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Stephen Baskerville
A Blog about the Divorce Regime, Family Court Corruption, and Government's War on Fathers

Powerful Letters in Touchstone Magazine
The letters below were published in the April issue of Touchstone magazine. They were never posted online, but the editors have graciously granted permission to circulate them by email and for posting. They are in response to my article, "Divorced from Reality", in the January-February issue (which is online, below, so please continue to circulate it).

Notice this striking line from the first letter:

"Before my own experience, my tendency was to look down condescendingly on divorced people and, for the most part, blame the men. My attitude, of course, changed drastically when it happened to me."

There are other similar statements in these letters. Note that the only negative letter is from a divorce lawyer, to which the editors kindly permitted me to reply.

Touchstone is a prestigious and influential magazine of Christian thought. Please circulate these letters among your pastors, priests, and congregations. We really do have a lot of good will for our cause out there among pro-family groups.

Similarly powerful testimonies can be found in the 5-star Amazon reviews of my book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family.

To send more letters to the editor, go to: http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/navigation_docs/contact.html

Thanks once again to all who wrote in.

***************************

Touchstone magazine, vol. 22, no. 3 (April 2009), pp. 8-9.
Letters



DIVORCE IN REALITY


As one who has been through an unwanted divorce, I especially appreciate Stephen Baskerville's "Divorced from Reality" (January/February 2009). Before my own experience, my tendency was to look down condescendingly on divorced people and, for the most part, blame the men. My attitude, of course, changed drastically when it happened to me.

The message of the article is one the Church needs to hear, since the general churchgoing public no doubt shares the understanding I once had. We need to understand how the corrupt divorce-court system paved the way for the present push by homosexuals to "marry" and adopt children. The Church needs to consider that, while it's great to work toward ending abortion and preventing homosexual "marriage," it might be better to back up and take more preventive measures. What must be prevented is the divorce mentality that reduces marriage to a trial-and-error game that causes innumerable problems for the children involved.

-- GLEN BLESI
Saint Clair, Missouri


Thank you for publishing Stephen Baskerville's article on divorce. I want to emphasize that men and women are unjustly losing custody of their children in family court systems gone mad. Lawyers who teach their clients to falsely cry "abuse" not only destroy innocent parents, but also destroy the credibility of true child abuse cases.

When my husband was in the throes of his affair, churches I turned to for help did nothing. But going to social services for help tore our family apart. Instead of getting my husband the help he needed, they threatened to take my daughter and 4-month-old twin sons away from me and place them in foster care if I didn't agree to leave my husband. The judge overseeing our case was a friend of my husband's family, and he took my children away from me for getting social services involved in the first place. I lost temporary custody of my children; my husband continued his affair; and the churches in our community stood by and simply watched my family fall apart.

Thanks again for publishing Dr. Baskerville's plea for churches to get involved in doing what they can to prevent the divorce epidemic, because once a family gets involved in the legal system, you can count on that family being destroyed.

-- Mary C.
By email


I've just read Stephen Baskerville's article on divorce. Its description of the role of government in breaking up families, the farce of it, and the role that economics plays in it, were very accurate. The role of the Church needs addressing as well.

I've just experienced just this. I am angered and frustrated at the general public's lack of awareness on this issue, and the betrayal of our institutions by those who gain by it. I'm angered and frightened as I realize the malevolent power the government has over us. We need to find a way of undoing this destructive process.

-- DAVID GOODWIN
Marlboro, New York


In response to "Divorced from Reality" by Stephen Baskerville: I am getting divorced in Texas and the experience is shocking. There are no issues like drugs, alcohol, extramarital partners, or financial misbehavior. She does not want the life I offer her. I am out of my home, paying children support plus mortgage, and living in an apartment with rented furniture. I see our girls on alternating weekends.

This experience is common for a large number of men that I've recently met. Family laws in Texas encourage divorce. The women know they will easily get the house, the neighbors, most of the time with the kids, child support, most of the property, and perhaps even spousal support, even if their husbands did nothing wrong.

