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Forum: The other side of fathers’ rights controversy By Liz Richards
Forum: The other side of fathers’ rights controversy By Liz Richards
Posted July 4, 2011 by pmashilohlopez in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment | Edit
The National Alliance for Family Court Justice, http://nafcj.org, has lobbied against deadbeat and abusive fathers for many years and for reasons including their fraudulent use of federal Department of Health and Human Services fatherhood programs for funding their custody litigation.
Children of our group members were featured in the PBS documentary “Breaking The Silence: Children’s Stories,” cited by Carey Roberts in “M.O.M. squad capers” (Forum, April 16) The only negative responses received by PBS were from fathers rights activists, while PBS also received many supporting comments from psychological and health professionals concerned about the harm done to children by these men.
Just about everything the fathers’ rights activist say and do is a self-serving sham. They talk about shared parenting but practice sole custody for fathers and near-termination of maternal contact and rights with their children. Mothers are forced into supervised visitation on frivolous grounds of “interfering” with the father’s relationship with the children.
They falsely complain about widespread court favoritism toward mothers but conceal the fact most of their activists have sole or joint custody and receive child support instead paying support. On a local radio program several years ago, area fathers made these complaints about courts biases against fathers — but all these men claimed to be one of the lucky ones who got sole custody.
They conceal their role in promoting the discredited paternal child abuse cover-up “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) methodology, devised by published incest advocate Dr. Richard Gardner. Fathers rights activists view Dr. Gardner as a ‘hero’ and had links to his works on their Web sites, until many professional organizations, including the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse issued discrediting reports on Dr. Gardner. Now they try to deny their past association with him.
PAS is based on the twisted notion a father is innocent of child abuse because the mother was upset and complained to authorities.
Being upset or angry is their definition of lying — but only for a woman. An upset man is a man who must have been wronged. Men who ally themselves with known incest advocates demand to be believed on their word and all complaining mothers are labeled as malicious liars. None of them ever labeled a man as an abuser or a liar.
Mr. Roberts’ Forum piece is full of other fatal flaws including: discrediting high favorable father-custody win rates with comments by a freelance writer for the Boston Globe, who is essentially one of their group and acts as their mouthpiece. I have a copy of a fathers rights newsletter which cites the 70 percent father-custody win rate, as an encouragement to seek for custody and not to believe the myth that fathers have little chance to win.
Mr. Roberts also ignored census report and frequent “laudatory” news stories about fathers winning custody at higher rates. He uses fake and misinterpreted statistics on female abusers, while ignoring the frequent news reports of fathers’ retaliatory killing of their children and/or the mother in “high”-conflict custody disputes.
Many professional statistical studies show high win rates for fathers accused of family abuse along with low rates of false allegations against fathers, while little is said about the known fact disputing fathers are the most vicious false accusers. Violent males often seek a protective order or assault charges against their female victims. Yet little is said about the high rate of dismissed complaints initiated by fathers against mothers.
The American Judges Association in Williamsburg, Va., released a report in 1996, “Domestic Violence and the Courtroom,” which noted that wife batterers and child abusers convince family court officials that their ex-wives are “unfit” or “undeserving” of sole custody in roughly 70 percent of contested custody battles. Since then, at least 23 states have conducted gender-bias studies — all with similar findings.
The big hidden factor is the federal fatherhood programs directed to courts and social services for their benefit. The fathers rights allies in Congress and HHS have worked for years to fund millions of dollars in specialized programs granted to state courts and social agencies for services such as enforcing noncustodial parents visitation and responsible fatherhood. Several judges have been forced to resign over gross misuse of these programs to enable custody switches to fathers accused of abuse and child support delinquencies.
In December 2005, fathers rights activists’ Senate allies got a $150 million earmark slipped into the “Deficit Reduction” bill which directed further funding for these purposes. Our group has obtained substantial evidence of misuse of these funds for paying fathers custody attorneys in deliberately dragged out high-conflict custody litigation, and PAS custody evaluators who rubber-stamp every woman a malicious liar and recommend sole custody to the father.
