Wendy McElroy: Online Dating Rights Are a Civil Rights Issue
“[Parts of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA)] sound draconian. For example, the IMBRA requires American men who wish to correspond with foreign women through private for-profit matchmaking agencies to first provide those businesses with their police records and other personal information to be turned over to the women.
“Corresponding with a foreigner is legal. Marrying a foreigner is legal. Immigrating spouses and their husbands go through rigorous and lengthy screening before visas are issued. Mail-order brides in the U.S. are protected by laws against violence.
“Now American men who wish to pursue a legal activity must release their government files to a foreign business and foreign individuals…Contacting a woman for romantic purposes — internationally or domestically — is not a crime. Those who do so are not a priori criminals who must prove themselves innocent before being allowed an email exchange.”–Fox News columnist Wendy McElroy, founder of www.iFeminists.com Â
As usual, if some men like it or it suits men, it must be wrong. Such is the case with brokered international dating.
As Wendy McElroy notes, one can debate the desirability of international brokered marriages, but it’s these men’s personal prerogative to pursue international relationships if they prefer them to relationships with American women. The same goes, of course, for American women interested in international relationships. It’s wrong for the government to violate these men’s civil rights simply because they’re an easy group to target for negative stereotypes and scare tactics.
A group has formed to protest the anti-male IMBRA–Online Dating Rights (ODR). The ODR describes themselves as follows:
“Online Dating Rights (ODR) is a group of men and a few women who believe that a new federal law called the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) is unconstitutional, immoral, and misandrist (man-hating). IMBRA criminalizes American men (and women) who meet foreign women (and men) via the internet. The law requires a man to have a criminal background check, a sex offender check and an intrusive report about intimate details of his life prepared and given to a foreign woman stranger (scammer?) BEFORE he can email or call her. This is the first time in US history criminal background checks have been required for two people to communicate.”
To learn more about International Dating and IMBRA, go to www.onlinedatingrights.com, or contact Tristan Laurent at onlinedatingrights@yahoo.com.Â
McElroy’s full article on  IMBRA is reprinted below:
Mail Order Bride Law Brands U.S. Men Abusers
by Wendy McElroy, wendy@ifeminists.net
The Violence Against Women Act signed by President Bush on Jan. 5, contains an almost unnoticed attachment.
Subtitle D, also known as the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA), will become law when VAWA is enacted. The IMBRA is an ostensibly noble measure with a surprising and ominous twist.
The scant attention directed toward the IMBRA has been positive.
A headline in Washington State’s The Daily Herald announced, “Mail-order brides gain protection” with the subtitle “The mother of a murdered immigrant hopes that pending federal legislation will keep foreign brides from abuse, neglect and slavery.”
The “murdered immigrant” refers to Anastasia King, a ‘mail-order bride’ from the former Soviet Union. In 2000, King was murdered by her husband in Washington State where the case created a sensation largely because the husband had violently assaulted a previous mail-order bride.
Thus, the IMBRA was introduced to Congress by Washington State Rep. Rick Larsen and Sen. Maria Cantwell who championed the measure for years.
Some parts sound reasonable. For example, U.S. consulates will provide ‘mail-order’ brides with brochures that explain their legal rights.
Other parts sound draconian. (more…)
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