's a time limit after which you cannot legally challenge the paternity of your kids, so if your wife cheats on you, lies to the government about who the dad is, and then tells you years later that you've been had, then the law is on her side and you're just a poor pitiful shmuck so keep paying.

I know there are movements to correct some of these more blatantly outrageaous laws. I don't know if any have gotten anywhere.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. When I think of ALL the kids I know who have never even

known their father, this bullshit doesn't fly.

A few weeks ago, I posted a thread about a former student who had been arrested for murder at age 17. His father has 4 families. He rotates among them, spending a few days with each family. This was a big part of this kid's problems. When the school counselor and I gently mentioned this to his mother, she said 'well at least he knows his father, not all kids do nowadays'.

I believe men not being held accountable for the kids they father is a much more significant factor than the VAWA.

[Tsiyu]

30. Yeah, that's why the wealthy husband who beat the fuck out of me

and my kids got custody of my three-year-old - a child he paid no attention to before child support was discussed.

( I'm not addressing you, IC, but the men who go on about this "game." Your comment just stirred me!)

You don't even want to go there with me. When males actually fight for custody they have a good chance of winning. I know many fathers who have won custody cases so that's a load of bullshit. Some of them were the better parents. Some were most definitely not.

Sorry, I was told "oh, only terrible mothers lose their kids." No, sometimes mothers who have exes whose families will pay off anyone to get their way lose their kids. As my psychologist at the time said , "What he and his lawyers are doing is a crime and a sin." Believe me, I know ALL about being denied access to my own child, and I still have nightmares about his screams way back when, when he wanted his Mommy and his brothers and sister and his fucking old man just hauled him over his shoulder like a goddamned sack of rice.

Thankfully, my youngest's dad, knowing the hell I went through, vowed to never do that to me. We are the best of friends, I love his wife and her kids, I am the "custodial parent" but my son actually lives with his dad because of better schools and opportunities (a choice we made as adults - considering what was best for our son, rather than like children ourselves scrapping over a toy.)

Even though my son currently lives primarily with Dad and Mom 2, my ex will always allow me to be the custodial parent "officially." We respect each other. My ex's daughter was also his first ex's weapon. He never got to raise her or spend significant time with her (and she is VERY messed up right now) , so part of my decision to send him to Dad's just prior to Kindergarten was based on my wanting Dad to experience being a parent, since my son and his daughter will be his only two children. I have no doubt that men can be the best parents, so please don't try to pin me as anti-male because i had a bad experience with another male.

Be careful how you frame the custody issue. It hurts all genders and all children, due to the adversarial nature of the legal system - even in Family Law. The courts need to revise the way custody cases are handled (it is ridiculous that money is taken out of the kids' mouths to pay the exorbitant legal fees when two couples go postal legally on each other.)

The system is unfair to everyone, and like most women with my experience, I keep my mouth shut. But today, i'd just like to say that a lot of women know the same pain of unfairness and missing children and a fucked up judicial system. Sorry for interrupting your post, MB!!!!!!

[EFerrari]

20. I think this woman must be clinically insane. The fastest growing

demographic among the homeless is single moms.

That's where that "gravy train" is going.

[Chovexani]

23. Uh, no

The reason my father abandoned us is because he was a fucking whore. Wherever he laid his hat was his home, and all that.

Phyllis Schafly is out of her goddamn mind, but that's nothing new.

[leesa]

26. Why isn't she home in her kitchen?

[fortyfeetunder]

27. Home and barefoot

and at this stage, who'd want to impregnate her?

[Ripley]

28. Not to be the spelling patrol or anything, but....

It's Schlafly, not Schafly. Just because DU makes such a big deal about morans, etc. ;)

I agree with some poster upstream...isn't she 120 years old by now? Maybe she is an android.

I think she is a raving lunatic who is personally responsible for the suffering of women and kids today. She should go have her pity party with the asshole man who left my sister with two children, stole her money and moves state to state to avoid paying $30,000 in child support he owes. And the oldest boy is failing high school right now and I can pretty much see it coming....he's gonna be one of those "HS dropouts the Army is recruiting now."

Thanks for your concern Phyllis, I'm sure it's all my sister's fault, not her drug-dealing ex who threw an axe at her head and beat her unconscious when the axe didn't knock her out - it just made a gash so big she needed 40 stiches.

[kenny blankenship]

29. Before divorce was made easier to obtain legally

Men just left their families. It was very common, (it's a common topic in literature and early films) but since it wasn't divorce there are probably no reliable figures to gauge how common.

Not to knock men categorically but the phenomenon of brood abandonment is hardly a new one. I'd be very surprised to find that it was worse now than say in the 1930s and before. Also I suspect that harder times like we're going through now, generally make for worse rates of family unit cohesion.

Hopefully, when Phyllis succeeds in knocking off the VAWA her husband will then beat her teeth out once a week. The experience won't teach her any lesson--I'm sure she comes from a background in which male violence against women is ordinary and accepted--but it would be justice of a sort.

[salin]

32. and phyliss - what was the excuse before VAWA?

what a bafoon.