The Deadbeat Dad Myth: Strategies and Research in Defense of Men In Divorce, by William N. Bender, Ph.D.
The Deadbeat Dad Myth: Strategies and Research in Defense of Men In Divorce
[Unpublished Manuscript, 1992]
William N. Bender, Ph.D.
Professor of Education
The University of Georgia
Renet L. Bender, Ph.D.
Truitt-McConnell CollegePreface and Dedication
The Deadbeat Dad construct is a lie; it is a half-truth which masquerades as a truth, and that is, perhaps, even more dangerous than a lie. The available evidence, presented throughout these chapters, will indicate that the deadbeat dad phenomenon is, like many of the negative images of men presented in our nation's media, almost entirely, a result of a biased court system and an antimale bias in our society.
Men are not genetically predisposed to abandon their children, nor do they refuse to pay child support specifically in order to hurt their children. Rather men leave a court which, their attorney explained, would be biased against them. The available scientific evidence, presented in this text, documents that anti-male bias. Men have seen their children, their homes, their financial futures stolen from them by that biased court. They are ordered to deny their parental love for their children and become a second-class citizen--i.e., a "visitor" in their child' life. Their human right to actively parent their child is stolen from them--most often without any evidence that they did anything wrong and they are told--inaccurately--that this decision is in the child's best interest. Their money is stolen repeatedly, for the next 20 years as ex-wife support rather than child support (There is never any documentation that those monies go to the child, so many men refuse to call it child support--it is ex-wife support).
Men are angry; indeed men are enraged by this discrimination, and rightfully so. In response to this bias, some men decide to not participate in that system. The best understanding of non-compliance with the current child support system is an understanding of an unorganized non-violent civil disobedience movement, founded almost exclusively on anti-male prejudice in the courts. Some men decide that they simply won't pay. I salute them, and encourage them in their courageous decision.
Furthermore this decision is the morally correct one. Men should make that decision. The evidence and rational for this position is presented throughout the text, but a brief introduction is provided here--the theses, if you will. First, the scientific evidence demonstrates that our current child support laws are quite biased. Meyers and Garasky, two government funded researchers, documented in a recent study that child support laws were enforced against men and not against women. In point of fact, even when women are the non-custodial parents, they are rarely ordered to pay any child support at all! On the rare occasion when women are ordered to pay child support, collection efforts are not a vigorous. Clearly, the application and enforcement of these child support laws represent sexist discrimination against men, and they are merely one example.
A related example of the discrimination against men may be found in federal programs for "Families." These programs would include federally funded child support collection programs, "family crisis centers", federal welfare programs (i.e., Aid to Families with Dependent Children), and many non-government programs such as Habitat for Humanity. When men are excluded from families, and the divorce creates financial hardship on all parties concerned, these programs tend to favor the parent with the children. In point of fact, the vast majority of "families" which are assisted by these programs are single parent, maternal custody families; simply put, the automatic discrimination against men at the point of divorce disallows many men from participation in many of these federal and private relief programs. These programs would more accurately be described as "women support programs" rather than "family support programs," and here, as elsewhere, the discrimination against men is apparent for the honest observer.
Another example of the bias against men is the explosion of false allegations of child abuse, sexual harassment, and spousal abuse. The scientific evidence documents that women commit much more child abuse and slightly more spousal abuse than men (the chapter of this book). The information on sexual harassment is particularly revealing. According to Evan Kemp, who served as the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Bush, only one if four allegations of sexual harassment investigated by his office had any legal merit. This indicates that 75% of the allegations are lies, or misunderstandings between parties.
I have personally participated in numerous courts--in my capacity as an expert witness on false allegations--and I have seen innocent men jailed for years on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations. Unproven allegations do result in evidence which I mention here is documented in each related convictions in today's climate; I have seen it happen, and every man is at risk. One result of this anti-male bias is the almost automatic exclusion of the male role model from the lives of young males. Teacher salaries have not encouraged men to pursue teaching credentials for the lower grade levels, and the court imposed disenfranchisement of men at the point of divorce has removed male role models from the homes of young males in unprecedented numbers during the last three decades. Of course, young boys desperately need these male role models in order to grow and develop normally. Any unbiased glance at the research data will indicate that our nation's flirtation with sole maternal custody has been a dismal failure; the available psychological evidence presented herein documents that it is not divorce that hurts children--it is paternal absence which hurts children. The evidence documents this quite clearly.
Further, it is not unwarranted to suggest that this absence of effective male role models has led to many of the problems in our society. If, in general terms, it is true that mothers tend to be the more nurturing parent, then it is likewise true that fathers tend to be the disciplinarian in the family. While some caution is in order regarding these broad generalizations, the facts suggest that to remove the father from the lives of males is, in many cases, equivalent to removal of effective discipline for those children. The child development research, reviewed herein documents that mothers have terrible difficulties in disciplining children--particularly young males after the divorce, and the available research studies without exception document that young boys adjust much better on every measure when custody is given to the father rather than to the mother. Courts ignore this research, in their self-imposed bias against men, and the lack of male role models for young men continues. Further, this lack of discipline and an effective male role model plays a significant role in our nation's crime, juvenile and inner city problems. The vast majority of inner city gang members have a mother at home; what those young boys need at home is a father. If our society truly wishes to combat these tough crime problems, we must reinvest in fathers. This reinvestment would include fatherhood training in high schools, federal fatherhood support programs, private agency fatherhood mentorship programs, and affirmative action which selects the father as the custodial parent of choice for young boys.
Thus far, our political leaders have expended their energies in punitive actions, and calling fathers nasty names, rather than reinvesting in fatherhood in any meaningful way. Perhaps this book can spell it out for them; punitive actions alone do not often solve society’s problems, and it is time for positive action for fathers and men rather than negative actions against this sex.
The pervasive anti-male bias represented in the following chapters indicates a fundamental truth that some men have been aware of all along--that our society has historically been biased against both sexes--not merely against women. While women were discriminated against in employment and financial matters, men have traditionally been discriminated against in terms of child rearing, national defense, imprisonment, educational endeavors, parenting/nurturing opportunities, and more recently, in custody courts. The existence of, and documentation for, these antimale biases is detailed in the chapters below. While many women's groups tend to, dishonestly, deny the existence of this societal bias against men, men have realized that this bias exists, and men are--increasingly--demanding that these biases be rectified.
This bias is so pronounced that a national witch hunt against men has resulted, observable in the courts, the media, our nation's legislature, and in our national attitude. Some women, apparently agree with Murphy Brown, that fathers really are unnecessary and irrelevant to raising children, and this defies all of the scientific data currently available (Again, all of this data is presented in this book; unlike some other books, this text presents the cold hard facts, rather than just the perceptions of another angry male victim of these discriminations).
For all of these reasons, then, men in our nation need a defense strategy. As John Leo, a U.S. News and World Report writer recently noted, the "Demonizing" of men has become the national sport of many feminists and media persons. One chapter in this text presents specific examples of overt bigotry in the national media, presented, of course, as news. We would do well to remember that such demonizing through the courts, the legislatures, and the media was utilized effectively in Germany in the last 1930s, and the results were obvious. In point of fact, some of the most effective hate propaganda which I have read lately, I found in the pages of feminists newsletters.
I hope these theses have piqued your interest. Like Martin Luther tacking his theses to the door, I seek open and honest debate on these points. Each idea herein is true and defensible given the best available evidence. While this book is not politically correct, in today's anti-male climate, it is, to the best of my ability factually correct. Further, I also believe that this text is morally correct. While men's anger is certainly justified, I do not preach hatred or violence herein; rather I preach justice. Books which have attended to these issues before tended to be very "Angry" and not to concentrate on the available solutions. Those perspectives, while quite justified, have been routinely ignored, and perhaps they should have been. This book, in contrast, presents solutions which can lead to a society in which justice is available for all, and which, because fathers and fathering is supported, less male juvenile delinquency, less crime, and fewer societal problems result.
I offer then, this book to my brothers in this struggle. The research reviews present the evidence which men should highlight in their own defense. The strategies suggested represent the strategies which I and others have successfully used to defend ourselves. While there is a tremendous bias against men in the courts, these ideas do--sometimes-- work. I have used these strategies when I have been falsely accused, and in other cases as an expert witness; they work.
It is my earnest hope that men wake up soon to these lies and begin to defend themselves together. We all stand together, out of necessity; every man is at risk. We must face this challenge to our freedoms with facts, with courage, and with each other. We must fight together, or we will all die alone.
I make no special claim to insight, but I have been so victimized by this system, that I have committed myself to change this. The child that was stolen from me by this biased system was male, and he has a 50/50 chance of divorce when he matures. I will not allow this nation--supposedly founded on freedom and judicial fairness for all--to rob him of his children, his right to obtain a job without having to be "better" than all the women who apply, and his future. While my son is forever dead to me-in terms of a meaningful parental relationship--I will change this system before his children are born. I will give everything that I have and everything that I am to assure that He will live in a free and fair country, which does not discriminate against men or women. I truly love my son, and I can do no less.
This, then, is my legacy and my dedication to my son; I will strive, for him, to create a land that is truly free from sexist discrimination. This book is dedicated to him.
www.IanWalker.org
New updates to the Ian Walker story. Please visit: http://www.ianwalker.org/
Why the Father's Rights Movement is ineffective.
