Monday, August 3, 2009

From OZ ~ Dads on the Air ~ "The Canadian Special"



Dads On The Air
Monday night 3rd August for Northern Hemisphere and North American cable listeners , Early Tuesday morning 4 August 2009 for British and European Cable listeners and Monday Morning 4th August 10.30 am for Australian listeners and cable users
2GLF FM 89.3 and ONLINE

Local Sydney Australia Time: 10.30 am to 12 midday Tuesday 4th August 2009
USA and Canadian Eastern time: 8.30 pm to 10 pm Monday 3rd August 2009
USA and Canadian Pacific time: 5.30 pm to 7 pm Monday 3rd August 2009
UK GMT time: 12.30am to 2am Monday night (early Tuesday morning) 3rd-4th August 2009

In Canada:
Maritimes: 9.30 pm to 11.00 pm
Ontario: 8.30 pm to 10.00 pm
Prairies and Alberta: 6.30 pm to 8.00 pm
British Columbia: 5.30 pm to 7.00 pm
Listen live on 2GLF 89.3FM in Sydney or online via live streaming at www.893fm.com.au/On-Air
or in MP3 format at www.dadsontheair.net or subscribe to our Podcast

"The Canadian Special"
With Special Guests:
Karen Selick
Roger Gallaway
Jeffrey Asher


This week we look at the struggle for family law reform in Canada, the home of some of the world's most extreme anti-male anti-father legislation. Recently Dads On The Air interviewed Canadian MP Maurice Vellacot, who has introduced shared parenting legislation into the Canadian parliament. This week we follow on from that interview by talking with the highly experienced family lawyer Karen Selick, who has been an outspoken proponent for reform of the system; Roger Gallaway MP, who co-chaired an inquiry into shared parenting in Canada and Jeffrey Asher, a lecturer on men's studies who taught the last men's studies course in the country. With Australia's left wing government heading in exactly the opposite direction to the rest of the western world and winding back the modest reforms of the previous government promoting cooperative care of children after divorce, now is the perfect time to look at the situation around the world. Canadian society and many tens of thousands of fathers and their children have paid a very high price for the country's previous embrace of extreme anti-male ideology; and numerous voices are now united in a call for sanity to prevail.

Our first guest, Karen Selick, is a lawyer who spent approximately 22 years practising family law in Belleville, Ontario. During that time, she became an outspoken critic of Canada's divorce laws, including the law on marital property division, spousal support, child support and child custody. She has also publicly criticized the biases she observed in the courtroom. Selick was a columnist for Canadian Lawyer magazine for approximately 17 years, and currently contributes irregularly to the op-ed pages of the National Post, one of the few newspapers in the world which has over the past decade consistently run articles exposing the destructive practices of the family law industry and its bias against men. Her collected columns appear on her website at www.karenselick.com. Frequently, she wrote on matters related to family law. She has also appeared many times on television and radio to discuss family law issues. In 1998, she gave testimony to a Senate committee,opposing the then recently introduced Child Support Guidelines. In July, 2009 Selick left her practice to join the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), a public-interest law firm that promotes freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of contract and private property rights. Among other things, the CCF initiates or participates in courtroom challenges of laws repugnant to the freedom and natural-law rights of Canadians. Here is an extract from her article: Is Family Law Really Better than Sharia?

"Having practiced family law in Ontario since 1985, I watched with some amusement the recent uproar over whether or not Ontarians should be allowed to arbitrate their matrimonial disputes using Sharia law.

"In their haste to condemn what they view as an unjust and undesirable body of law, opponents of Sharia arbitration overlook the corollary implicit in their position: namely, that ordinary Ontario family law—as specified primarily in the Family Law Act and the Divorce Act—is a just and desirable code for resolving matrimonial disputes.

"To me, this proposition is laughable. Blinded by their fear of radical Islamists, Sharia opponents have played right into the hands of a different set of radicals: radical feminists.

"Although gender-neutral in its language, today’s family law legislation was enacted over the past two decades primarily with the intention of benefiting women at the expense of men. My own view is that these laws have also institutionalized injustice at the expense of justice.

"The Divorce Act, for instance, provides that a spouse’s “conduct in relation to the marriage” is irrelevant in determining her entitlement to spousal support. Although superficially gender-neutral, this provision actually protects women (who comprise the overwhelming proportion of support recipients) from the consequences of their own blatant marital misconduct—acts such as adultery, desertion and
violence. Countless Canadian men pay support to their estranged wives and former wives despite the fact that these women deceived them, cuckolded them, then departed to live openly with new lovers or new husbands. Other men are paying support to women who viciously assaulted them.

"When I first began practicing family law, such behaviour would have 'disentitled' a wife to support. Nowadays, instead of punishing women for breaching their contracts, the law rewards them.

"Is this the legal system we hold out as an exemplar of justice"?