The divorce process encourages conflict between the parents and promotes a "winner" versus "loser" conflict, with the children as the main losers. The children are denied their intact family and their rightful access to their father. A father's ambitions to be an equal parent are unlikely to be met, given the strong bias to the children's mother. Our children deserve equal access to both parents.

A good starting point in a divorce involving minor children would include the presumptions of: (1) equal parenting time with the children, (2) equal or proportional division of the community property, and (3) child support specifically for child care costs and not to subsidize a parent.

-- RANDY C. JOHN
By email


Thank you for finally breaking the silence about the devastating effects of divorce with Stephen Baskerville's "Divorced from Reality." Although situations of divorce can be touchy, and feelings tender, and there are no unforgiveable sins or unredeemable situations, we have no right to change the Word of God and ignore rampant sin.

We publicly oppose gay marriage on the grounds that a child needs a father and a mother, and then often ignore the needs of children suffering from divorce. How could we be more hypocritical?

Look at what the Bible says: "For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel" (Mal. 2:16). And: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse" (Mal. 4:5-6).

One of America's many sins right now is that the hearts of fathers are being torn away from their children, and the children away from their fathers. As America is now staggering under the evident judgment of God (with the hope it will turn us toward repentance and healing), how can we ignore this clear warning? He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

-- JON MOSELEY
Southport , North Carolina


FAULT OR NO-FAULT

I didn't think it was possible to overstate the evil of no-fault divorce, but Stephen Baskerville managed to do it in "Divorced from Reality" (January/ February 2009).

Although I got out of divorce practice 15-20 years ago, in no small part due to the evils of a system that did essentially end marriage (thanks, Maggie Gallagher), I don't know what jurisdiction and what process Baskerville has in mind (and I suspect that he has none distinctly in mind) when he paints this picture: "the father is...simply sitting in his own home minding his own business. The state seizes control of his children with no burden of proof to justify why. The burden of proof (and the financial burden) falls on the father to demonstrate why they should be returned." Again, "Once arrested, the
father is summarily jailed" and "he...loses his children summarily and often permanently."

Maybe Baskerville is using "summarily" and "no burden of proof" as fundamentalist pastors in my youth used "literally" -- as in "college students today are literally raising Cain on campus." I know what "burden of proof" and "summarily" mean, and I don't think Baskerville was telling the truth. If he was telling the truth, his readers deserved more than rhetorical incendiary devices lobbed without explanation.

I hope someone with more time than I responds in more detail, but I'll close summarily with "shame on Touchstone" -- something I don't say or think very often -- insisting that it's now your burden of proof to show that Baskerville wasn't just shilling for his shrilly-titled book.

-- ROGER WM. BENNETT
Lafayette, Indiana


REPLY:

Roger Bennett, by his own admission, does not take the time or trouble to challenge any specific points in my article. Yet he accuses me of untruthfulness. This in itself should alert Touchstone readers to the logic of divorce law. "No-fault" divorce means that the outcome of every case is predetermined. No evidence, no arguments, no facts will make any difference. In every case, the "defendant" will lose, the "plaintiff" will win, and the divorce will be granted. Even if the defendant is legally unimpeachable, he is punished and can be punished further. The state then claims the power to seize control of his children -- without giving any further justification than "divorce", the divorce it has just granted without explanation. The innocent parent is then criminalized for unauthorized contact with his own children. So he is indeed "sitting in his own home, minding his own business," and he may no longer see his children without government authorization.

He is also criminalized for failure or inability to pay the state money he has done nothing to "owe". Parents are incarcerated for these matters, and there is almost never a trial. That is what I meant by "summarily."

No one denies this is what happens. Unlike Mr. Bennett, most divorce operatives simply reformulate them into legal jargon that makes them appear innocuous: "divorce," "custody," "child support." Mr. Bennett simply calls me a liar without evincing a single inaccuracy in my article or bothering to provide any evidence. His letter itself demonstrates the modus operandi and rules of evidence used in divorce court.