June 15, 2005
"Destroy the family, and you destroy society." (V.I.Lenin)
On Friday, May 20, 2005, Governor Jeb Bush signed a bill into law that made many changes to Florida’s divorce industry. The new laws take effect on July 1, 2005. Until the announcement of the signing, none of the International, National, or State activist groups were aware of the bill. It goes without saying that none of the childrens/parents/fathers rights groups testified before the legislature concerning this bill. Very simply put, we were all sleeping.
The children/father/family rights movement lacks focus as a political interest group. The job of the interest group is to advance our political position on our issues, and to support candidates whose position is compatible with ours.
As we are drawn into the divorce industry, one is caught as surely as if one had stepped into quicksand. The problem are the laws that have been put into place, as well as what I call the Divorce Industry. The divorce industry includes all that make money on divorce: judges, general masters, judicial assistant, lawyers, paralegals, psychologists, social workers, insurance companies, visitation centers, and others. As long as we are divided, as long as we do not speak with one voice, we will remain ineffective at the legal reform that is needed.
No-fault divorce was invented by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The Bolsheviks destroyed the old bourgeois notions of the family and the home, and recreated an allegiance to the government. The United States began a social experiment with no-fault divorce with California’s passage of the Family Act of 1969.
The term no-fault divorce is misleading. Rather than no-fault divorce, what we have is unilateral divorce. No-fault divorce is the dissolution of a marriage, upon petition to the court by either party, without the requirement of fault on either party. Either party may request, and receive, the dissolution of the marriage, despite the objections of the other party. Marriage is a contract, and no-fault divorce allows either party to breach the contract without penalty.
The radical swing from 100% fault-based divorce to 100% unilateral non-binding marriage is a failed experiment. It is today’s equivalent of Prohibition. When no-fault divorce was introduced, no one had any idea what it would do. The radical swing from fault-based divorce to unilateral non-binding marriage is a failed social experiment. It is today’s equivalent of Prohibition.
Over 50% of all first marriages end in divorce. The statistics for subsequent marriages are even worse. More than half of all these marriages that end in divorce involve children. Whether these are contested divorces or not, the family court will control the careers, incomes, wealth, debts, and lives of these mothers, fathers and children until the children are between 18 and 21 years of age.
In 2004, the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court declared that marriage was no longer an institution in that state. She also pointed out that over two-thirds of all litigation in Michigan was divorce related.
According to the Americans for Divorce Reform, as the divorce rate soared, so did the number of children involved in divorce. "The number of children involved in divorces and annulments stood at 6.3 per 1,000 children under 18 years of age in 1950, and 7.2 in 1960. By 1970 it had increased to 12.5; by 1975, 16.7; by 1980, the rate stood at 17.3, a 175 percent increase from 1950. Since in 1972, one million American children every year have seen their parents divorce. There are over 40 million non-custodial parents and over 50 million children of divorce.
There is much discussion about the protection of marriage, and President Bush has proposed a marriage amendment to the Constitution. While this is admirable, it will not protect the institution of marriage unless we end our failed social experiment with Bolshevik no-fault divorce.
Attorneys, who were elected to their state’s legislature, or the Congress, wrote most of these laws. When one becomes an attorney, one becomes a member of the judicial branch of government. The separation of powers doctrine of the Constitution prohibits a member of the judicial branch from also being a member of the legislative branch. These attorneys were successful in creating a complex network of laws that guaranteed their involvement in our lives.
We have thousands of issue-oriented parents/children/fathers rights groups, but we lack an umbrella organization. We are currently so divided that if our enemies have set out to divide and conquer us, they could not have done a better job. Sadly, we are often our worst enemies and are plagued by factionalism, infighting and, ultimately, apathy. We are a classical example of Madison’s solution to his dilemma in operation. As long as we are divided, as long as we do not speak with one voice, we will remain ineffective at the legal reform that is needed.
The NRA is the most effective interest group in the United States. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has over 4 million members. The members pay a minimum of $25.00 per year, giving the NRA at least $100 million dollars a year. The current population of the United States is estimated to be 295 million. Thus, the NRA’s membership is 4/295th or just over one percent, and yet they generate annual revenues of about $100 million dollars.
Even more dramatic are the numbers of the American Association of Retired People (AARP). They claim their membership exceeds 35 million. According to their annual report, they have cash assets in excess of $300 million dollars and total assets approaching $800 million. Other than a minimum age, they have no limitations upon membership.
The National Coalition of Motorcyclists is a very interesting model for us. They were formed less than ten-years ago as an umbrella organization to “discuss a coming together and the overwhelming need for a national voice to protect our life-style and right to ride.” The NCOM is a confederation of other organizations, an umbrella organization that contains over 1,000 member organizations. According to their website,
“The goal and purpose of NCOM is to assist all motorcycle organizations and individual riders with legal, legislative and other motorcycling issues. The Coalition will not dictate to any organization, but will be available to assist NCOM member groups through such FREE services as legislative assistance, nationwide information network, public awareness programs, safety projects, loan program, biker anti-discrimination legal and legislative assistance, etc.”
The NCOM thus does not dictate to the many (over 1,000) member organizations. Does this sound like the family law reform movement?
Unlike other associations, NCOM is not supported by membership dues and does not solicit funds from member groups or individuals. All operating costs are paid through the Aid to Injured Motorcyclists (A.I.M.) nationwide network of attorneys who are the sole financial support for NCOM. A.I.M. attorneys contribute a significant portion of their legal fees from motorcycle accidents back into motorcycling by providing all the funding for NCOM...a way of recycling money from motorcycling back into motorcycling!
The approach of AIM and NCOM has been to take a group of individuals that had been the cause of their problems, and turn them into a source of funding. Have they been successful? Yes, for they are the driving force behind the repeal of states’ helmet laws.
Can we adapt this model to our cause? Can we create a network of attorneys who will contribute a significant portion of their legal fees from divorce cases back into the reform movement?
There is an irony in the NCOM approach, for they have turned the situation around, and their enemy is hoist with his own petard. There are an increasing number of attorneys who support our reforms, who support alternative dispute resolution, and could be amenable to funding our cause using the NCOM/AIM model.
There are many approaches to the function of a political interest group. The interest group’s only function is advocating their issues. Interest groups do not run candidates.
Beyond our lack of organization and money, we have another problem. There are almost no candidates who support our cause.
If the political parties have failed to become champions of our issues, then we must encourage members of the movement to run for office. There is no other path to victory.
There have been sporadic attempts to hold political protests on Father’s Day and other holidays. Despite the best efforts of the organizers of these events, they have been completely ineffective. They are so poorly attended that they damage our credibility.
How many members of our movement have run for office, or are in office?
Jerry O’Neil (Libertarian) is a Montana State Senator who supports our movement.
Ron Grignol (Republican) is running for the state legislature in Virginia.
Warren Farrell (Independent) ran for Governor in California. Roland Reimers (Independent) ran for Governor in North Dakota. Thomas Lessman (Libertarian) ran for state legislature in Kansas.
If you have any comments or questions, please let me know.
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Another Perspective: How America can end its divorce epidemic
How America can end its divorce epidemic
Posted: April 7, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
When 32-year-old Paul and his 17-year-old fiancee Anna walked into the Norristown, Pa., courthouse to apply for a marriage license, the justice turned them down flat when he learned they had known each other for only one day.
Yet after much pleading and persuasion, the judge reluctantly granted them their license, and Anna and Paul were married three days later.
The wedding, held at Paul's brother's house, wasn't much – only four people in attendance, no wedding gown, no flowers, no cake, not even a picture taken. He was poor, and she was poorer.
As marriages go, this one didn't sound like it had too much of a future.
Yet, exactly 50 years later, I was privileged to attend the golden wedding anniversary party of Paul and Anna Paulson, my grandparents. It was memorable. They were as loved by their many friends and relatives as George and Mary Bailey in the final scene of "It's a Wonderful Life." Although their marriage had been arranged by their Greek families according to old-country custom – hence the absence of any courtship – Grandmom and Grandpop had learned to love each other. Along the way they raised four children (including my mother, Louise), kept them safe and sound through the Great Depression, built a successful business, put all four kids through college, saw them all married and producing 13 grandchildren, and lived a long and exemplary life of Christian service to others.
What magic kept their marriage so rock-solid despite the tremendous stresses and hardships they endured?
I didn't know the answer to that as a 14-year-old boy at their 50th anniversary party, nor did the question occur to me. Why would it? After all, their marriage didn't represent anything out-of-the-ordinary. When I was a kid, marriage was normal. Almost all grownups were married, and the marriage lasted until one of them died. That's just the way it was, or so it seemed.
I had heard about Elizabeth Taylor and other movie stars who scandalously seemed to marry for a short time, get divorced and then remarry and then redivorce and remarry yet again. Some would just sleep around and not bother with the charade of marriage at all.
But that was Hollywood. In the real world where I lived, people got married and stayed married.
I vividly remember the day I discovered divorce. My mother introduced me to Yvonne, a friend of hers who had been divorced. I still recall my feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment, a gut recognition of some private shame. I knew there was something very wrong, something tragic, about divorce.
Today, decades later, it seems every few weeks I hear about another friend or acquaintance of mine whose marriage has detonated. With stunning rapidity, divorce has been transformed from something relatively rare, stigmatizing and traumatic to something commonplace, accepted – and traumatic.
