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: youre 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 itusually 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 divorceno fault divorce.
What we call divorce has become essentially a euphemism for government officials, courts primarily, and social service agencies to invade familiesto 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 moneyof 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, arent aware of how the law really has been transformed in this area.
Baskerville: Thats right. The term no fault understates the problem. It really is unilateral divorceinvoluntary 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 unilaterallythe other spouse has no choice. Divorce is simply forced on that spouse. And most often its the father.
Mohler: Lets 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 thats what people dont understand. When it says no fault it really means no cause. You dont have to have a cause now. One spouse can simply decide that he or sheand in a lot of cases its bothdoesnt want to be married anymore and there is nothing the other spouse can do to prevent the divorce. Isnt 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 sheand it is usually the mothercan 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 doesnt have to give any reason. After that point the fathers 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 whats shocking: they just turned children into political weapons and political tools.
Mohler: Ive been concerned for years about what Ive 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: Its huge, thats right. And whats most important about it is this huge machine is government based. Its not just private entrepreneurs in this case, it is government officials. Its lawyers, its judges and its the huge social services bureaucracies its 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 thats clearly the right way to talk about this. But ultimately, children are the victims of all of this.
Baskerville: Well, thats exactly right. This is the main cause behind the epidemic of fatherless childrenthat 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 Salems 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 Americas leading theologians and cultural commentators. Contact Dr. Mohler at www.albertmohler.com.
I hope that is what he/she was talking about. But there are ALOT of Freepers who think the woman belongs home in the kitchen and I disagree. I thank goodness there are women doctors and such!
I’ve long felt that the so called ‘no fault’ divorce laws should be repealed.
Women can certainly be married, work, and be moms to good, conservative kids. But it sure is harder when you have to pack kids off to public school.
I personally don’t agree. But, I do see that families in general are under attack. Strong hetro families I am all for.
But I grew up with my mom putting dad through college. Then she went to college too and kept on working. Lot of good that did her. Dad decided that she was fat and divorced her, he got the house, and his retirement to himself. Now his new wife is nothing but a gold digging adulterous who has done everything to trash his kids and he LOVES it. Bah!
I read Betty Freedman when I was 13. I grew up into adulthood believing that nonsense. How many other women won’t even admit to making a mistake? I totally reject that whole idea that women MUST work outside the home to have meaning in their lives. That lie has destroyed more young people than anyone could care to know.
I read some of your earlier posts. You have had a hard time of it, and so has you new husband. Kudos to you. But in the general sense most women are happier to stay home.
By pitting white vs black, men vs women, husbands vs wives socialists gain permanent power.
Look at nearly every societal ill and much, not all, but much of it can be traced to the problem of fatherlessness. Jack Cashill’s book on “what's the matter with California” does a good job defining the problem.
But men have a choice, and they have chosen badly. The choice is to fight this insanity, fight in the courts, churches and schools. We have let our selves become inconsequential. We need to get our social position back, it will be a long, draw out and difficult fight, but it must be fought or our culture is over.
schu
Well, as a child of the free 70’s and 80’s and a daycare baby, I agree with you. I just don’t think it should be women to be the one to HAVE to stay home. I know a southern couple, she is an accountant at a huge restaurant and he has been a SAH dad since the kids were born and they are all happy. Now they are heading off to college, he is using his own college education to start a business using his hobby. He is not a wuss, she is not a brute of a woman and their kids are normal.
But for the most part, I agree with all that has posted to me. Just don’t pigeon hole women to have choice of kids or no kids, career or no career. I have had a rough time of it, pretty rough life too. But I try wholeheartedly to bring my kids up right and sometimes you have to live with life deals you. But I DO NOT want to go back to the days of women not being able to choose (not like THAT choose) what they want in life, you know?
I guess a LITTLE feminism rubbed off on me, hehe.
In most states the amount of child support is based on the number of nights the child spends with the father. The more nights with the father, the less child support the mother would get. And the federal government has tied the amount of child support the state collects to the ability of the state to collect TANF (welfare) money. If a state fails to collect more child support each year it may loose some of its TANF funding from the federal government. So it is in the mothers and the states “best money interest” to keep the child with the mother.
Some folks just can't handle 'em when they fly in and get stuck in their nose.
I agree.
It all started here in California. The left was whining about how two people “had to lie” to get a divorce. They over looked the fact that when that did happen, at least both had agreed to get a divorce. And the judges didn’t want to get too involved into a families privacy. AH!
