Men’s Interests

From Three parents for Canadian boy | WORLD | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz:

A five-year-old Canadian boy can have two mothers and a father, an Ontario court ruled this week in a landmark case that redefines the meaning of family and examines the rights of parents in same-sex relationships.

In a ruling released on Tuesday, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the female partner of the child’s biological mother could be legally recognized as the boy’s third parent.

The biological father, named on the boy’s birth certificate, is a friend of both women and is taking an active role in the child’s life.

My opinion on this child custody case sets me apart in the fathers’ and equal parenting movements. Many people believe marriage should only be between a male and a female, and every child should have one father and one mother. Fathers4Justice in Canada has announced they do not agree with this court ruling.

While I believe the rights of every biological parent need to be respected, I also know how much children benefit by having other loving, devoted adults in their lives. I believe if a same-sex couple has a child, and both love and care for it, both of those parents should stay active in the child’s life. The children in these cases deserve the protection of the law to have the protection of their parents.

It’s obvious to me how much these women love this child. They didn’t have the non-birth mom adopt the boy because that would have eliminated the father’s rights. Since I wasn’t raised by lesbian moms I can’t say what life will be like for this child. But I’m happy to see three adults who love him so much they’re willing to set a legal precedent to be his parents.

same-sex marriage child custody fathers4justice fathers rights

Male-Bashing Is Unacceptable

I read an article called “Are You Going to Let Him Manipulate You?�? on a website called Latin Bay Area. Like so many articles I come across on abusive relationships, the author chose to label all males as perpetrators and all females as victims. While I applaud Maria Marin’s desire to empower women, like many others she does it by degrading men. I find this unacceptable.

How common is male-bashing? The answer is truly disturbing.

more…

domestic violence male-bashing misandry

From Mens News Daily Do I have a target on my back? Are we being ’silenced’?

I’m going to get a little personal today. Instead of writing about other people in the Fathers’, Men’s, Shared Parenting, Equal Parenting or Family Law Reform Movements, I’m going to share my own thoughts. Something has come to my attention, and it has me feeling unsettled.

I’ve been notified that most of my 50 edits in the last 18 months to wikipedia were “inappropriate.�? I’m wondering if this person thinks the link I added is a for-profit site, which it isn’t. My website provides resources for free.

What concerns me most is that this could be happening for political reasons. Why, of all the millions of users, was I picked out? Could it be because I also promote family law reform, mens and fathers rights and shared parenting on my other sites?

Not only have my links been removed, but my articles too. I haven’t been able to find any of my additions. I think I’ve been wiped clean from wikipedia. I’ve been reporting on the fathers movement for 4 years…I think what I have to say is valuable.

In going back to the subjects where I’d left links I see new changes. For instance, under Fathers Rights, it now ends in negative dialogue about the fathers movement. They even took one quote Glenn Sacks did that was negative and added it. Where are the positive quotes by people actually in the movement? This article is now extremely biased against the fathers’ movement.

What about freedom of speech? Don’t they have a policy of being neutral?

I find this all very scary. I have also recently been blacklisted by AOL and Comcast as a spammer…for a website that NEVER emails anyone. Am I being targeted? Are the powers that be this powerful?

wikipedia fathersrights fathers men censorship

Millions Of Parents Miss Their Kids This Christmas

Fathers4Justice activists took to the freeways this week in Boston, Massachusetts, and joined Families4Justice in Vancouver to bring attention to the millions of parents and children separated by family courts. Photos.

Visit Teri’s blog on Men’s News Daily to see several videos of new Fathers4Justice demonstrations in the UK, the US and Canada.

Considering the lack of training, and little time these people have to get to know these families, and after all the complaints I’ve heard from fit loving parents, I’m not sure I support this law.

From the Pennsyvania Standard-Journal Online:

HARRISBURG — Legislation authored by Sen. Jake Corman (R-34) that will curtail the filing of frivolous complaints in child custody hearings and provide limited immunity for child custody evaluators recently became law when it was signed by Governor Ed Rendell.

Corman’s Senate Bill 845 became Act 175 of 2006 and will prohibit any person who is a party to a child custody hearing from filing a complaint against a court-appointed health care or behavioral health care practitioner who is making recommendations on the child custody agreement or court order. The prohibition will be in effect prior to the issuance of the final order and for 60 days after.

childcustody divorce custodyevaluators pennsylvania

I hope you enjoy Men’s Interests’ very first podcast, starring Bessie Hudgins from 3 Sides To Every Story. Bessie discusses the candlelight vigil planned for this weekend in Georgia, and the harm families do to children because of divorce.