Indeed, divorce today is almost expected, with one in every two marriages ending this way. It is only the numbing frequency and ubiquity of divorce that make us forget the full-blown tragedy it really is – the devastation of a family.
"All it takes is one confused spouse who thinks that divorce will solve their unhappiness," said Michelle Gauthier, founder of Defending Holy Matrimony, a Catholic organization. "When that one spouse visits a lawyer, they place the entire family in the hands of a hostile court system. Children become wards of the state, and all marital assets are controlled by the courts. It is truly a tragedy."
A tragedy, yes, and nowhere more so than in its negative impact on children.
"National studies show that children from divorced and remarried families experience more depression, have more learning difficulties, and suffer from more problems with peers than children from intact families," writes Judith Wallerstein, widely considered the world's foremost authority on the effects of divorce on children. In her landmark book, "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce," Wallerstein reveals:
Children from divorced and remarried families are two to three times more likely to be referred for psychological help at school than their peers from intact families. More of them end up in mental health clinics and hospital settings. There is earlier sexual activity, more children born out of wedlock, less marriage, and more divorce. Numerous studies show that adult children of divorce have more psychological problems than those raised in intact marriages.
It gets worse. Besides the more obvious results of rampant divorce – such as the massive growth in single-parent homes – "virtually every major personal and social pathology can be traced to fatherlessness more than to any other single factor," says author Stephen Baskerville, a professor of political science at Howard University. Citing violent crime, substance abuse, unwed pregnancy, suicide and other problems, he says, "fatherlessness far surpasses both poverty and race as a predictor of social deviance."
Indeed, the growth of the youth-gang culture – police say Los Angeles County alone is home to an estimated 150,000 gang members – is eloquent testimony to the powerful need boys have for a father. If they don't have a real father in their lives, they'll gravitate to another male role model, even a poisonous one.
Equally alarming, although largely unrecognized by most people, is the expansion of government power to which rampant divorce has given rise. As Baskerville puts it:
The result of three decades of unrestrained divorce is that huge numbers of people – many of them government officials – now have a vested professional and financial interest in encouraging it. Divorce today is not simply a phenomenon; it is a regime – a vast bureaucratic empire that permeates national and local governments, with hangers-on in the private sector. In the United States, divorce and custody comprise over half of civil litigation, constituting the cash cow of the judiciary and bringing employment and earnings to a host of public and private officials, including judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, mediators, counselors, social workers, child support enforcement agents and others.
This growth industry derives from the impact of divorce on children. The divorce revolution has spawned a public-private industrial complex of legal, social service and psychotherapeutic professionals devoted to the problems of children, and especially children in single-parent homes. Many are women with feminist leanings. Whatever pieties they may voice about the plight of fatherless, poor, and violent children, the fact remains that these practitioners have a vested interest in creating as many such children as possible. The way to do it is to remove the fathers.
"Where you have minor children, there's really no such thing as no-fault divorce for fathers," says Detroit attorney Philip Holman, vice-president of the National Congress for Fathers and Children. "On the practical level, fathers realize that divorce means they lose their kids."
For an out-of-control, ever-expanding government such as America's, divorce represents a hard-to-resist growth opportunity. "Once the father is eliminated," Baskerville explains, "the state functionally replaces him as protector and provider. By removing the father, the state also creates a host of problems for itself to solve: child poverty, child abuse, juvenile crime, and other problems associated with single-parent homes. In this way, the divorce machinery is self-perpetuating and self-expanding. Involuntary divorce is a marvelous tool that allows for the infinite expansion of government power."
This may appear to be a sinister, almost conspiratorial-sounding assessment of government's role in divorce. But if you look objectively at what has happened to the institution of civil marriage since the 1960s and pay attention not to what people and governments say, but to what they actually do, Baskerville's harsh conclusions are hard to deny.
Consider just how absurdly easy it is to get divorced today. Writer Dennis E. Powell explains how, upon learning his wife desired a divorce, he quickly found the state more than eager to help break up marriages:
I have discovered how my state – Connecticut – has done all it can to make ending a marriage easy, while making little or no provision for preserving it. In Connecticut, as in other states, "no-fault" divorce means "divorce because it suits the mood of at least one partner." The state has produced an official publication, the "Do-It-Yourself Divorce Guide" to make getting a divorce as simple as mounting a defense against a speeding ticket – even if your spouse has no interest in divorce.
Especially if your spouse has no interest in divorce. The "Do-It-Yourself Divorce Guide" offers everything one needs to know to obtain a divorce, but no guidance as to how one who opposes a divorce might respond. There is plenty on how to battle for a bigger piece of the marital corpse and on getting court orders of alimony, child support, custody, and exclusive use of the family home. There is no mention of another pre-judgment court order ... available under the law, in which the court may order two sessions with a marriage counselor or other person trained in the resolution of disputes within families ...
Filing for divorce, the guide notes, is a simple matter. Fill out a couple of forms, take them to the court clerk, and have copies delivered to your spouse by a process server.
In Connecticut, divorce is routinely granted about 90 days after one spouse files the necessary papers. Total cost to the divorcing party if one represents oneself pro se (without an attorney): approximately $225-$250.
Ninety days. A couple hundred bucks. No reason required – other than "the marriage has irretrievably broken down." Breaking a marriage "contract" today is easier than firing an employee hired last week or getting out of a cell-phone contract.
In truth, there is no genuine civil marriage in America anymore. The "contract" part of the marriage contract is non-existent. After all, two parties enter into what they call a contract – and yet either party has the power to end that "contract" at any time, for any reason, whether or not the other party agrees. Thus, there never was a real contract, a binding agreement, in the first place.
Yet, the "binding," extremely-hard-to-break nature of the marriage contract is essential to marriage itself. Marriage is difficult, and there comes a time in many, if not most, marriages when conflicts and suffering cause one or the other spouse to contemplate ending the marriage. The marriage contract is meant to protect both spouses – and their children – against exactly such a period of weakness. No-fault divorce destroys that protection.
How did this happen? How have we managed to cripple civilization's primary institution, marriage, and with such blinding speed?
'Marriage is legalized rape'
Let's begin our exploration by considering that a best-selling pro-marriage book almost never saw the light of day just a few years ago.
Harvard University Press had contracted with University of Chicago sociologist and professor Linda J. Waite, a self-described "liberal Democrat," along with co-author Maggie Gallagher, to write a book based on Waite's studies about marriage.
Apparently, the Harvard-based publishing house expected the book to do the politically correct thing and criticize marriage, as is so common among today's academic elite. But, as the Harvard scholars reviewed the manuscript, they found it revealed married men and women live happier, healthier, more financially secure lives, and even have "more and better sex." So naturally, the university's publication board members decided at the last minute not to publish the book – titled "The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially" – a book they themselves had commissioned.
One Harvard Press reviewer said she didn't like the book's "tone." That's about as close to an answer as the public ever got.
By way of "tonal" comparison, check out another Harvard Press author, feminist Catharine MacKinnon who frequently compares male sexual desire to rape – whether women consent to sex or not. Expressing what one reviewer called "a whole-hog hatred of men," MacKinnon explains: "What in the liberal view looks like love and romance looks a lot like hatred and torture to the feminist." A professor of law at both the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, MacKinnon has written no fewer than five books for Harvard Press. Her message: "Feminism stresses the indistinguishability of prostitution, marriage, and sexual harassment."
So, marriage-equals-rape is OK with the Harvard University Press, but marriage-equals-happiness is not OK. Fortunately, although Harvard turned down "The Case for Marriage" at the 11th hour, it was ultimately published by Doubleday and enjoyed wide readership and critical acclaim.
Flatly contradicting the cherished divorce-may-be-good-for-you myths of the '60s and '70s, Waite and Gallagher argued – using a broad range of indices – that "being married is actually better for you physically, materially and spiritually than being single or divorced." But they introduce their findings with a warning:
For perhaps the first time in human history, marriage as an ideal is under a sustained and surprisingly successful attack. Sometimes the attack is direct and ideological, made by "experts" who believe a lifelong vow of fidelity is unrealistic or oppressive, especially to women.
"Even in the early 1960s," sum up social historians Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, "marriage and family ties were regarded by the 'human potential movement' as potential threats to individual fulfillment as a man or a woman. The highest forms of human needs, contended proponents of the new psychologies, were autonomy, independence, growth, and creativity," which marriage often thwarted. The search for autonomy and independence as the highest human good blossomed with the women's movement into a critique of marriage per se, which the more flamboyant feminists denounced as "slavery," "legalized rape," and worst of all, "tied up with a sense of dependency." "From this vantage point" Mintz and Kellogg note, "marriage increasingly came to be described as a trap, circumscribing a woman's social and intellectual horizons and lowering her sense of self-esteem."
"Slavery"? "Legalized rape"? How could anyone think of marriage in such terms? Let's travel back to the 1960s and '70s and listen to the feminist drumbeats. And keep in mind that, like much of what was being preached and written about with religious zeal in those days of cultural revolution, even the most absurd ideas had a way of magically morphing into public policy a few years later.