-- STEPHEN BASKERVILLE

Washington Times Joins the Cause
Great things are happening at The Washington Times:

First, their important lead editorial on Monday, "Anti-Dad Bias":
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/18/anti-dad-bias/

Two powerful letters in response were published Wednesday:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/20/the-demonization-of-dads/
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/20/love-and-divorce/

My own letter was published Thursday (full letter below):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/21/the-agony-of-child-support/

This editorial is a major event. We should create a groundswell in response to it. It offers an enormous opportunity.

Credit goes to Glenn Sacks and Fathers and Families, since this editorial appears to have picked up on their campaign against the Lifestyle television show, "Deadbeat Dads".


The Washington Times
LETTER TO EDITOR:
The agony of child support
Thursday, May 21, 2009
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/21/the-agony-of-child-support/

Your Monday editorial "Anti-Dad bias," is the first substantial challenge to the divorce industry by a major newspaper and deserves to be pursued much further. This abuse of power goes far beyond media bias. The child support machinery has been expanded and perverted from a means of providing for abandoned children into a huge federal subsidy of divorce and single-parent homes. It also distorts public policy and criminalizes innocent parents.

Ostensibly created to recover welfare costs, child support enforcement on the federal level has failed and now costs taxpayers more than $3 billion annually. More seriously, it pays mothers to divorce or forgo marriage, thus creating the very problem it is supposed to alleviate.

Mothers are not the only ones who profit from fatherless children. State governments generate revenue from child support at federal taxpayers' expense. By paying states according to the amount of child support they collect, federal programs give states an interest in more fatherless children. The more broken homes there are, the more revenue for the state.

One way to encourage fatherlessness is to set child support at onerous levels. Economists Robert and Cynthia McNeely write that increasingly punitive awards have "led to the destruction of families by creating financial incentives to divorce." This criminalizes innocent fathers with burdens that are impossible to pay, and it creates yet another federal plainclothes police force with no constitutional authority. The "deadbeat dad" is far less likely to have voluntarily abandoned offspring he callously sired than to be an involuntarily divorced father who has been, as attorney Jed Abraham put it, "forced to finance the filching of his own children."

These programs are virtually unassailable, not only because they balance state budgets, but because even family-values conservatives are reluctant to challenge destructive policies for fear of incurring feminist charges of defending "deadbeat dads."

The child support deception offers a preview of where our entire system of welfare-state funding may be headed: expropriating citizens with destructive programs that create the need for more spending and taxation. It cannot end anywhere but in the further decline of the family and criminalization of more of the population.

Stephen Baskerville
Associate Professor of Government
Patrick Henry College
Purcellville, Va.

Anglicans on Marriage and the Church
Here is a short piece I just published in Mandate, the newsletter of the Anglican Prayer Book Society. It makes a radical proposal at the end and might be worth showing to your pastors, priests, and fellow parishioners. They have several pieces on marriage in this and the previous issue.

http://pbsusa.org/Mandate/Mandate_2009-05-06_WEB_pp13-16.pdf

Five Letters Support Baskerville Article
The Fredericksburg Free Lance Star has published at least 5 replies to Thomas Savage, including one from me (below). As you can see, they all testify to the truth the divorce industry is trying to suppress. This debate should be taking place in every newspaper in the America and the Western world.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04102009/457702
Bravo for Baskerville expose of divorce court
Date published: 4/10/2009

Thank you for publishing Stephen Baskerville's op-ed. It's quite accurate in describing the injustices that are perpetrated in divorce courts in the U.S. and many other countries.

I find it strange that even though there are so many divorces, no one seems to notice how unjust they are, especially to the men.

Sadly, most men--including legislators and judges--believe it is their duty to protect the poor woman and children at the cost of the men being divorced.
Perhaps they do not realize they are ruining the lives of these men along with our society and usually the women and children they are purporting to protect.
Bringing this information into public view can hopefully create the social will to change it.

Everyone can see the problems in society. Few are able to correlate the root cause.