They got their way and look at it now. Judges and the government in the middle of any family that comes before them. And it does not have to be two people agreeing anymore. Nope. Just one wanting a divorce is good enough. Of course when this all happened, women got the good end of the stick. News got out and off to the races to get rid of that boring fart of a husband. (No, mine is not a boring fart)
Now we have declining test scores, out of wedlock children, babies being murdered, and declining fertility rates. Hmmm? I wonder why? /s
Rig the game and people stop playing. Liberals can't ever seem to get their minds around that concept.
I believe that the idea that women could not choose what to do with their lives is a bit of a distortion. The left loves to lie. Women did do lots of different things with their lives. Just most chose to stay home, historically.
Welcome to one of the most corrupt institutions in Ontario.
FRO is a law unto themselves. If you reading this page odds are you are all too familiar with the way FRO operates.
If you have a story about the Family Responsibility Office, we would like to hear from you.
Typically FRO adopt an American policy of destroying fathers so they cannot earn an income by canceling drivers licenses and garnisheeing income that sometimes causes fathers to lose all hope of justice and kill themselves.
Typically the average divorced father pays child support because our courts are corruptly biased and award “custody” to women even when she is violent, unfit, drug addicted and or mentally ill.
If you hear of a father who actually won custody start asking some questions. You will discover some good reason. For example the father may have a close relative who was a former client of the judge before he became a judge.
The judge could be a family friend of a friend or attend the same lodge or religious group, cult or perhaps one of the father's parents went to university with the judge.
The other reason why fathers get custody is when the judge has a personal beef with the mother's lawyer. Perhaps the mother's lawyer stole a client of the judge when he was a lawyer. Perhaps there are local politics involved and by sheer bad luck the mother's lawyer backed the wrong horse.
Frequently, you will see winning deserving cases result in “strange decisions” because the judge has an anger management problem and is looking for revenge anytime that particular lawyer sets foot in the courtroom.
So now you have a rough explanation apart from bias that explains why some decisions actually award custody and or access to fathers.
The problem is that Judges generally assume that children will go with mother regardless because she is “entitled to them” because she gave birth to them.
Officially , the “tender years doctrine” does not exist but in reality it never left. It is played out in almost every court across Canada every court day.
FRO see themselves as weapons of feminists. They are a bureaucracy that generates work by hiding large heavy boxes full of checks, and then taking legal action against fathers for non payment. Frequently those “checks” are money orders, paid in cash but FRO keep them for months at a time to “create” a justification to suspend licenses, and, each cancellation of a drivers license generates $400 plus dollars to the provincial budget before the license is reinstated.
Link
http://www.ottawamenscentre.com/family_responsibility_office_of_Ontario.htm
The war on Men and Fathers has been going on for a long time now.
My own Father noticed it starting, and he's been gone for almost 30 years. I fear for my son.
And if BOTH parents care about the family (kids) 'more', what then? What if the father is as close to the kids as the mother?
Everyone suffers, in the case of divorce, but men are punished more for it.
Hear, Hear!
FUNDS PER POOR FAMILY | STATES |
$1,000 to $1,999 | Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia |
$2,000 to $2,999 U.S. median = $2,296 |
Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming |
$3,000 to $3,999 | Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah |
$4,000 to $4,999 | California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin |
$5,000 and up | Alaska, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington |
Sources: Author's calculations using financial data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Financial Services, http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ofs/data/index.html and data from the Current Population Survey. |
Where has this guy been ... under a rock? The assault started decades ago.
Where has this guy been ... under a rock? The assault started decades ago.
I don’t know... there didn’t seem to be a big idea of women handling business. There was the occassional success, but for the most part, women weren’t allowed to fight against an employer that didn’t want women employed.
Oops. Sorry ‘bout the double post. Guess I didn’t hit the cancel button fast enough.
I just remember that in 40’s films women were depicted doing a variety of jobs. I do wonder if when the WWII was over if there might have been a bit of a overreaction once the men came home and looked for work. I have wondered if men didn’t feel the need to help other men support their families. The few women who wanted to do men type things probably did have a hard time then. But feminism has gone too far. They have succeeded beyond just women who want to work, working. They now murmur about how all women should be working, staying home is a betrayal.
No, the feminist sediment that started all this was more about destroying the family. Now most women work not to pay for the swimming pool; they work to pay the families federal, state and local taxes. Phooey on that! Where is Galt’s gultch?
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