Fathers rights activists do have a lot to be scared about. Their scheme is unwinding and some of them will be prosecuted for what they have been doing for many years.
LIZ RICHARDS
National Alliance For Family Court Justice
Annandale, Va.
OFFICIAL RECOGNITION OF THE RETALIATED PROTECTIVE MOTHER PROBLEM AND THE ROLE “PAS” PLAYS IN THESE PROBLEMS.
BY: Liz Richards at nafcj.net
Many articles have been published in major media, on-line news and commentary sites such as WorldNetDaily, WomensENews and professional an advocacy
sites including the National Organization for Women.
Victims should know that the fathers rights’ movement and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) were created by a ring of judges to stir-up domestic litigation and use that litigation as a extortion/protection scheme against vulnerable women who are worried about the safety of their children. Abusive men are given “protection” in exchange for their cooperation in non-stop profitable litigation activity. Viewing the malicious court conduct by the judge a result of “bias” or “good-old-boy” local cronyism is a serious mistake which will prevent you from learning how to deal with the bad court professional and make them stop exploiting you.
While the articles below are useful reviews of what is wrong with “PAS”, none of them touch on the most compelling error in the PAS methodology
model, which is – it purports to be a method for identifying instances of one parent alienating a child from the other parent. However, the PAS authors do
not describe any child (or mother) behavior which could be labeled an alienated conduct. Instead, their entire focus is on something else – sex acts with
children. A mother’s complaints against the father for sexual activity with the child, is the sole criteria for the author’s strong condemnations against the
mother for causing the child to be alienated from the father. The PAS authors believe a child is made to fear the fathers’ sexual activities, when absent the
complaint everything would be fine. Nothing is said about what factors would constituent a valid sex abuse complaint. All the reactions by the mother which
they label as “alienating” are normal reactions to discovering her child was being abused.
Additional discrediting factors are: Gardner/Underwager analysis model has no identifying factors for a truly “false” allegation. The sum of their writings really say, is that the mother should keep her mouth shut and not interfere because there is really nothing wrong with sex between fathers and children. The only real harm occurs when the mother makes the child think there is something wrong with the sex activity. The fact that hundreds of people have read, absorbed and endorsed the Gardner / Underwager sex theories gives evidence to how many sex perverts (both male and female) there are in our society. Furthermore, the fact that hundreds more have read and critically reacted to their pro-incest writings but haven’t labeled them for what they really are – is an indication of how fearful the rest of society is about
violating taboos against acknowledging grown men actually do have sex with their own children and are proud of it. Even the most outspoken critics of PAS can
not bring themselves to say publicly what they all should know is obvious – that Gardner, Underwager, Farrell and their fathers rights followers are a bunch of
sex perverts. The bottom line is that subject of incest is still very much a social taboo and the incest crowd knows this and plays on this social taboo to
its own advantage hiding behind “parental alienation” and other cover theories to keep their critics distracted. Even worse this crowd has taken matters one step further and made incest (under the cover of alienation and visitation interference) an official government social program, under the guise of helping fathers see and have good relations with their children.
Never underestimate the ability of a government bureaucrats to play dumb about other peoples’ problems and exploit it to the hilt in the name of helping those
people.
Articles published in Washington Times by NAFCJ leader Liz Richards describe these factor in more detail:
Washington Times | April 2006 |”The other side of fathers’ rights controversy”
Washington Times | April 2008 | “Parental rights and wrongs”
Article published in Northern Virginia community newspaper in 2003, and posted on French Canadian site.
“Program produces mother less kids” by Liz Richards
Kinsey-Sexual deviancy expert, Judith Reisman has written frequently on this topic for WorldNewsDaily, going back to a 1999 article in
which she mentions Liz Richards and NAFCJ – Texas activist, Jan Barstow.
Reisman was the source of the PAIDIKA article which exposed Ralph Underwager pro-pedophilia opinions.