Mr. Baskerville clearly describes how the unilateral divorce-at-will laws criminalize innocent men.

Norbert Holz
Tampa, Fla.

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http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04102009/457709
Divorce regime ignores kids' 'best interest'
Date published: 4/10/2009

I have seen the lack of justice firsthand relative to family law, and I am incensed that anyone--let alone a lawyer--would say otherwise.

I totally agree with Stephen Baskerville and am shocked by the comments of Thomas Savage. What planet is Mr. Savage from?

Let's face it. The deck is stacked in favor of the mothers. There is no such thing as equal parenting or doing what is in the "best interest of the children."

I congratulate Mr. Baskerville for a very well-written and accurate op-ed.

John Marois
Ontario, Canada

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http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04102009/457466
Many profit from unfair 'divorce industry'
Date published: 4/10/2009

Thank you for printing the March 29 op-ed by Stephen Baskerville about the divorce industry.

If ever good intentions paved the way to hell, this is the case.

This is a moneymaker for government, lawyers, social workers the list goes on and on, at the ultimate expense of children.

Truly we have painted ourselves into a corner, and few see a way out.

Robert Thomas
Arlington

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http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04102009/457711
Kangaroos preside in divorce-custody cases
Date published: 4/10/2009

It was with some amusement that I read Thomas Savage's feeble attempt to rebut Stephen Baskerville's fine op-ed ["An unmarried husband: Unwelcome reality," Viewpoints, March 29].

Then I realized that some people actually believe lawyers.

Mr. Savage's main point is that people receive trials in divorce-custody court. The truth is, they are not trials, they are kangaroo courts.

In Virginia, they will not grant a jury trial in divorce-custody cases. Also, the proceedings cannot be recorded or videotaped. Why?

Most of what the lawyer said is not true. I do agree with Mr. Savage that everyone should spend time observing what goes on in divorce-custody court to see the complete disregard of the Constitution, the law, common sense, and fairness.

I sat through three years of divorce-custody proceedings, and throughout I kept saying to myself, "They can't do that," but they did, and they still do.

Don Delaney
St. Petersburg, Fla.

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http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04102009/458017
Penalties are endless for 'crime' of being divorced
Date published: 4/10/2009

Thomas Savage's sneer at my college and my alleged political affiliations (and the inaccuracy of his facts) offers a small glimpse of the kind of personal attacks and unscrupulous methods used by his profession against parents in family court ["Baskerville bays nonsense on divorce and dads," April 4].

According to Mr. Savage, family court is so fair that defendants receive not one trial but two. And before being incarcerated over child support, parents are apparently tried twice more.

Surely Mr. Savage understates his case. In family court, parents can get dozens, even hundreds, of "trials," if we count, as he does, every time an innocent parent is hauled into court without having committed any legal infraction and issued with some "order" about how he must conduct his private life if he wants to stay out of jail.

Many parents are forced to appear in court on a regular basis, each time ordered to open their wallets to attorneys like Mr. Savage, even if they have not hired them, and pay other exorbitant "debts" they have done nothing to incur.
Indeed, family court has so many ways to criminalize parents that they can just keep "trying" them until they are found guilty of something.

Do any of these numerous trials involve a jury? Is there ever a formal charge? Are parents ever declared innocent and left in peace?

Or are these quickly improvised hearings, in which parents are barely permitted to speak before the judge takes away their children, confiscates their savings, seizes their homes, attaches their wages, and jails them without any semblance of what most Americans consider a fair trial or due process of law?

America's family courts are ideologically driven kangaroo courts. These feminist tribunals are the shame of American justice.

They are creating a police state that will only expand along with the federal funding that drives them until other media follow The Free Lance-Star and expose this appalling abuse of government power.

Stephen Baskerville
Purcellville

The author is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College.

Lawyer Says Divorce is Fair
A lawyer has contested my article in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and maintains that all the produres are fair and good:
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04042009/456490
My article is here:
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/032009/03292009/454512
To send a reply or letter to the editor, go to:
http://fredericksburg.com/Feedback/sendLetterForm

It is important to answer this nonsense. All the points are documented in my book, and some are demonstrated in my Touchstone magazine article.

