Posted on 04/29/2008 8:39:52 AM PDT by Finally Awake
Is There a War Against Fathers in America? Albert Mohler President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
April 4, 2008
Albert Mohler recently interviewed Stephen Baskerville. Dr. Baskerville is a professor at Patrick Henry College and author of the book, “Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage and the Family.”
Mohler: I find fascinating the fact that you have a rather aggressive title here: you’re talking about a war against fathers, marriage and the family. There are a lot of people who, I think, are unaware of this war. Help us understand it.
Baskerville: Most people are unaware of it until they are sucked into it—usually through the family court system, divorce or some other method. Americans would be very shocked if they knew what was going on in this country under the name of divorce—“no fault divorce.”
What we call divorce has become essentially a euphemism for government officials, courts primarily, and social service agencies to invade families—to separate children from parents who have done nothing wrong; to plunder the parents for everything they have in many cases and even to criminalize the parents and jail them without trail; to turn them into criminals in ways the parents are powerless to avoid.
The overwhelming victims of this are fathers, though at times it happens to mothers as well. Usually it is not a matter of gender bias, it is a matter of power and money—of the huge machine that has grown up in the last four decades around the question of “no fault divorce,” child custody and related issues.
Mohler: Now in your work you really demonstrate how the “no fault divorce revolution” and the law has brought enormous consequences. Can you help spell those out for us? I think an awful lot of Americans, especially those who are younger, aren’t aware of how the law really has been transformed in this area.
Baskerville: That’s right. The term “no fault” understates the problem. It really is unilateral divorce—involuntary divorce. It allows one spouse to force divorce on the other without the involuntary spouse having done anything wrong. In other words, your spouse can divorce you without you having done anything legally wrong or agreeing to the divorce. In fact, it goes further than that. Maggie Gallagher … describes it as the abolition of marriage, and that is really what it is. The marriage contract is not in any way legally binding anymore. It can be broken without consequence by one spouse unilaterally—the other spouse has no choice. Divorce is simply forced on that spouse. And most often it’s the father.
Mohler: Let’s just revisit the situation before “no fault divorce.” At that time society privileged marriage as a contract above other contracts because it was understood to be more than a contract. Marriage was understood to be the basic building block of civilization. And to dissolve a marriage was understood to be an issue of such consequence that there had to be cause. I think that’s what people don’t understand. When it says “no fault” it really means “no cause.” You don’t have to have a cause now. One spouse can simply decide that he or she—and in a lot of cases it’s both—doesn’t want to be married anymore and there is nothing the other spouse can do to prevent the divorce. Isn’t that the ultimate issue here?
Baskerville: That is correct. And to be fair, though, this was happening even before “no fault divorce.” “No fault divorce” laws really just put the nails in the coffin. They just codified what was already taking place. Therefore, simply repealing “no fault divorce” and reinstating fault in divorce would not solve the problem.
The issue today has really become child custody: by shifting the battle into the area of children they turned children into political weapons. Because what happens is not only can one spouse unilaterally divorce the other, but she—and it is usually the mother—can take the children with her (or sometimes the father does it to the mother), but in most cases the mother can divorce the father, and without any grounds, take the children. She doesn’t have to give any reason. After that point the father’s contact with the children when it is not authorized by the government becomes a crime. He can be arrested for trying to see his own children without having done anything legally wrong. And this is what’s shocking: they just turned children into political weapons and political tools.
Mohler: I’ve been concerned for years about what I’ve called the divorce industrial complex. You really do a great job in your book in demonstrating how there is an entire pernicious economy based upon and encouraging and facilitating divorce.
Baskerville: It’s huge, that’s right. And what’s most important about it is this huge machine is government based. It’s not just private entrepreneurs in this case, it is government officials. It’s lawyers, it’s judges and it’s the huge social services bureaucracies … it’s a huge entourage that is not only profiting from divorce, but increasing government power over private lives in very dangerous ways.
Mohler: Professor Baskerville … you were talking about the fathers as victims of this and I think in that context that’s clearly the right way to talk about this. But ultimately, children are the victims of all of this.