"We have to abolish and reform the institution of marriage ... By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God ... We must understand what we are attempting is a revolution, not a public relations movement." – Gloria Steinem, quoted in the Saturday Review of Education, March 1973
"Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession ... the choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that." – Vivian Gornick, feminist author, a tenured professor at the University of Arizona, The Daily Illini, April 25, 1981
"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." – Feminist author Robin Morgan, who became an editor at Ms. magazine
"If women are to effect a significant amelioration in their condition it seems obvious that they must refuse to marry ... The plight of mothers is more desperate than that of other women, and the more numerous the children the more hopeless the situation seems to be ... Most women ... would shrink at the notion of leaving husband and children, but this is precisely the case in which brutally clear rethinking must be undertaken." – Germaine Greer, author, scholar and lecturer at the University of Warwick, England, in "The Female Eunuch" in 1971
"Like prostitution, marriage is an institution that is extremely oppressive and dangerous for women." – Radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin in 1983
"Until all women are lesbians, there will be no true political revolution." – Feminist author and journalist Jill Johnson, in "Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution," 1973
"The legal rights of access that married partners have to each other's persons, property, and lives makes it all but impossible for a spouse to defend herself (or himself), or to be protected against torture, rape, battery, stalking, mayhem, or murder by the other spouse ... Legal marriage thus enlists state support for conditions conducive to murder and mayhem." – Claudia Card, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1996
First, let's be very clear about what we're looking at – pure rage, an all-consuming hatred of men, and often a hatred of God as well.
If you think I'm exaggerating, go read their writings for yourself. You will be shocked at the depth and intensity of anger, the kind one associates with deep personal violation or trauma. Indeed, in some well-known cases, feminist leaders report having been sexually abused as children or beaten by a violent husband. Apparently, they have concluded in their blind anger that all men are predatory beasts and molesters, and thus are determined to save their fellow women from the "slavery" and "oppression" of family life.
Alien nation
Most people who lived through the '60s remember the militant feminists and their angry speeches, demonstrations and bra-burnings. But when this spectacle left the front page of mainstream consciousness – along with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, long hair, LSD and the rest of the '60s psychedelic cultural revolution – did America just go back to "normal"?
Nope.
We had been transformed. Today, a generation later, we debate issues like cohabitation, divorce, same-sex marriage, civil unions, polygamy and the redefinition of marriage, seemingly oblivious to the fact that marriage as a fundamental institution of civilization was crippled back in the late '60s and early '70s with the advent of no-fault divorce.
Although radical feminism has always been too strident – and frankly, insane – to be embraced by the American public (though it is to this day a powerful molding influence on America's college campuses), its core agenda has mysteriously become our reality.
The same thing happened with abortion, the No. 1 cause of feminists today. The public has never accepted the radical pro-abortion agenda – national polls repeatedly show barely 25 percent of Americans embrace unfettered abortion-on-demand at any time, for any reason. Yet that radical agenda is the law of the land in the United States today. In the same way, the feminist movement – from the "mainstream" variety that pushed women into the workplace to the man-hating radical variety that demanded an end to marriage and the mainstreaming of lesbianism – has succeeded in turning its agenda into public policy.
Look at what its purveyors wanted: to persuade women to be ashamed of their roles as homemaker and mother and to set their sights instead on the workplace; to institute no-fault divorce; to make lesbianism an acceptable alternative to heterosexuality; and most of all, to "free" women from marriage. They scored big-time. The question is: "How?"
While feminism was relentlessly driving the family apart from the sidelines, what on earth was the mainstream thinking? After all, it was state legislatures and judges and governors, not militant lesbians, that actually tossed out the powerfully binding civil-marriage contract by instituting no-fault divorce.
Wallerstein describes the seduction of "mainstream" America:
Up until 30 years ago marriage was a lifetime commitment with only a few narrow legal exits such as proving adultery in the courts or outwaiting years of abandonment. American cultural and legal attitudes bound marriages together, no matter how miserable couples might be. Countless individuals were locked in loveless marriages they desperately wanted to end, but for the most part they had no way out. Then, in an upheaval akin to a cataclysmic earthquake, family law in California changed overnight. A series of statewide task forces recommended that men and women seeking divorce should no longer be required to prove that their spouse was unfaithful, unfit, cruel, or incompatible. It was time, they said, to end the hypocrisy embodied in laws that severely restricted divorce. People should be able to end an unhappy marriage without proving fault or pointing blame.
The prevailing climate of opinion was that divorce would allow adults to make better choices and happier marriages by letting them undo earlier mistakes. They would arrive at an honest, mutual decision to divorce, because if one person wanted out, surely it could not be much of a marriage.
These attitudes were held by men and women of many political persuasions, by lawyers, judges, and mental health professionals alike. The final task force that formulated the new no-fault divorce laws was led by law professor Herma Kay, who was well known as an advocate for women's rights. In 1969, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the new law and people were jubilant. It was a time of hope and faith that greater choice would set men and women free and benefit their children. Within a few years, no-fault divorce laws spread like wildfire to all 50 states. People all across the country were in favor of change.
"But," adds Wallerstein, whose groundbreaking work involved a 25-year study of children of divorce, "what about the children? In our rush to improve the lives of adults, we assumed that their lives would improve as well. We made radical changes in the family without realizing how it would change the experience of growing up. We embarked on a gigantic social experiment without any idea about how the next generation would be affected."
Why did Reagan, a champion of family values, sign the nation's first no-fault divorce bill into law? He was shattered when his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, filed for divorce. Although it was Reagan's growing anti-communism that alienated wife Jane – she complained in her divorce papers that "my husband and I engaged in continual arguments on his political views" – she accused him of "mental cruelty," since divorce laws in the 1940s required a charge against the other spouse of adultery, extreme cruelty, willful desertion, willful neglect, habitual intemperance, felony conviction or incurable insanity.
As son Michael later explained in his book "Twice Adopted," "Even though listing grounds for divorce was largely a formality, those words were probably a bitter pill for him to swallow." In signing California's no-fault divorce law, said Michael, "He wanted to do something to make the divorce process less acrimonious, less contentious and less expensive."
But Reagan later regretted the decision as one of the worst he ever made, as divorce rates skyrocketed and divorce conflicts and legal costs remained "as ruinous as ever," Michael added.
Looking back at America's decades-long divorce "experiment," Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family's marriage expert, sums up its results. While adults suffered terribly, children "fared even worse," he said.
Many saw the innocence of childhood evaporate the day their parents announced the divorce. Others described being "scarred for life." They told countless stories of being crippled by anxiety, possessed by anger, disoriented by confusion and immobilized by fear of total abandonment. Their behavior, grades and physical and mental health plummeted. They were different children. In fact, they didn't see themselves as children any longer. Divorce forced them to become adults, even before they became teens. We now know these children carry these problems cumulatively into adulthood.
Contemplating the stupendous amount of pain, deprivation and trauma we so jubilantly and foolishly invited into the national family a generation ago – during which time we overthrew most if not all of the rules we had lived by for centuries – we must ask ourselves: What happened to America during the 1960s? I mean, what really happened?
Revolution
What exactly was this mass seduction that we call "cultural revolution" that overtook America during that tumultuous period? I have yet to hear a really good explanation for it.
It seems a combination of powerful factors – like planets that rarely align – all came together during that particular period and ushered in a transformation the American mind.
One factor was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was to the '60s generation what Sept. 11, 2001, was to today's Americans – a national shock beyond all other national shocks. It signaled the end of America's innocence, of the '50s world of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best." The handsome Camelot president – he and Jacqueline were the closest thing to royalty in modern America – had his brains blown out on national television.
Like everyone else alive then, I remember where I was – in my eighth-grade science class. It was right after lunch and the teacher walked into the classroom and said: "I suppose you've all heard Kennedy was shot." My first reaction was: "Kennedy? He must mean the boy in our class named Kennedy." It didn't occur to me that it could be our president. Presidents weren't assassinated – just as married couples didn't get divorced. Assassinated presidents were people like Lincoln and Garfield, but it didn't happen in America now, I thought.
It was a major psychic shock. And shock has a strange way of opening people up to new ideas – and not necessarily good ideas.
Then there was the Vietnam War. From an ideological point of view it was arguably one of America's most altruistic wars, as we were there to stop the spread of communism and had little to gain ourselves. But the war's actual execution by America's leaders was incompetent and disastrous, as Defense Secretary Robert McNamera later famously admitted. The nation was polarized and intensely emotionalized over the controversial war.
Powerful emotion also has a strange way of opening people up to new ideas.
Then there was the rock music invasion from England. What started with the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other groups immediately exerted a powerful hold on America's youth and soon introduced and sugar-coated the psychedelic drug subculture – "Turn on, tune in, drop out" – which was, in turn, energized and unified by opposition to the Vietnam War.
A primary effect of mind-altering drugs is that they open people up to new ideas – maybe that's why they're called "mind-altering."
And then, most devastating of all, there was widespread confusion among America's churches and churchgoers over God. Time magazine's infamous 1966 cover story, "Is God Dead?" shockingly quoted top church leaders expressing anxiety and uncertainty over Who God is, or even if He is. With America's traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and moral standards in doubt or disrepute, alien philosophies and beliefs readily flooded into the vacuum – paganism, occultism, channeling and New Age practices of every conceivable sort.