Fredericksburg Newspaper Op-Ed
An op-ed length version of my Touchstone magazine article recently appeared in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:

To send a letter to the editor, go to: http://fredericksburg.com/Feedback/sendLetterForm


An Unmarried Husband: Unwelcome Reality

Divorced From Reality

Date published: 3/29/2009

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of "Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family" (Cumberland House). This column is adapted from an article in the Jan.-Feb. issue of Touchstone magazine.

The decline of the family now affects virtually every American and seriously threatens not only social order but freedom and constitutional government. G.K. Chesterton once observed that the family checks government power. He was writing about divorce: Despite other threats to the family, divorce remains the most serious...

To read the rest, go here:
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/032009/03292009/454512

Pro Libertate on the Criminalization of Fathers
William Grigg has again featured Taken Into Custody on his excellent and highly respected blog Pro Libertate. His earlier review is here.

Salisbury Review Piece Now Online
Thanks to your requests, the editors of the Salisbury Review have now put my entire article on the Baby P death online. (See, the media do respond to our demands.) It is available here.

Salisbury Review: “Baby P and the Child Abuse Industry”
My piece on the Baby P case has just been published in the Spring 2009 issue of the Salisbury Review, one of the most prestigious political magazines in English. It is not fully online, but I am requesting permission to get it.

"Baby P" was a seventeen-month-old boy killed by his mother and her boyfriend. It has created a furore in Britain, with the media pointing fingers and asking all the questions but the right ones. This public discussion is at least more than has taken place in the United States.

To send a letter, go here.

Salisbury Review, Spring 2009

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Fathers & Families
Fathers & Families

Study Examines Why Abused Men Don’t Leave Their Wives
I recently attended the excellent Los Angeles domestic violence conference “From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention.” The conference featured many domestic violence dissidents–researchers and clinicians who do not believe that the mainstream domestic violence establishment and its “men as perpetrators/women as victims” conceptual framework is properly serving those involved ...

When He’s Violent to Her, It’s a Felony, When She Stabs Him, It’s a Mental Health Issue
I recently attended the excellent Los Angeles domestic violence conference “From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention.” The conference featured many domestic violence dissidents–researchers and clinicians who do not believe that the mainstream domestic violence establishment and its “men as perpetrators/women as victims” conceptual framework is properly serving those involved ...

Girl Files Suit Against Father under India’s DV Law for Sending Her to School She Doesn’t Approve
Not too long ago I reported on a 12-year-old Canadian girl whose father had grounded her because she had disobeyed him by spending too much time on the Internet. Her being grounded meant that he refused permission for her to go on a class trip. She sued him and won. The Canadian ...

NPR: A Young Father Faces Parental Alienation & Realizes His Father Was Driven Out of His Life
“But after that day, my mother and grandmother didn’t make it easy for my dad to see me. I remember asking myself all these questions: Where is he? Why doesn’t he come pick me up? Doesn’t he know where we are?” A powerful story from Jordan Monroe on NPR about Parental Alienation. Another example of ...

Psychotherapist: ‘Studies show dads give girls most of their self-esteem before age 12′
Here are a few thoughts on fathers and daughters courtesy of psychotherapist and author, Dr. Mary Jo Rapini with a comment by Dr. Venus Nicolino thrown in for good measure (Toronto Sun, 6/16/09). We know that children do better with involved fathers than without. That goes for both boys and girls. We also know ...

Professor Nathan Alexander, Loving Father (1968-2009)
Sadly, Professor Nathan Alexander, a longtime Fathers & Families supporter who endorsed many of our protest campaigns, has died of leukemia at age 41. Rachel Alexander, his sister, has written an obituary for Nathan at www.intellectualconservative.com. According to Rachel: Nathan was a larger-than-life one-of-a-kind; the epitome of what a fun, charismatic, witty older brother should be. He ...