Dr. Judith ReismanWorldNetDaily: Child custody for sex offenders / April 1999
WorldNetDaily: Child abuse and child custody– March 1999
WorldNetDaily News Archives: Judith Reisman
Leadership Council, founded by psychological professionals, has done extensive work researching PAS.
The Leadership Council: What is Parental Alienation SyndromeThe Leadership Council – HomepageLeadership Council / Dr. Joy
SilbergThe Leadership Council – Articles on Abuse and Custody
Leadership Council member, Stephanie Dallam, has written some of the best articles exposing Gardner & PAS as pro-incest. Look for the section titled “Therapy for the Mother”, in which Gardner offers the disgusting advice to therapists treating an “incest” family. Gardner says the mother should be encouraged to use a vibrator so the father won’t have to seek sex from his daughter. Most of what Gardner writes actually justifies incest and blames the problem on the mother or the victimized child. This is the basis of “PAS” and the strongest reason why PAS is not valid.Stephanie Dallam: “Parents losing custody to abusers”
Marin County Calif. based advocacy / reform group Center for Judicial Excellence convinced California state legislators to conduct investigations of widespread mishandling of custody litigation. .
California orders audit of Marin County family court | 2009
Geffner: Custody Disputes Often Bypass Abuse Assessments
From the “What Took Them So-Long” category, is this Department of Justice, June 2009 release of remarks by Attorney General Holder which include: “Why are mothers who are the victims of domestic violence losing custody of their children to the courts and to the child protection system? ” Remarks by
Attorney General Eric Holder June 2009
American Judges Association
Studies show batterers convince authorities that the victim is unfit, undeserving of sole custody in approximately 70% of challenged cases and that in approximately one-half of abusive families, some form of physical and/or sexual abuse of children exists.
This article is about Pennsylvania judges exposed and convinced in a similar court-based scheme using their control of children for financial
kickbacks.PA.Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit – NYTimes.com
Kim Gandy/N.O.W.article on Gardner ” Sick Joke or Sick Reality?” N.O.W. “The Crisis in Family Law Courts”CA NOW Family Law Task Force to investigate and reform corruption and gender bias in the courts; reported included information from our group
Jana Bommersbach, Phoenix Mag, May 2006, critical article on PAS
Battered Mothers Custody ConferenceGarland Waller |Biased
Family Court System Hurts Mothers| WomensNews Stop Family Violence – Protective Mothers file complaint with Inter American Commission on Human Rights
Stop Family Violence – Breaking The Silence PBS documentary VNET –
Violence Against Women Net
Chamber of Secrets, Child Custody corruption exposed, CBS 48 Hours
NAFCJ associates and leaders
Michigan National Organization for Women, Renee Beeker
Illinois Council for Family Court Reform
Michelle Bryon-Egan story
NAFCJ associates: advocates & experts who deal with incest survivor issues:
Jill Jones Soderman /Psychodiagnostic & Psychotherapeutic
Hope4KidZ
California Protective Parents Association
PAS UNMASKED AS A BLATANT INCEST PROMOTION SCHEME
THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF THE PRO-MALE, PRO-PEDOPHILIA COURT METHODOLOGY IS A RING OF PUBLISHED INCEST PROMOTERS, LEAD BY DR. RICHARD GARDNER, Ralph Underwager and Warren Farrell – all closely associated with the fathers rights movement. (Gardner & Underwager died in 2002)
Underwager was a CRC founding board official. Farrell was a founding board official of the three principle fathers rights groups.
Farrell is still very active with all the fathers rights groups and makes frequent media appearances on their behalf.
Gardner was a frequent speaker at fathers rights events and appeared as an “expert” witness in their cases until a lengthy discrediting article was published in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|”Casualties of a Custody Wars”| Nathan Greico-Scott
The “fall-out” from this very critical review, caused Gardner to stop appearing as a expert witness for fathers in the custody litigation and “drop-out” of public view. It wasn’t until his “strange” suicide death in 2003, did the media take an even closer negative look at this perverted practices.