Similarly, without a godly paradigm – whereby we comprehend that man's only true freedom is to be a servant of Heaven, rather than a slave of Hell – our whole concept of freedom was transformed. This naturally opened America up to a torrent of "liberation" movements, from sexual liberation to women's liberation to gay liberation. In America's morally weakened and confused state, even the most radical and alien ideas exerted an immensely powerful influence on the national mind and mood.
As if all this wasn't enough, there was something else at play – something seldom mentioned in polite circles out of fear of ridicule. And that is the issue of communist influence. We didn't just get high on LSD and fall off the cliff during the 1960s. We were pushed.
Hard as it may be to believe today when communism has been so thoroughly discredited, back during the '30s, '40s and '50s many people – including some well-known Americans – actually believed Marxism was a good thing. There was an ideological struggle going on in the world, and the seduction of communism was in its heyday – including in the United States.
During this time, the Soviet Union was engaged not only in its very public military and scientific buildup, but also in massive espionage and infiltration. And, as the public record undeniably shows, the USSR had direct ties with the Communist Party USA.
The entertainment industry was one area targeted by the Communist Party USA, which had been active in Hollywood since 1935. Headquartered in New York, the CPUSA had decided to wrest control of the entertainment industry – and therefore of what Americans would see in their movie theatres – by taking over Hollywood's labor unions.
"By the end of the Second World War, [communist] party membership in Hollywood was close to 600 and boasted several industry heavyweights," reveals Peter Schweizer in his celebrated book, "Reagan's War." "Actors Lloyd Bridges, Edward G. Robinson, and Fredric March were members, as were half a dozen producers and about as many directors." (Some, it should be noted, later renounced their Communist Party affiliation.)
It was none other than Ronald Reagan who took the leading role in throttling this attempted communist takeover of Hollywood when, as head of the Screen Actors Guild, he very publicly and courageously opposed them. It marked Reagan's entry into the world of politics – and the anti-communist mission he would complete 40 years later when, as president of the United States, he took the central role in engineering the end of what he himself had aptly called the "evil empire."
But back in the era immediately preceding the 1960s, there had been many communists infiltrating America's government and institutions. Without a doubt, America came under a direct revolutionary assault – pushed primarily by avowed leftists of every stripe – during the 1960s. Most U.S. college campuses were swept up in the revolutionary fervor, and leftist propaganda and agitation were everywhere. Believe me, I know – I was there.
When all these various national assaults and traumas hit the nation at once – an unpopular war, presidential assassination, music-and-drug cultural invasion, a massive erosion of faith – the anti-America subversion that previously had existed below the surface of society seized the moment and burst forth into open rebellion.
Looking back, one has to wonder just how successful the radical left was in subverting key American institutions, including government, education, entertainment, the press and the churches.
It's hard to say for sure. But it's very sobering to realize that today, America's colleges and universities are absurdly to the left of the mainstream. In fact, just about the only place in the world you can find real, bona fide Marxists any more is on American college campuses, where they are insulated from reality as tenured professors. Same with radical feminists, who also tend to be socialists. The National Education Association, which "represents" America's public school teachers, is a leftist organization, as are the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.
Oh, by the way, maybe it's just a coincidence, but guess what Lenin (Vladimir, not John) did right up front to facilitate the communist revolution? He broke up the family by instituting de facto no-fault divorce, as celebrated Soviet expert Mikhail Heller explains:
It is significant to note that one of the first things V.I. Lenin did when he came to power in the Soviet Union, after the revolution in 1917, was to have passed what amounts to our no-fault divorce statutes.
Lenin, and later Stalin, determined that in order to maintain control of the people it would be necessary to completely destroy the family and restructure it.
Thus, on Sept. 16, 1918, a law was passed whereby one could obtain a divorce by simply mailing or delivering a postcard to the local register without the necessity of even notifying the spouse being divorced.
This statute, along with the communist encouragement of sexual immorality during marriage, approval of abortion, and forcing women out of the home into the workforce, accomplished its purpose of destroying the Russian family.
Unlike Lenin, who had guns, gulags and storm troopers to enforce his will, America's revolutionaries, including the radical feminists, had no means of forcing their anti-marriage and other agendas on society other than the force of "moral persuasion" – or to put it more aptly, angry intimidation. Unfortunately, people who aren't strong and sure of their own beliefs simply cannot withstand the demands of unreasonable, angry intimidators. They give in, they compromise, and even start to adopt the bully's views as their own – to keep the peace.
That's what happened in America.
'Let no man put asunder'
When a man and woman are married – one of the most joyful days of their lives – the officiating minister traditionally seals the wedding ceremony by warning the rest of the world to keep their hands off: "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
Yet, no-fault divorce laws – which by making divorce so easy have deprived couples of much-needed protection of their marriages during periods of conflict and anger – represent an unimaginably broad and destructive policy of government "putting asunder" those whom God joined in holy matrimony.
So, while men and women need to approach marriage with a mature, spiritual paradigm, it's also critical that the government wake up and learn from the sad legacy of its no-fault divorce laws: a generation of broken homes, broken promises, broken spirits.
Marriage is too important, too wonderful, and too challenging to have the odds stacked against it due to short-sighted and pernicious easy-divorce laws. Enlightened legislators and other leaders must revisit and re-fashion America's divorce laws so they serve to preserve marriages, not dissolve them. We must once again realize that marriage really is meant to be forever.
By the way, one last note about my grandfather, Paul M. Paulson. He was an uneducated man, a poor tailor who immigrated to America for a better life, and who barely knew his arranged bride on his wedding day. But decades later, he would credit the success of his marriage to "seeking constant guidance from above, because we both love God and assume woman is a gift of God [to man] – the most important gift after God's son." Grandpop believed that if couples feel this way, they will regard each other with sufficient love, respect and determination to make any sacrifice necessary to preserve the marriage partnership. His favorite Bible verse? "And above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8).
Another "poor tailor" – Motel (pronounced "Mottle") the tailor in "Fiddler on the Roof" – immortalized these same sentiments in song when the reluctant patriarch Tevia finally agreed to let Motel marry his firstborn daughter, Tzeidel:
Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,God took a tailor by the handTurned him around and, miracle of miracles,Led him to the promised land!
When David slew Goliath (yes!),that was a miracle.When God gave us manna in the wilderness,that was a miracle, too.
But of all God's miracles large and small,The most miraculous one of allIs the one I thought could never be:God has given you to me.
David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com and Whistleblower magazine, and author of the forthcoming book, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom.
"Destroy the family," as the Communist Lenin said, "and you destroy society." [1]
"Destroy the family," as the Communist Lenin said, "and you destroy society." [1]
This is an excerpt from the JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW, University of Louisville School of Law, Volume Fourteen 1975 Number One
There are frighteningly direct parallels to Marxist Communism and our current “no-fault” destruction of family and marriage, as noted in The Atlantic Monthly from 1926;
When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded the family … with fierce hatred, and set out … to destroy it … [W]e had to give [the family] a good shakeup, and we did,' declared … a leading Communist. [O]ne of the first decrees of the Soviet Government abolished the term 'illegitimate children ... by equalizing the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it … The father of a child is forced to contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary in the event of a separation … At the same time a law was passed which made divorce [very quick] … at the request of either partner in a marriage.
[Marriage became a game where it] was not unusual … for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions. [T]he peasants … bitterly complained: 'Abortions cover our villages with shame. Formerly we did not even hear of them.'
Many women … found marriage and childbearing a profitable occupation. They formed connections with the sons of well-to-do peasants and then blackmailed the father for the support of the children. In some cases peasants have been obliged to sell [everything] in order to settle such … claims. The law has created still more confusion because … women can claim support for children born many years ago.
During the winter of 1924-1925 some of the older Communists accused the younger generation … of indulging … in loose connections; they blame the girl students for practising frequent abortions … Russian women students … [noted] that love was almost the only cheap amusement left to them and demanded that they be given … free abortions that factory women enjoy … Both in the villages and in the cities the problem of the unmarried mother has become very acute and provides a severe and annoying test of Communist theories.
…Another new point was that wife and husband would have an equal right to claim support from the other… The woman would have the right to demand support for her child even if she lived with several men during the period of conception; but, in contrast to previous practice, she or the court would choose one man who would be held responsible for the support. Commissar Kursky seemed especially proud of this point because it differed so much from the 'burgeois customs' of Europe and America.
Another speaker objected to the proposed law on the ground that some women would take advantage of its liberal provisions to form connections with wealthy men and then blackmail them for alimony.[ 2 ]
[1] Lenin merely repeated what Socrates had said and what Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx put into words. Lenin set out to do just that, hoping that a new society -- with the State as the ultimate father -- could be constructed. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have seen the consequences of the experiment.
[2] The Atlantic Monthly; July 1926; The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage; Volume 138, No. 1; page 108-114.
http://www.amberell.com/femfamlaw.html
ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IN DISARRAY
ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IN DISARRAY
Political leaders, religious leaders, conservatives, families (especially fathers), judges, and interested lawyers, along with the vast majority of Americans who believe in ideals of family and country must understand that open WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THEM AND THIS COUNTRY.
And it’s coming from many of the institutions that our taxes are funding and supporting! In terms of financial and human costs this war on America has been the most destructive war in America’s history.
When Nikita Kruschev banged his shoe on the table and declared, ‘We shall destroy you from within’ during the infamous "Kitchen Debate" - he knew what he was talking about.
