I agree. I'm a stepfather as well. Don't know when and/or if I'll have my own.
Posted on 06/11/2005 3:28:21 AM PDT by familyop
On Father's Day, Americans should ponder the appalling fact that an estimated 40 percent of our nation's children are living in homes without their own father. Most of our social problems are caused by kids who grow up in homes without their own fathers: drug abuse, illicit sexual activity, unwed pregnancies, youth suicide, high school dropouts, runaways, and crime.
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.
For three decades, feminists have toyed with the question that Maureen Dowd chose as the title of her forthcoming book, Are Men Necessary? That's just the latest version of Gloria Steinem's famous line, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."
College textbooks portray marriage as especially bleak and dreary for women. Assigned readings are preoccupied with domestic violence, battering, abuse, marital rape, and divorce.
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.
Not satisfied with several billions from the U.S. Treasury, 67 feminist and liberal organizations supported a lawsuit to try to get private allegations of domestic abuse heard in federal courts so they could collect civil damages against men and institutions with deep pockets. Fortunately, the Supreme Court, in Brzonkala v. Morrison (2000), declared unconstitutional VAWA's section that might have permitted that additional mischief.
However, VAWA's billions of dollars continue to finance the domestic-violence lobby, and there is a deafening silence from conservatives who pretend to be guardians against federal takeovers of problems that are none of the federal government's business. Local crimes and marital disputes should not be subjects of federal law or spending.
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.
A Justice Department-funded document published by the National Victim Assistance Academy established a widely accepted definition of "violence" that includes such non-criminal acts as "degradation and humiliation" and "name-calling and constant criticizing." The acts need not be illegal, physical, violent, or threatening; "domestic violence" becomes whatever the woman says it is.
The Final Report of the Child Custody and Visitation Focus Group of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges admitted that "usually judges are not required to make a finding of domestic violence in civil protection order cases." In other words, judges saddle fathers with restraining orders on the wife's say-so without any investigation as to whether it is true or false.
The late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), a big advocate of VAWA, admitted that "up to 75 percent of all domestic assaults reported to law enforcement agencies were inflicted after the separation of the couple." Most allegations of domestic violence are made for the purpose of taking the custody of children away from their fathers.
The June issue of the Illinois Bar Journal explains how women use court-issued restraining orders (which Illinois calls Orders of Protection) as a tool for the mother to get sole child custody and even bar the father from visitation. In big type, the magazine proclaims: "Orders of protection are designed to prevent domestic violence, but they can also become part of the gamesmanship of divorce."
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.
Congress should not be spending taxpayers' money to deal with marital disputes, and courts should not deprive children of their fathers on a presumption that fathers are dangerous. Congress can help us celebrate Father's Day this year by refusing to reauthorize the costly VAWA boondoggle.
Mrs. Schlafly is the author of the new book The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (Spence Publishing Co).
The amount of factual data in the book was staggering. So, I staged my reading times; breaking the time into an hour a day. High Kudos! It was my perfect pleasure to absorb the contents of this book.
Some of his points are valid but Fathers day is not the time for that.
Just because he had a bad Father doesn't mean we all did.
Well, thanks again. We made a few mistakes (if you want me to, I'll tell you in a private e-mail :), but those are mostly corrected by the 4th printing, which we are in now, and all will be corrected by the 5th printin, which we hope to be in very soon. One "problem" was that we sold so many books so fast that we couldn't fix errors as they came to our attention before a new printing was out.
You might find this of interest...
http://www.kimdutoit.com/ee/index.php/essays/the_pussification_of_the_western_male/
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
It's still a huge problem even if one counts decent stepfathers.
When smart men decide that they are being screwed, they WILL ALWAYS walk away forever without further contact. That's called self-preservation or personal survival.
bttt
I agree. I'm a stepfather as well. Don't know when and/or if I'll have my own.
You're right. It's all too easy to blame NOW, Gloria Steinhem, Bella Abzug, Code Pink, et al., when, in fact, parents need to raise their sons to be responsible, loving and respectful men, the rest of society be damned.
Like Jacky Kennedy said, "if you bungle raising your children, nothing else really matters much".
RD
itd be funny if it were not true.
take the kid sentenced to life in prison in lufkin, tx the other day. his girl friend wanted to abort their fetuses and asked him to jump on her stomach.
he goes to jail and she gets off.
Possibly. But also remember, it's only been in the past few decades that the police have taken domestic battery seriously enough to remove the batterer (male or female) from the home - before that, the family was left to work it out themselves and it was not "reported" as a crime.
sorry - it takes two to tango. Men can say no, too. Let's not get back into the days of boys will be boys but women have to be better than that.
I agree men can say no - it just doesn't happen very often.
BTTT
First I've ever heard of this. Interesting quote.
This is where the real money is spent changing attitudes... and values..
The America of our Founding Fathers is being driven out of our children's souls..
If you destroy the family you destroy the nation...get dad out of the family and it will fall apart
Making any remaining male head of the household (especially the God given father of that household) into an incompetent buffoon...a laughing stock... one who has the patronizing sympathy of his wife and children at best.. seems to be Madison Ave. and their money provider's goal.
As the fathers go..so goes the family..as the family goes so goes the nation.
imo
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