Gardner’s death was ruled a “suicide” by the Bergen County, New Jersey coroner office. However a careful reading of the medical examiners autopsy report, described wounds very unlikely to be self-inflicted – e.g. multiple stabs in his heart and multiple slits on his throat. This factor plus our knowledge of inconsistent comments from Gardner’s family , and violent fathers rights activists, indicated he was really killed and everybody covered it up – including the N.J. police and medical examiner, his family and his fathers rights allies & admirers. It is not believable that a 70-year old man in supposedly ill health could slit his own throat several times and then stab his own chest several times, and finally sink a 7″ knife blade into his own heart !!!
CincinnatiPAS site ,by Ohio based activists who were forced to go “anonymous” because of retaliatory threats of their very explicit expose of Gardner and the “fake” suicide.
Dr. Richard Gardner | CincinnatiPAS-front page
At the bottom of this site is scanned copies of the New Jersey medical examiner’s report which reveals the truth about his ‘suicide’.:
Dr. Richard Gardner MD – autoposy report Gardner – PAS Caselaw
This is a great “spoof” article written by NAFCJ member Karen Anderson of N. California about Gardner’s crazy theories. Syndromes R Us ltr to Richard Gardner — July 1999
WARREN FARRELL, ANOTHER FATHER’S RIGHTS ASSOCIATE.
HIS 1977 PENTHOUSE, “POSITIVE INCEST” INTERVIEW IS LOADED WITH PRO-INCEST COMMENTS WHICH FARRELL TRIED FOR YEARS TO DENY. Dr. Warren Farrell Scroll down to the mid-point of the linked article below, to the section describing the “purported” actions of 40 year-old writer who seduced his teen daughter at the family beach house as she came out of the bathroom. This and other sections gives us an “insight” into the depraved minds of these people. Farrell tried for years to cover up his own published statements by making false claims about a one word “misquote”. He gave up on this cover-up tactic after Liz Richards distributed excerpts of his many other eviant remarks. WARREN FARRELL – GENITALLY CARESSING CHILDREN
RALPH UNDERWAGER OF MINNESOTA IS ANOTHER FATHERS RIGHTS AFFILIATED INCEST/PEDOPHILIA PROMOTER. Underwager was also closely associated with the fathers rights (a founding board member of CRC) until he resigned after exposure of his pro-pedophilia interview published in the Dutch based journal “PAIDIKA”, which labels itself as “The Official Journal for Advocating the Lifestyle of the
Pedophile.” This article was discovered and analyzed by researcher Judith Reisman (see above)
Ralph Underwager Home Page of the IPT – Institute for Psychological TherapiesPAIDIKA
INTERVIEW: HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD AND RALPH UNDERWAGER
PROFESSIONAL REPORTS DISCREDITING PAS:
The following are professional publications with have discredited Gardner and PAS:
The National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, based in Alexandria, VA was one of the first to explore the misuse of PAS in evaluating sex abuse in court cases – both civil and criminal. After both Gardner & Underwager died, NCPCA staff felt free from potential harassment and issued the following double-edition report.
NCPCA- Newsletters
NCPCA Update Newsletter Volume 16, Number 6, 2003
NCPCA Update Newsletter Volume 16, Number 7, 2003
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges [anti-PAS] Guide,
“The discredited “diagnosis” of “PAS” (or allegation of “parental alienation”), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the children’s
behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be “alienated” have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the children’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating and/or discrediting ways toward the children themselves, or the children’s other parent. “
American Judges Association
Studies show batterers convince authorities that the victim is unfit, undeserving of sole custody in approximately 70% of challenged cases and that in approximately one-half of abusive families, some form of physical and/or sexual abuse of children exists.
Model Code of the Family Violence Project,
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCFCJ, 1998) “rebuttable presumption that it is detrimental to the child, not in the best interest of the child to be placed in sole custody, joint legal custody, or joint physical custody with the perpetrator of family violence”
Beware of Family Court: What Victims and Advocates Should Know, by Women’s Justice CenterCarol Brush 2001 Analysis of PAS
Protective Mothers' Alliance International 