[Comparing the culture of the 50’s to that of 1998] violent criminal offenses have exploded upward by 700%. Premarital sex among 18 year olds has jumped from 30% of the population to 70%. Tax rates for a family of four have skyrocketed 500%, consuming a fourth of their income. Divorce rates have quadrupled. Illegitimate births among black Americans has soared - from approximately 23% to more than 68%. Illegitimacy itself has jumped from a nationwide total of 5% to nearly 30% nationwide - a rise of 600%. Cases of sexually transmitted diseases have risen 150%. Teen age pregnancies are up by several thousand percent and teen suicides have risen by 200%. Between 1950 and 1979 - serious crime committed by children under 15 has risen by 11,000%...
Most Americans would agree that our society has changed for the worst over the last 30 years.” [i]
While there has been progress in moving people off of the welfare rolls and into work, welfare still exists and many commentators note it exists to promote the breakdown of the family. A myriad of today’s social ills can be traced to the breakdown of the family and the undermining of marriage. Some of the testimony about the devastation of American families as a result of today’s culture war can be seen in several pieces of testimony I have submitted to the Human Resources Subcommittee:
US House Testimony on Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals, H.R. 4090. April 11, 2002, 109 citations or references - consequences of welfare practices on the family unit, and exploration of the 1996 welfare reform bill’s requirements for strengthening families and marriage (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/4-11-02/records/billwood.htm)
US House Testimony on Teen Pregnancy prevention PRWORA, Public Law 104-193 (Hearing 107-48). November 15, 2001, 43 citations and references -- effects of fatherlessness and divorce on teen pregnancy. (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/11-15-01/Record/wmwood.htm)
US House Testimony on Child support and Fatherhood proposals (Hearing 107-38). June 28, 2001, 83 citations or references - Social consequences of failed divorce and child custody policies (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/6-28-01/record/chillegalfound.htm) -- Father absence, a byproduct of divorce, illegitimacy, and the erosion of the traditional family, is responsible for; filling our prisons, causing psychological problems, suicide, psychosis, gang activity, rape, physical and sexual child abuse, violence against women, general violence, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, lower academic achievement, school drop-outs, relationship instability, gender identity confusion, runaways, homelessness, cigarette smoking, and any number of corrosive social disorders.
US House Testimony on The "Hyde-Woolsey" child support bill, HR 1488 (Hearing 106-107, pages 94-103). March 16, 2000, 75 Citations. – Concerning problems with nearly every state's child support guidelines. Along with this testimony, I have written legal briefs for the Federal District Court on the unconstitutionality of Ohio’s custody laws, a legal brief opposing psychology in the courtroom, and am developing an extensive historical review of the rise of our current “family” law system. During several years of research, a disturbing common thread continues to appear, tracing it back to its origins, it led to one Antonio Gramsci.
THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICALIn 1926, an Italian communist named Antonio Gramsci ended up in Mussolini’s prison after a return from Russia . While there, he wrote his “prison notebooks” and they laid out a plan for destroying Western faith and culture. His plans included ways to undermine and discourage Westerners through the intentional collapse of the existing social structure from within.
Gramsci advocated not only Marxist class warfare, which was economically focused, but also social and cultural warfare at the same time. His theories and the “slow march through the culture” (or institutions) which he envisioned to destroy the West are enshrined in current American social policy. His theories surrounding “hegemony” and a “counter-hegemony” were designed to destroy Western social structure and overthrow the “West” from within.
Hegemony, as defined by Gramsci is that widely accepted system of values, morals, ethics, and social structure which holds a society together and creates a cohesive people. Western social structures holding society together (i.e. “the hegemony”) include: authority, morality, sexual restraint, monogamous marriage, personal responsibility, patriotism, national unity, community, tradition, heredity, education, conservatism, language, Christianity, law, and truth. His theory called for media and communications to slowly co-opt the people with the “counter-hegemony” propaganda message.
"... Hegemony operates culturally and ideologically through the institutions of civil society which characterises mature liberal-democratic, capitalist societies. These institutions include education, the family, the church, the mass media, popular culture, etc." [ii]
Through a systematic attack of these institutions he termed the “slow march through the culture,” Gramsci theorized that once these institutions were sufficiently damaged the people would insist on an end to the madness allowing totalitarian control of the Western world. A similar form of these theories was tried before America by the National Socialists (Nazis) headed by Hitler.
Many of the Gramscian Marxist Communist ideals have been implemented in government, education, and law. In practice, women have become the vehicle deceived and used in this quest to tear down and destroy Western culture. This has been done by enlisting their help in ripping apart marriage and the traditional family.
Since economic Marxism was a failure, Gramsci reasoned that the only way to topple… Western institutions was by, what he called, a “long march through the culture.” He repackaged Marxism in terms of a… “cultural war”…
“Gramsci hated marriage and the family, the very founding blocks of a civilized society. To him, marriage was a plot, a conspiracy... to perpetuate an evil system that oppressed women and children. It was a dangerous institution, characterized by violence and exploitation, the forerunner of fascism and tyranny. Patriarchy served as the main target of the cultural Marxists. They strove to feminize the family with legions of single and homosexual mothers and ‘fathers’ who would serve to weaken the structure of civilized society.”
…[A]nother cultural Marxist (George Lukacs) brought the Gramscian strategy to the schools… As deputy commissioner in Hungary… his first task was to put radical sex education in the schools… it was the best way to destroy traditional sexual morality, and weaken the family. Hungarian children learned… free love, sexual intercourse, and the archaic nature of middle-class family codes, the obsolete nature of monogamy, and the irrelevance of organized religion which deprived man of pleasure. Children were urged to deride and ignore… parental authority, and precepts of traditional morality. If this sounds familiar, it is because this is what is happening in our public… schools.
…Under the rubric of ‘diversity,’ its hidden goal is to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans. The cultural Marxists, often teachers, university professors and administrators, TV producers, newspaper editor and the like, serve as gatekeepers by keeping all traditional and positive ideas, especially religious ideas, out of the public marketplace.
Herbert Marcuse was largely responsible for bringing cultural Marxism to the United States… He believed that all taboos, especially sexual ones, should be relaxed. “Make love, not war!” was his battle cry that echoed through ivy-covered college campuses all over America. His methodology for rebellion included the deconstruction of the language, the infamous “what does ‘is’ mean?” which fostered the destruction of the culture. By confusing and obliterating word meanings, he helped cause a breakdown in the social conformity of the nation, especially among the… young of America...
Marcuse said that women should be the cultural proletariat who transformed Western society. They would serve as the catalyst for the new Marxist Revolution. If women could be persuaded to leave their traditional roles as the transmitters of culture, then the traditional culture could not be transmitted to the next generation.
What better way to influence the generations than by subverting the traditional roles of women? The Marxists rightfully reasoned that the undermining of women could deal a deadly blow to the culture.
If women were the target, then the Cultural Marxists scored a bullseye… Women have traded the domestic tranquility of family and the home for the power surge of the boardroom and the sweaty release of casual sex. Divorce court statistics, wife and child abandonment, abortion and even spousal murder can be laid at [the feminists] doorstep to a large degree. [iii]
Careful study and review shows that Gramscian Marxist Communism encompasses today’s “feminist” movement. [iv] Feminism’s goals are to use women to undermine and destroy the culture by abandoning marriage and by not carrying on the critical task of “transmitting the culture” to the next generation. Today’s feminists use women to advance the destruction of women, children, and families while convincing them they are somehow a “victim” of the patriarchal structure. And the patriarchal structure is nothing but Orwellian NewSpeak for the social structures and institutions that have kept Western civilization together long before the social decay we see today.
America’s socialists and communists make no pretenses about their goals to promote the destruction of a cohesive society by advancing a welfare state and the complete breakdown of the family. Socialists have openly adopted the “counter hegemony” taught by Gramsci which is designed to destroy Western culture. “[T]he stronger the ‘counter-hegemonic’ strength of unions and left parties, the stronger the welfare state… When we argue for ‘decommodifying’ (i.e., taking out of private market provision) such basic human needs as healthcare, childcare, education, and housing, we have in mind a decentralized and more fully accountable welfare state then [sic] exists in Western democracies.” [v] This statement comes from one of the MANY American college professors indoctrinating students today. As noted by William Gregg in the New American:
Writing in the Winter 1996 issue of the Marxist journal Dissent, Michael Walzer enumerated some of the cultural victories won by the left since the 1960s:
"The visible impact of feminism."
"The effects of affirmative action."
"The emergence of gay rights politics, and … the attention paid to it in the media."
"The acceptance of cultural pluralism."
"The transformation of family life," including "rising divorce rates, changing sexual mores, new household arrangements — and, again, the portrayal of all this in the media."
"The progress of secularization; the fading of religion in general and Christianity in particular from the public sphere — classrooms, textbooks, legal codes, holidays, and so on."
"The virtual abolition of capital punishment."
"The legalization of abortion."
"The first successes in the effort to regulate and limit the private ownership of guns."
Significantly, Walzer admitted… these victories were imposed upon our society by "liberal elites," rather than… "by the pressure of a mass movement or a majoritarian party." These changes "reflect the leftism or liberalism of lawyers, judges, federal bureaucrats, professors, school teachers, social workers, journalists, television and screen writers — not the population at large," noted Walzer… [T]he left focused on "winning the Gramscian war of position."