Baskerville: Well, that’s exactly right. This is the main cause behind the epidemic of fatherless children—that 24 million fatherless children in this country are not that way because the fathers have abandoned their children, contrary to government and other propaganda. Overwhelmingly, it is because fathers are forcibly kept away from their children. Fathers who have done nothing wrong are forcibly separated from their children. We know that fatherlessness is the single greatest predictor of social and personal deviance among children, alcohol and substance abuse, crime and low educational attainment and yet we are told that fathers are abandoning their children. This is not true.
In addition to being one of Salem’s nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and recognized as one of America’s leading theologians and cultural commentators. Contact Dr. Mohler at www.albertmohler.com.
ping
Yeppo beppo.
Though I would enlargen it to a War on Masculinity in general. Have you checked out a public school lately?
No,b of course not. Who hates feathers? Why would there be a war against feathers?
Bookmark
“Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage and the Family.”
Yep. There certainly is a war on. And some here on Free Republic buy the crap the government tells them, “that it’s for the children”, without realizing how the law is stacked against ANYONE that the CPS goes after.
Bah!
I don’t know about this. When he says single-parent families aren’t because of fathers abandoning their children, I don’t think that’s true. I work with children from broken homes in my church ministry. Most of those kids don’t even know their fathers, the men never married their mothers in the first place and they left when the woman got pregnant.
Sex before marriage is responsible for a lot of this problem, not just custody decisions. Even when there are divorces a lot of these men are “deadbeat dads” and it’s like pulling teeth to get them even to spend time with their boys. I agree about it’s too easy to get a divorce anymore and I think that is a bigger problem than bias by custody judges. The parent who cares about their family more, no matter whether that’s the mother or the father is always the one who suffers from this, as well as the children. The parent who doesn’t care just punishes the other one and spends their time and money on themself.
My theory is the war on men is based on socialism. If the women are raised to do anything they want outside of the home, it reduces the chance of them raising their children in a conservative, Christian manner. This in turn leaves the children in the liberal public schools 8-9 hours per day. Call me crazy, but it has been part of the plan for almost two hundred years. Read John Taylor Gatto’s History of Compulsory Schooling.
While my own exhusband is a sleazeball deadbeat dad who has seen his children once in 9 years and I don’t know what the hell child support is... my husband was a single father who was told if he took his ex-wife to court for child support enforcement, she would take the kids instead of paying for them and force HIM to pay. This was the 80’s. That was his choice, lose the kids or raise them totally alone. He chose the latter. Luckily we came along for each other and became Mom and Dad for his, mine and ours.
Yow - that’s terrible. How was that principal hired? Was there any parental involvement / school board / or school council advise & consent role? Sounds like there was a coup!
My eldest is home-schooled; #2 son is in an uber-traditional all-boys school run by orthodox, habited Catholic monks. (e.g. the boys stand and await to be invited to sit down by the instructor when he enters the classroom.)
Unfortunately, due to confiscatory taxation practices, my youngest two have to endure public school for now. TBUG we live in a “good” school district academically. I haven’t experienced any radicalism there yet but I’m biding the time.
HOGWASH!!
What is wrong with men being with the children then?
Sorry, I do not agree women should be at home with the children only.
This reduces the child support, and it takes a lot of the fight out of the system.
The left, everywhere in America and the world is at war 24/7 against everything logical, rational, pragmatic, good and decent 24/7.
The left, the Islamofascist fruitcakes and the envirowackos wan’t us all elimanated from the planet.
Actually the war to feminize the country has been going on for 30 years and now, the latest war is to homosexualize the country. Sadly, we sit by, observe, and most are paralyzed by inactivity to stop the steam-roller of “progress.”
Talking to a homeschooler here.
I have read some of John Gatto’s excerpts here, and “Separate School and State”.
Actually, I was reading “Liberal Fascism” last night, and the author was telling how the radical left was raised that way by radical leftist parents. And I said to myself, so this is why they hate homeschoolers, and parents, they don’t want any competition from ANYONE else.
Part of the idea of fascism and socialism, is the value of “unity”. Can’t have leftist “unity” with Christian’s indoctrinating their children to NOT be group think robots. So your basic theory is correct. There is a war on, and it is our very way of life, our children’s future that is at stake. And no, you are not crazy. The average American can not conceive of the evil the left is willing to go to for their false utopia.
I believe that proudtobeanamerican1 was just talking about how to strengthen families. And what it takes to do that. It was not a slam on other choices that make for strong hetro families.
Gee, get a grip.
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