‘Perhaps hardest hit in the recession are men who are non-custodial parents with child support arrangements’
LAist.com, an affiliate of the popular, highly-awarded Gothamist LLC blog group, interviewed me on the problem of fathers being punished for falling behind on their child support in the recession. In A Sobering Day for Many Fathers (LAist.com, 6/21/09), reporter Tom Lewis writes: Welcome to Father’s Day 2009, a Father’s Day in the midst of a ...

TV Ontario Quotes Fathers & Families on the Changing Role of Fathers
From TV Ontario’s The Changing Role of Father: Involved Dads and Their Positive Impact on Education (TVO.org, 6/21/09): In the 21st century, the role of ‘father' has changed. It's safe to say that most people do not expect fathers to take on the role of sole breadwinner, primary disciplinarian or take a backseat to mothers when ...

Esquire Publishes Excellent Father's Day Piece
Last week we asked you to call Esquire magazine over their anti-father Father’s Day week piece The Bad Dads Hall of Fame. In it, author Sean Cunningham writes “This is beyond dead-beat status. These ten terrible fathers have murdered, neglected, and abused their offspring. Needless to say, they won’t be getting anything for Father’s ...

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FreeRangeKids
Give Our Kids the Freedom We Had

CAUTION: Sand Presents Uneven Surface!
Enjoy this. Lots of great signs warning of the obvious gathered by a group called The Manifesto Club and reprinted in England’s Daily Mail. These signs remind us that Britian is in some ways more advanced than the U.S. when it comes to worrying about non-worrisome things. Remember: It is  England that requires anyone who wants to work with children — be [...]]]>

“5 Minutes for Books” Reviews Free-Range…And Is Shocked!
Two moms,  ”5 Minutes for Books” managing editor Jennifer Donovan and her colleague Dawn, reviewed my book in tandem — then did a half-hour podcast with me. Both are available here.  From their review: Jennifer: The more I read, the more surprised (and disheartened) I was at how much our parenting culture has changed in the last ten [...]]]>

Network TV News Show Seeks Families Going “Free-Range”-ish
Hi! If your family has let the kids drop some extracurricular activities in favor of more free time — or is considering it – TV is looking for YOU. A producer for one of the evening news shows is trying to figure out if this desire for a more old-fashioned, it’s-ok-to-be-bored childhood is a trend. I think [...]]]>

Welcome Viewers of “The View!”
Hi, View fans – I’m so thrilled The View is airing a rerun of my visit with “the gals” today! It was a thrill to be on the show,  of course (and, let’s be honest: scary). But how I loved hearing  Barbara Walters say my book made her feel less guilty about not having spent every single second [...]]]>

Are We Too Obsessed with Our Kids?
The public bought the idea that they were essentially a danger to their own kids and had better pay money for advice, that they'd better try really hard to do a good job, and they'd still inevitably fail. (Even though, as Lepore points out, kids are actually safer now than ever. In 1850, more than one baby in five died before its first year, by 1920 that had dropped to one in 20, and today infant mortality is at one in 200.) ]]>

Sunrise, Sunset — Grammar School Style
Readers, I hope you’ll allow me a weepy moment. New York City schools get out late. For us,  graduation was Wednesday. That’s when I wrote this, which I also posted on  the Huffington Post New York page : 10 AM. In an hour my younger son graduates from grammar school. He’s the “boy who took the subway [...]]]>

Free-Range Kids Outrage of the Week: 10-year-old Forbidden to Cross Parking Lot
Would you believe they have charged some intern to walk him across the parking lot?! Geesh people. He's TEN! ]]>

CNN or C.A.N. — Child Abduction Network?
One reason Americans are so extremely terrified about child abductions is that whenever we turn on the TV or computer, there’s another one. As if these horrific crimes are happening 24/7, when actually the media is only too happy to fly across the country — or world — to set up camp wherever a cute, white girl [...]]]>

Huffington Post and Free-Range Kids
Perfect together, here, on their new “New York” page. ]]>