Cultural commentator Richard Grenier [notes Gramsci formulated] “the doctrine that those who want to change society must change man’s consciousness, and that in order to accomplish this they must first control the institutions by which that consciousness is formed: schools, universities, churches, and, perhaps above all, art and the communications industry. It is these institutions that shape and articulate ‘public opinion,’ the limits of which few politicians can violate with impunity . Culture, Gramsci felt, is not simply the superstructure of an economic base — the role assigned to it in orthodox Marxism — but is central to a society. His famous battle cry is: capture the culture."
Gramsci recognized that the chief [obstacles] impeding… the triumph of Marxism were… those institutions, customs, and habits identified by Washington and the other Founding Fathers as indispensable to ordered liberty — such as the family, private initiative, self-restraint, and principled individualism. But Gramsci focused particularly on what Washington described as the "indispensable supports" of free society — religion and morality. In order to bring about a revolution, Gramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism." [vi]
Gramsci’s Marxist communist philosophy, with its goal and aim to completely destroy “Western” civilization is best summed up in the feminist phrase “THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL!”
FAMILY LAW, CHILD SUPPORT, AND WELFARE FROM MARXISM?Many people would be shocked to learn that much of the current “family law” system we have today, which is at the heart of so much of our modern social upheaval and America’s “welfare state,” was born in the Soviet Union. Still more shocking would be the revelation that when the Soviet Union discovered its system was a disastrous failure, it instituted serious reforms in the early 1940’s to try to restore the family and the country. The Soviets made these changes when fatherlessness (which included children from divorced fathers) reached around 7 million children and their social welfare structure (day cares, kindergartens, state children’s facilities, etc.) was overburdened. Yet in America, some studies suggest that we are approaching 11 or 12 million such children. All the while, the social and financial costs of welfare and fatherlessness are just now gaining more widespread attention. America’s fatherlessness crisis is primarily by judicial making with the cooperation of the legions of lawyers and bureaucrats who profit from family destruction which rips America apart.
Unfortunately, the Soviet reforms came too late and never brought about the extent of social reconstruction that would have allowed recovery from its self-inflicted social destruction. It was unable to stave off its widely celebrated collapse when the Berlin wall came down. Even though the Soviets tried in vain to restore the social values they had worked so hard to eradicate, America only pays “lip service” to much-needed massive social reform. Serious social reform has been largely absent from political debate. On the other hand, the systematic deconstruction of all of the social values that had made our nation great is being pursued passionately as one of our nation's primary socio-political goals.
“Family law” is one of the key tools of the “counter-hegemony” which is used to advance the social welfare state through the promotion of the social structural collapse of America. The early Soviet system focused on personal happiness and self-centered fulfillment with its roots in class warfare. When it was determined that this type of class warfare directed at the family was a complete failure, the Soviets worked quickly to restore the traditional nuclear family in the 1940’s. Shortly after this, the NAWL (National Association of Women Lawyers) began their push for adopting these failed Soviet policies in America.[vii] America’s version of “family law” has adopted much of the early Soviet failed version of class warfare, while adopting new and more insidious Gramscian versions with gender, cultural, and social warfare components.
When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded the family… with fierce hatred, and set out… to destroy it… [O]ne of the first decrees of the Soviet Government abolished the term 'illegitimate children... by equalizing the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it… The father of a child is forced to contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary in the event of a separation… At the same time a law was passed which made divorce [very quick]… at the request of either partner in a marriage…
[Marriage became a game where it] was not… unusual… for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions. [T]he peasants… bitterly complained: 'Abortions cover our villages with shame. Formerly we did not even hear of them.'
Many women… found marriage and childbearing a profitable occupation. They formed connections with the sons of well-to-do peasants and then blackmailed the father for the support of the children... The law has created still more confusion because… women can claim support for children born many years ago.
…Both in the villages and in the cities the problem of the unmarried mother has become very acute and provides a severe and annoying test of Communist theories.
…Another new point was that wife and husband would have an equal right to claim support from the other… The woman would have the right to demand support for her child even if she lived with several men during the period of conception; but, in contrast to previous practice, she or the court would choose one man who would be held responsible for the support. Commissar Kursky seemed especially proud of this point because it differed so much from the 'burgeois customs' of Europe and America.
Another speaker objected to the proposed law on the ground that some women would take advantage of its liberal provisions to form connections with wealthy men and then blackmail them for alimony. [viii]
The Federal Government continues to participate by paying the states incentives encouraging them to practice these draconian Soviet style, anti-family, child destroying policies. What a frightening use of our “tax dollars at work” to undermine and destroy the social order of America. Even going so far as to pay incentives on a slightly reformed version of Article 81 of The Russian Family Code. This was promoted in the United States by Irwin Garfinkel as “The Wisconsin Model” for child support and welfare reform. “The Wisconsin Model then became a center-piece for the national child support and welfare reform movement.” [ix]
ADOPTING THE FAILED SOVIET ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE FAMILYInstead of our constitutionally guaranteed “Republican form of government,” we now have a thoroughly entrenched Marxist Communist judiciary in the civil court system masquerading as “family law.” America’s family law courts are no longer about the law, they represent complete perversions of numerous legal maxims and common law traditions that American law was founded upon. [x] These abandoned maxims represent the “hegemony” of American culture and historical tradition in civil family matters. The reprehensible evil of being rewarded for one’s wrongs, and of punishing the innocent have been firmly entrenched in the state’s family courts.
No-fault divorce, “the child’s best interests,” and other components of family law in America were imported from the worst of the Soviet family law system. For example from a 1975 Louisville Law School review:
“Few members of the American legal community are aware of the fact that the Soviet Union has had, for some period of time, what can be described as a no-fault divorce legal system… [A]t a meeting with a group of Soviet lawyers in 1972, one of them asked, “Is it for a long time that you (California) have that system?” When informed of the January 1, 1970 effective date of the California law she remarked, “I think it is the influence of our law… [T]here are a number of similarities between Soviet and California divorce laws that suggest a “borrowing” or a remarkable coincidence.” (pg 32)
“For the Bolsheviks, with their Marxist disdain for religion, the influence of the ecclesiastical authorities over the family was an outrage. Since the family represented the major institution through which the traditions of the past were transmitted from generation to generation, the new regime had to destroy the old bourgeois notions of the family and the home. There was also a very urgent practical reason for disassociating family relations from the influence of the religious authorities… [T]he first task of the new regime in relation to the family was to break the power of the church and the husband.” (pg 33)
“Birth alone was declared the basis of family ties, and all legal discrimination against illegitimate children was abolished... Early Soviet policy was intended to attack these evils [of “patriarchy”] and to transfer the care, education and maintenance of children from home to society. This would mean the end of the family’s socialization functions, and would remove the child from the conservative atmosphere of the patriarchal family to a setting that could be entirely controlled by the regime.” (pg 34)
The Soviet press reported in the mid-thirties that promiscuity flourished... juvenile delinquency mounted, and statistical studies showed that the major source of delinquents was the broken or inattentive home… Additional public homes for children were established, and propaganda campaigns sought to persuade the public that a strong family was the most communistically inspired one. (pg 38, 39)
There was also the matter of seven to nine million fatherless and homeless children, according to Russian estimates of the early twenties. In derogation of Marxist ideology, the state had been unable to assist single mothers, and there existed almost no children’s homes, nurseries or kindergartens. Because of more pressing tasks and limited personnel and material resources the state had not been able to fulfill the conditions Engels had specified for extrafamilial facilities. (pg 40)
More seriously, anti-family policies were leading to a situation where many children in the first Soviet urban generation simply lacked the kind of socializing experience to fit them intellectually or emotionally to the new society the regime was attempting to build, with its emphasis upon self-discipline and control, perseverance, steadiness, punctuality and accuracy. While the family influence had been undermined, extrafamilial agencies had failed to provide a workable substitute, leaving the child prey to the noxious and deviant influences of “the street.” (pg 41) [xi]
The US Library of Congress Country Studies on Romania also shows direct parallels noting;
“Family law in socialist Romania was modeled after Soviet family legislation… [I]t sought to undermine the influence of religion on family life. [Previously] the church was the center of community life, and marriage, divorce, and recording of births were matters for religious authorities. Under communism these events became affairs of the state, and legislation designed to wipe out the accumulated traditions and ancient codes was enacted. The communist regime required marriage to be legalized in a civil ceremony at the local registry prior to, or preferably instead of, the customary church wedding.
Because of the more liberal procedures, the divorce rate grew dramatically, tripling by 1960, and the number of abortions also increased rapidly. Concern for population reproduction and future labor supplies prompted the state to revise the Romanian Family Code to foster more stable personal relationships and strengthen the family. At the end of 1966, abortion was virtually outlawed, and a new divorce decree made the dissolution of marriage exceedingly difficult.
INDOCTRINATING LAWYERS AND JUDGES TO DESTROY AMERICAGramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism.” Law schools across America teach Gramscian “critical theory” as well as other communist ideals. A Westlaw or Lexis search reveals not just dozens, but hundreds and hundreds of legal articles, law reviews, and other materials on feminism, homosexuality, and various forms of Gramscian class “victimology.”
