Los Angeles Daily Journal & San Francisco Daily Journal - Letter to the Editor
“Law Protects Women but Victimizes Many Men”

Gordon E. Finley
Los Angeles Daily Journal & San Francisco Daily Journal
July 13, 2005

Dear Editor,

In my view, the Violence Against Women Act should be taken as a wake-up call for children and fathers. For all people of good will, the critical reality of the act is that things are not as they seem.

The apparent goal of the law is to protect women from domestic violence. This certainly is a worthy goal and one that no member of Congress can fail to support.

There is, however, a critical hidden agenda. That agenda – buried under the smokescreen of Violence Against Women Act rhetoric – is: (a) the separation of fathers and children; (b) the establishment of matriarchal control over one of society's must fundamental institutions, the family; and (c) the transfer of wealth from men to women.

The key mechanism underlying this agenda is the denial of due process to men following the filing of domestic violence allegations. This denial of due process is why Congress either must sunset or rewrite the Violence Against Women Act rhetoric – or lose votes in 2006.

The hidden agenda is very simple. Under the Violence Against Women Act, any woman can obtain restraining or protection orders against any man under even the most blatantly false of pretenses. This occurs because there is no due process protection for men once the restraining order has been requested in civil rather than criminal court.

Further, these restraining/protection orders are required to be issued even if based only on the claim of how a woman states that she "feels," and not on any evidence of actual abuse.

Once a mother has a restraining/protection order, the father is separated from the children and the house and is obliged immediately to begin supporting the lifestyle of his former wife and children. With the subsequent divorce the mother obtains physical custody of the children more than 87 percent of the time, thus establishing post-divorce matriarchal control of the family. Most men will not believe that this could happen to them.

What makes this scheme so diabolical is that it is men's tax dollars that finance the destruction of their own families and their separation from their children and their wealth.

The transfer of wealth from men to women is accomplished through the child support collection industry and alimony. Allegedly, this transfer is done under the guise of "the best interests of the child." However, the true beneficiaries are women who receive child support and alimony utterly free of any accountability for how the wealth is saved or spent.

The mother is virtually guaranteed of this transfer of wealth because of the Catch-22 enforcement mechanisms built into the child support collection industry. If a father falls into arrears for any reason – including reduced pay because of military call-up – he cannot escape impoverishment because of the Bradley Amendment. The Bradley Amendment requires fathers who fall into arrears to continue to pay – and pay back – child support at the level of their formerly higher income no matter what their current income – or face debtor's prison.

The family court system colludes with the child support system to impoverish fathers because it makes it virtually impossible – through delay, gender bias, immense effort and exorbitant expense – to get child support or alimony obligations reduced, no matter what the changed financial circumstances of the father or mother may be.

For children and fathers, the Violence Against Women Act is the opening wedge from which post-divorce matriarchal control of the family and the transfer of wealth from men to women are accomplished in a seamless system.

All persons of good will should demand that their senators and representatives either sunset or rewrite the act to include due process for men. At stake are votes in 2006.

Gordon E. Finley
Florida International University