"Then there are the child custody and support laws. The vast preponderance of custodial parents and child support recipients are mothers. Men who seek custody generally face an uphill battle. I have heard several judges openly admit to being biased in favour of granting custody to mothers.

"Nevertheless, the law requires fathers to pay support in prescribed amounts even if the mothers poison their children’s minds to the point where the kids refuse to speak to their fathers. Fathers have to pay even if the mothers uproot their children and drag them off to another province so that the fathers rarely or never get to see them. Fathers have to pay even if the mothers are wealthier than they are and don’t need the money. Several Canadian men are known to have committed suicide as a result of these laws. Others have fled the country.

"Is this the legal system we consider superior to religious arbitration?"

Our next guest is the popular ex member of the Canadian Member of Parliament Roger Gallaway

In his former motion to amend the Divorce Act he stated that legal battles over child custody often lead lawyers to encourage their clients to complain of psychological abuse, and women in particular to complain about violence and abuse in order to gain the upper hand in disputes.

He is a personal friend and frequent political ally of Liberal-turned-Conservative-turned Independent Senator Anne Cools, and has worked with her to reform Canada's divorce laws in recent years. Both Cools and Gallaway have sought to ensure greater custody rights for fathers. In furtherance of these concerns, Gallaway served as co-chair of the Special Joint Committee on Custody and Access, which recommended shared parenting as the norm in its report, For The Sake of The Children, issued in 1998. The report called for shared custody, repeal of the tender year's doctrine and strict rules of proof when abuse was alleged. More than 10 years after the report has been ignored by successive Justice Ministers and governments. However there are now new moves afoot to finally reform Canada's troubled family law arena. As proponent of change MP Maurice Vellacott argued on Dads On The Air recently, with so many people having witnessed the damage done to their friends and relatives through the extreme anti-father bias of contemporary family law, 80% of the Canadian population now support shared parenting. Surveys in Australia have showed similar levels of support in the community, making even more outrageous the Australian governments moves to turn back the clock. Of the three government inquiries now in train in Australia, not one is asking the opinions of fathers or the general public. The mandarins have the debate by the throat. They could not care less what the public thought.

Roger Gallaway lives on the Canada-US border directly opposite the American State of Michigan. From 1991 until 2006 he was an elected representative first for the town of Pt Edward as Mayor and then for 13 years he served in Ottawa as the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Sarnia-Lambton. A former lawyer he is a graduate of the University of Windsor Law School and is a Queens' Privy Councillor.

Our final guest is Jeffrey Asher a retired teacher, who taught "Men's Lives," the only Canadian college level course on men's issues. Two thirds of his students were open-minded young women. This course was the very last 'Men's Studies' course ever taught in Canadian Universities and Colleges. He has written on male epidemiology and sex differences in intellectual ability. He knows his gender disparity backwards and continues to advocate on behalf of the natural family, equal opportunities and equal justice before the law. He says experience as a father was the most demanding and rewarding experience of his life.

Jeffrey Asher says over 40% of marriages end in divorce, and amongst university graduate women over 50%. Less than 6% of fathers are granted residential custody by the courts. "I was one of those rare fathers," he says. "The remaining 94% of fathers are reduced to wallets and weekend visitors with their children whom they love above all else. I am concerned about prevention of such grief, imposed on children and fathers. My young men students frequently asked how they might avoid divorce horrors".

"These are painful questions, but necessary in our age of feminist jurisprudence. Should men marry? Or should men maintain relationships with women only as long as both are satisfied? Should men conceive children? Those beloved children will be likely torn from them and possibly alienated".

"Repeated studies show that from 10% to 30% of children were conceived by a man who is NOT their wife’s legal partner. If a man’s partner or wife delivers a child, should he routinely request a DNA fatherhood test? What, if any, are the conditions which might permit a man to marry and raise children in a stable and lifelong marriage? Is that currently possible?

In last month's article "Why most men tolerate feminist misandry" Jeffrey Asher wrote:

"Over twelve years of teaching Men’s Lives, I also wondered why majority-male legislatures, judiciaries and mainstream media editors, capitulated to and enforced feminist politics and jurisprudence.

"Above all, men are powerfully driven by sexual attraction to women. Men easily rationalize their sexual need for women as based in intellectual and moral equality.

"Male protection of women and children - at the risk of men’s safety and lives - over millennia of social evolution, allowed our species to survive. I suspect that imperative is as integral to male brains and hormones, as the need for and care of children is integral to women.

"Men in power did not accede to feminists because of sexual opportunism alone – women remain second to one in that category. When feminists – confused as representing women – called out to men for ‘equality,’ men entrenched quotas and feminist jurisprudence. A man shamed by a woman promptly takes corrective action, to ‘act like a Man’.

"Most men did not expect feminists, to lie. Nor did men account for female emotional volatility. Men did not expect feminists to sabotage the family. Men did not realize that the driving force behind feminism was activist female self-loathing and lesbian misandry, deliberately alienating girls and women from heterosexuality and the family.