"The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or prevailing hegemony." [xii]Today’s Gramscian Marxists have numerous “oppositional groups” headed by lawyers and promoted by judges and bureacrats. They advance such “counter-hegemonic” (culturally corrosive and culturally destructive) positions as homosexuality, abortion, the complete FRAUD of the non-existent “separation of church and state,” the (it only applies to destroying marriage and relationships) Violence Against Women Act, “outcome based education,” and the fictitious “global warming.” They passionately HATE the initiatives that undermine their attempts to destroy America such as Title IX reform, Faith based initiatives, the 300 million for marriage, vouchers and accountability for education reform, and the Ten commandments along with ANY other reference to a moral Judeo-Christian code, and private property rights.
High profile court rulings openly display this Gramscian Marxist theory in practice: the attack on the pledge of allegiance, the ACLU suing Judge Roy Moore over the Ten Commandments, and the recent Lawrence v. Texas pro-homosexual ruling. At the root of all of these rulings and many others is a violation of the judge’s oath to uphold the constitution. That constitution says that we have a Republican form of government, NOT a socialist or communist form.
CONCLUSIONToday’s Marxist Communists operate in law, government, religion, media, entertainment and education. They use Orwellian NewSpeak with words such as “tolerance” which actually means intolerance of things that prevent the destruction of all social structures and societal “norms”. Gramscians preach the religion of division, class warfare and social warfare while spouting their hatred of anything traditional, conservative, moral, or values centered – their battle cry is “the personal is the political.” They want all of Western culture completely destroyed and centralized government control erected in the place of the structure they seek to tear apart and discard. The fruits of the culture war they have engaged on America can be seen in the corrosive remnants of broken families, broken children, filled prisons, and a host of other ills underwritten by America’s taxpayers.
Those who deeply care about this country and our constitution must fearlessly engage in this culture war--; the war for America’s heart and soul. It’s not too late yet. There is still a critical mass and majority of Americans who are not ready for the horrors of the type of communism or national socialism that Gramscians promote. No form of Marxism or communism (even its most radical form of National Socialism) has ever survived without totalitarian control. If the support were there for these Marxist Communists and National Socialists, history has shown that they would not hesitate to attempt a forceful or violent overthrow of American government.
"If the family trends of recent decades are extended into the future, the result will be not only growing uncertainty within marriage, but the gradual elimination of marriage in favor of casual liaisons oriented to adult selfishness. The problem… is that children will be harmed, adults will probably be no happier, and the social order could collapse." [xiii] “In his book, The American Sex Revolution, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reviewed the history of societies through the ages, and found that none survived after they ceased honoring and upholding the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.” [xiv] Marcus Tullius Cicero, in a speech in the Roman senate recorded by Sallust said;
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague."
POLICY IMPLICATIONSGramsci’s “march through the culture” can be turned back once the roots and methods are known. Recognizing the foundations of the current class and culture warfare, promoted in many levels of government, law, religion, media, and education provides relatively easy answers to solve these problems and to turn back the tide of their corruption and destruction.
Institute non-coercive national unity and patriotism in public policy. The national unity issue destroys the divisive class warfare while reviving patriotism helps to restore some of the “hegemony” the Marxists so passionately hate.
Mandate abstinence training in schools for states to receive health funds. Stop allowing the natural inhibitions of children to sexual advances to be torn down by the current trend of pro-sexual education brought to them by their teachers who are also authority figures.
Conservative politicians should take some of their campaign time and effort to tap into and lobby for more than just money. Conservatives must lobby large businesses to partner with inner city churches and schools to create programs of opportunity in disadvantaged areas. This takes the race baiting and class warfare issue away from the left, and gets socialist government programs out of the involvement in people’s lives. [xv]
Tie clear mission statements to EVERY government program and agency which include: promoting traditional marriage and family, restoring national pride, reducing divorce, reducing illegitimacy, promoting abstinence, and encouraging strong morals and values. Force a public debate on these issues and it will destroy the liberal Marxist establishment. Ever since welfare reform the liberal establishment has been slowly crumbling. Press the issues and accelerate their demise.
CAREFULLY identify several congressional staff members who have a proven track record of being pro-family, with proven integrity, and have shown a level of frustration over today’s social problems. Assign them to a special research project to study Gramsci’s version of Marxist communism and how it has been implemented in America. Publish their reports and develop strategies based on those reports. (And if the lefties cry “McCarthy,” let the public debates begin! An honest reading of McCarthy’s record completely vindicates him and exposes them!)
Press the Judiciary committee to amend Title 18 of the US Code to create provisions stating that no state or federal judge shall have any form of immunity whatsoever for engaging in actions which produce or promote taxpayer fraud. For any such act or acts, they shall be subject to both criminal prosecution and they shall be subject to suit in their personal capacity. Let the judges and lawyers scream about “independence” and then insist that they must interpret “independence” to mean that they should be free to break the law and commit fraud against the taxpayers of the United States.
If Title 18 cannot be amended, then insert the provisions under Title 42 related to the Public Health and Welfare.
End taxpayer funding of PBS. Expand libel and slander laws to include distortions, manipulations, or unbalanced reporting in television and cable news programs. Let the trial lawyers have a field day with the liberal media.
Codify in the USC the mission of senior level bureaucrats and their guiding principles with explicit provisions noting personal liability for not adhering to these provisions. Codify the requirement for annual reports by heads of agencies demonstrating how they have complied with these requirements. For example:
Make the HHS Director’s mission something like “to work to restore traditional marriage and family while reducing the number of single-parent and broken families who need to collect welfare or child support.” Make it a mandatory reporting requirement on how this mission is being fulfilled.
[i] King, Jennifer. Who are the Real Radicals? Rightgrrl, December 1998. A brief exposition of Antonio Gramsci http://www.rightgrrl.com/jennifer1.html
[ii]Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 168-169. Routledge, London.
[iii] Borst, William, Ph.D. American History. A Nation of Frogs, The Mindszenty Report Vol. XLV-No.1 (January 2003) Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned by the Nazi’s and later by the Communists in Hungary. Online version can be seen at http://www.mindszenty.org/report/2003/mr_0103.pdf
[iv] “Marxism and Feminism are one, and that one is Marxism” Heidi Hartmann and Amy Bridges, The unhappy marriage of Marxism and Feminism. -- opening page of Chapter 1, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press (paperback in 1991)
“Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism…” -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 3
Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism. -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 10
"Our culture, including all that we are taught in schools and universities, is so infused with patriarchal thinking that it must be torn up root and branch if genuine change is to occur. Everything must go - even the allegedly universal disciplines of logic, mathematics, and science, and the intellectual values of objectivity, clarity, and precision on which the former depend." A quote from Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, "Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies" (New York, Basic Books, 1994), p. 116
[v] Schwartz, Joseph. Toward a Democratic Socialism: Theory, Strategy, and Vision. Joseph Schwartz, a member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, teaches political science at Temple University.
[vi] Grigg, William. Toward the Total State.The New American Vol. 15, No. 14. July 5, 1999. http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/07-05-99/vo15no14_total.htm
[vii] Selma Moidel Smith, A Century of Acheivement: The Centennial of the National Association of Women Lawyers, pg 10. (1999); See also ABA’s Family Law Quarterly, 33 Fam. L.Q. 501, 510-511. Family Law and American Culture – Women Lawyers in Family Law, Section B. The Crusade for No-Fault Divorce. (Fall, 1999)
[viii] The Atlantic Monthly; July 1926; The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage; Volume 138, No. 1; page 108-114.
[ix] The Child Support Guideline Problem, Roger F. Gay, MSc and Gregory J. Palumbo, Ph.D. May 6, 1998.
[x] Jus ex injuria non oritur. 4 Bin 639 -- A right cannot arise from a wrong; Lex nemini operatur iniquum; nemini facit injuriam. Jenk. Cent. 22.—The law works injustice to no one; does injury to no one; Lex deficere non potest in justitia exhibenda. Co. Lit. 197.—The law cannot be defective in dispensing justice; Lex non deficit in justitia exhibenda. Jenk. Cent. 31.— The law is not defective in justice; Commodum ex injurie sue non habere debet. Jenk. Cent. 161. -- No man ought to derive any benefit of his own wrong; Lex non favet delicatorum votis. 9 Co. 58.—The law favours not the vows of the squeamish; Nemo punitur sine injuria, facto, seu defalto. 2 Inst. 287.—No one is to be punished unless for some injury, deed, or default; Legis constructio non facit injuriam. Co. Lit. 183.—The construction of law does no injury; Nemo punitur sine injuria facto, seu defalto. 2 Co. Inst. 287. -- No one is punished unless for some wrong act or default
[xi]No-Fault Divorce: Born In The Soviet Union? University of Louisville School of Law, Journal Of Family Law. Vol. 14, No. 1 (1975). ppg. 32-41
[xii] Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 169. Routledge, London.
[xiii] David Popenoe, "Modern Marriage: Revisiting the Cultural Script," Promises to Keep, 1996, p. 248.
[xiv] Linda Bowles. Damage for the Children. June 13, 2000. Worldnet Daily online.
[xv] A similar program which has been very successful is DAPCEP (the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program http://www.dapcep.org/ ). The difference is that a program to undermine Gramsci should have BOTH parent’s involvement as its centerpiece. While it would be ideal if they were married, requiring BOTH parents is a start in the right direction.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=954.
