From mensnewsdaily.com
Fathers 4 Justice Stuns Tony Blair in Condom Pelting
May 20, 2004
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by Roger F. Gay
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Members of the fathers' rights group Fathers 4 Justice stunned the United Kingdom Wednesday by pelting Tony Blair with condoms filled with colored flour while he spoke at the House of Commons. Fathers 4 Justice fights primarily for greater contact between fathers and children following parents' separations and divorce but holds interest in a broader range of institutionalized injustices against divorced fathers and children. Their attack prompted the immediate suspension of the session and was reported by television and newspaper journalists throughout the world.
The group has previously attracted attention with Batman and Robin on a courthouse rooftop, Spiderman on a crane near the Tower of London, small groups interfering randomly with London traffic, large-scale marches, Santas singing carols into courts, and by holding government workers hostage with toy pistols. The symbolism of each demonstration should be increasingly obvious to those who pay attention.
A major event in the life of the rapidly-growing organization came last year when "serious failings" were recognized in the operation of the Child and Family Advisory and Support Service, an agency set up in 2002 ostensibly "to protect and advise on the rights of children during court proceedings." Following a report, the Lord Chancellor asked the entire board to resign.
The countries of the United Kingdom were among those that followed the United States in reforming family law in recent decades based on the old Soviet model of family policy. The model was introduced in the United States by Irwin Garfinkel, a professor of Social Work at Columbia University and former head of the Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty, with the goals of increasing uniformity in the outcomes of child support cases and making administrative procedures more efficient. His reform proposals followed on the heals of similar recommendations made by a social scientist in Norway.
The heart of the reforms has been a significant shift from the common law practice of dealing with facts and rational choices in individual cases, sometimes allowing parents to decide how to resolve problems on their own, to a system of en masse decisions made at policy level. The goal of the latter type of decision is to hit arbitrary statistical targets that may look good to central planners, something that is rarely accomplished, and for the sake of efficiency to reduce as far as possible concern for individual circumstances.
What should be obvious from the international growth of fathers' rights organizations is that "efficiency" is defined primarily by the elimination of the rights of fathers from the policy equation. The first-hand experience of protesters is that the new system rolls some heavy rocks down their hill while they individually fight what is often already a strenuous up-hill battle to remain involved in the lives of their children.
There is wide agreement in social science literature, and even among many politicians today, that dealing a parent out of a child's life is generally a very bad thing. Lack of a father's involvement has been associated with children's emotional problems that extend into adult life, violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, teen pregnancy, suicide, and poor school performance. It may seem a strange dichotomy that government agencies act systematically against fathers.
Aside from the analysis of family policy issues presented so often at MensNewsDaily.com, the mystery is finally being unraveled in political science literature. In The Politics of Fatherhood, Professor Stephen Baskerville of Howard University presents an analysis showing that those involved in family policy and implementation have a financial stake in having children separated from fathers.
The case may be more easily made in review of the system the United States but must have relevance in every country that followed in making similar family law reforms. The shift away from the exercise of common law principles in deciding family law cases allows centralized decision makers to arbitrarily manipulate outcomes to achieve any objective they have in mind, regardless of the effect on human rights and society. This opens the door to corruption, whether intended or not, and the unavoidable destruction of bureaucratic invasion into personal life that common law principles were designed to repel.
Shortly after the demonstration in the House of Commons, a BBC correspondent answering questions on CNN, explained that whether or not the attention gained by Fathers 4 Justice plays to their benefit depends on the follow-up discussion. The reactions by journalists have been mixed. Some have reported on Fathers 4 Justice and their issues. Others have focused on the security problem in the House of Commons. The demonstrators were allowed into a special unprotected gallery at the invitation of a member of the House of Lords. Had Lady Golding invited foreign terrorists into the gallery instead of fathers, the purple powder might have been something other than flour, and something really bad might have happened.
There are occasional flippant commentaries. A portion of an opinion by Barry Collins published in Wednesday's edition of the Mail Online entitled "These fathers are an affront to justice" reads; "No one is listening to their entirely reasonable case for equal access to children for fathers. Instead they roll their eyes and wonder how such a worthwhile cause is being hijacked by a bunch of publicity-seeking primadonnas." Never mind?
Being an American, the product of a culture that is separated from England by an ocean and a common language, I have to ask respectfully about an article that attacks people who have "a perfectly reasonable case" and characterizes the battle for "a worthwhile cause" as a hijacking "by a bunch of publicity-seeking primadonnas." Is that what the Brits call irony?
That they have a reasonable case is undeniable, even by the most fanatic opponents of fathers' rights. It seems to me that any intelligent, objective observer would find it completely obvious that ignoring the problem is exactly what led to the Fathers 4 Justice demonstrations. So obvious in fact, that such a view could accidentally appear even in opposition to the group's activities. That's what led to the creation of the group in the first place. If what Fathers 4 Justice has done so far does not focus attention on family policy in the right way, what will?
If you plan to wait until the whole thing blows over, becomes yesterday's news, for real fathers to wise up and conclude that the Prime Minister's question time or London traffic is more important than their children, for the men to turn away because the task is hard, I suspect you'll be waiting a very long time. These men are not for turning.
Roger F. Gay
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Roger F. Gay is a professional analyst, international correspondent and regular contributor to MensNewsDaily.com, as well as a contributing editor for Fathering Magazine.
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