"Donna Laframboise in "The Princess at the Window," observed that in the feminist movement, the lunatic fringe had taken over the mainstream. Feminists terrorized women against men with abuse, assault and rape agitprop. And yes, too many men remain self-loathing feminists.

I suspect the above partially explains the reluctance of most men in power to oppose feminist opportunism, even after their own marriages are destroyed and their children torn asunder...

"At the end of the day, most men hope to return home, to their wife and children, whom they love. That is a powerful restraint against male denunciation of feminist family destruction."
By John Stapleton
www.dadsontheair.net

UK ~ Women's refuge closed by 'politically correct' council as it does not cater for abused men


By Andy Dolan
Last updated at 1:17 PM on 03rd August 2009

Supporters of a women's refuge were 'shocked and stunned' to be told it is being closed - because it does not cater for men.

The emergency shelter was set up 13 years ago for women and children and adult males are not allowed to stay.

But council officials have now ruled that, because it does not serve both sexes equally, the money used to run the home would be better spent on an 'outreach service' to help battered husbands as well as wives in their own homes.

An emergency shelter set up for abused women has been forced to close because it does not cater for men

Unequal: An emergency shelter set up for abused women has been forced to close because it does not cater for men

Brian Ellis, a councillor who helped set up the refuge in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1986, branded the move a 'step backwards'.

'It doesn't make sense,' he said. 'The women are there because of what men have done to them and their children. When people suffer from domestic violence they need an immediate escape and that's being taken away.'

Refuge, a charity for women and children affected by domestic violence, said: 'There are not enough refuges for women as it is.

'It's already difficult to get help and women often have to travel long distances. Losing beds that are already there is really devastating. It is a whole community that has lost that kind of safety.'

The shelter, which can accommodate six families, costs £82,780 a year to run.

The council is one of nine in Dorset clubbing together to spend £250,000 on finding consultants to tell them where to set up a gypsy camp.

The shelter is funded by Dorset Supporting People - a partnership of Dorset County Council, six local district and borough councils, NHS Dorset and Dorset Probation.

The partnership said the refuge will close in March. A housing association which owns the building is working to find the women alternative accommodation.

One mother, 47, who used the refuge after being abused by her husband for years, said: 'I wasn't sure about where to go and what to do and then I found out about the Weycan't-mouth refuge. It was a place where I felt safe and I hadn't felt that for a long time.

'I can't believe they are going to close it - it's so important I can't even put it into words.'

A domestic violence outreach worker, who asked not to be named, said she was shocked and added: 'If there was a need for this 20 years ago then I see why not now. They are always full and there are women constantly trying to get in. I just don't understand it.'

In the last year, 6,323 people have reported domestic violence to Dorset Police.

Dorset County Council confirmed that one reason for closure was the lack of facilities for men.

A spokesman said: 'We want to make sure both men and women are catered for and we are not able to do that within the small building.'

Anthony Wilsdon, spokesman for Supporting People, said the new outreach service would help more people. He said: 'We have identified a need to support more people in their own homes.

'There is also a need to make support open to male victims and families with older male children.'


What are these women moaning about? They believe in equality, don't they?

If anyone has any doubt about the comparative levels of domestic violence perpetrated by women and men, they should do some proper research and find out the truth that the government, the mainstream media and feminists have been suppressing for decades - which is that women are just as violent as men; in fact marginally more so. A good place to start is to do an internet search on the name "Fiebert" and read everything you find there. And I mean everything. Go on, I dare you.

Whether closing a women's shelter is preferable to extending shelters to allow for male victims is open to argument; but what should not be, is the need for genuinely equal treatment for both sexes, which we emphatically do not have at present.

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Too bad it isn't politically correct to acknowledge that men and women are different and have different needs.

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Whilst I have sympathy for the women who have suffered domestic abuse, there is a significant problem of male abuse too, which is often overlooked. Instead of shutting the womens' refuge, the council should have insisted that a male refuge was also set up.

It's nice to see the Political correct chickens coming home to roost, though. Maybe it will open the eyes of the perpetrators of this nonsense to think things through fully in future.

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The people who make these mad PC decisions should be named. Not just hide under some council committee. If they want us to think that they are doing the correct thing, they should be proud of their decision. They are basically trying to make a name for themselves within the council, so they too can get a pay rise and a bonus!!!!

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Okay, at least men are beginning to at last get something in equality after 12 years of being shunned as second class by the government, councils, woman's rights and feminists. Like it or not men are battered as well as woman these days, it's just not publicized so much as women getting battered makes better head-lines so maybe look at the media why this is so. Woman are now not the quite stay at home housewife, and through wanting equality they have become the same aggressive person as there male counter-part as we are seeing on a daily basis.

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when will people realise that all this political correctness and health and saftey rules are doing the opposite and causing friction and dangers.

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