Visit Three Sides To Every Story

Bessie Hudgins
Phone: 706-882-2897
Fax: 706-884-8137
P.O. Box 1009
LaGrange , Ga. 30241

podcast 3sidestoeverystory divorce childcustody candlelightvigil children

From the Daily Telegram:

Supporters of a state bill aimed to make parental custody rights more equitable saw the measure fall one vote short of advancing from its House committee Tuesday, deadlocked 4-4 with Rep. Dudley Spade, D-Tipton, not voting.

Rep. Leslie Mortimer, R-Horton, sponsored the Equal Parenting bill, HB 5267. The bill in most divorce cases would have created a presumption of equal or near-equal custody unless parents reached their own custody agreement…

…In hearings Wednesday, 47 people spoke or otherwise expressed support for the bill, while 16 offered opposition…

…“The big frustration is Rep. (John) Stahl (R-North Branch), the chairman, for whatever reason, let this thing sit in committee since October of 2005 and bought it up for a committee hearing last week,�? [Rep. Dudley] Spade said.

Bill supporter Brett Frye of Adrian, a spokesman and board member for the Family Rights Coalition of Michigan, said he was encouraged by the committee hearings and expects similar legislation will be introduced next session.

childcustody sharedparenting michigan

Press Release
November 10, 2006

In his first act as governor-elect, Chet Culver has aborted Iowa’s 200,000 divorced dads. Culver did so by appointing Bonnie “wanted posters” Campbell to a policy position in Iowa government. Culver announced that Campbell will be chair of his transition team.

As Iowa’s Attorney General, in those few moments that she wasn’t running for governor, herself, Bonnie Campbell introduced the practice of putting the faces of divorced dads on wanted posters. She claimed that they were deadbeat dads, but some of the moms later
acknowledged that they were receiving direct support from their ex-husbands.

As Attorney General, Campbell also issued an attorney general’s opinion interpreting the “primary aggressor rule” in domestic abuse law. In so doing, Campbell directed all law enforcement officers in the state, in every case, to consider the primary aggressor to be the party who is taller, heavier, and has greater upper-body strength. Guess who that’s going to be?

Then, when Campbell was appointed to be deputy U.S. attorney general for women’s issues under the Clinton administration, she was on television in Washington, D.C. the next morning stating that all she cared about as attorney general of Iowa was women’s issues.

Chet Culver has put this anti-male, anti-father zealot in charge of his transition team, where she can set policy for his administration and put like-minded anti-male zealots into critical positions on Culver’s staff, in charge of state agencies, and on critical state boards and commissions.

As a result, Iowa’s 200,000 divorced dads have the dubious honor of being the first group of Iowans to be stabbed in the back by Chet Culver.

Bryan Iehl, Founder

IowaFathers.com
P.O. Box 2884
Waterloo, IA 50704-2884
support@IowaFathers.com

Fathers for Equal Rights, Inc.
3623 Douglas Ave
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-277-8789

The note below was written recently by a new mother to an online single parent peer support group, and will come as quite a surprise to many fathers denied custody by vengeful ex-partners and the family courts. Luckily this new mom found Single-Parents- on Yahoo Groups, whose members are described as:

…male, female, young, old, separated, divorced, widowed, never married, custodial, non-custodial, joint-custodial, straight, gay, bisexual, many religions, non-religious, biological , grand, foster, ex-step, and adoptive parents.

Her note:

…I want to thank all of you for your input on my last post about shared custody, based on my own thoughts and what you have all shared with me I have decided to agree to the shared custody wishes of my son’s dad. Though there are obviously going to be some stipulations I really do believe that the shared custody will not only be good for my son but also our relationship.

With 71% of Single-Parents-’s 3639 members being heterosexual single mothers, one might expect a new mom to be advised to fight for complete control when discussing child custody, something often suggested by attorneys and promoted on radical feminist and quasi domestic violence forums. Discussions like that occured before the group was assigned to Teri Stoddard, blogger on the worldwide family law reform movement and egalitarian.

Now new members to Single-Parents- are often pleasantly surpised by the interactions on the forum, writing

“I’ve read so many helpful posts already. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one dealing with these things,”

“It’s great to read posts by single dads. You guys have renewed my faith in men,” and

“I got angry. But now I get it. I’m trying to see it from his perspective and I see that helping.”

Makes ya wanna smile, doesn’t it?