“It also really seems wrong that custody is being pulled from the parent as punishment—in this case, contempt of court. What ever happened to a fine or a weekend in jail?”
I don’t think this sort of enforcement would be as zealous if the parent denied visitation was a man. I certainly cannot envision a judge taking custody from the mother and transferring the child to the father on those grounds, can you?
A friend of mine was denied visitation with his daughter and the mother never suffered any penalty for it. He attempted to pressure her by withholding child support and was promptly arrested.
He hasn’t seen his daughter since she was a toddler who is now an adult.
Certainly not to a non-birth male parent.
I totally believe that. I've seen ex-wives do all kinds of things to manipulate these situations. The most common tactic is screw up dad's visitation plans, and it's usually timed to maximize cost, hassle, and time wasted. It's also really common to tell kids all kinds of horrible things about the other spouse to turn them against the other spouse. It's really rotten and petty to use kids as pawns like this.