Newsweek has come out with a piece on the Alec Baldwin case and the issue of Parental Alienation. Daniel B. Hogan, J.D., Ph.D. Executive Director of Fathers & Families, one of America’s best fatherhood advocacy groups, Efrain Rodriguez, who has helped besieged fathers for years as part of the Fathers’ Rights Association of New York, and myself are quoted.
On the other side, Mo Therese Hannah, chair of the Battered Mothers Custody Conference, is quoted as saying that Parental Alienation has no legitimacy. Hannah and the BMCC played a central role in PBS’s 2005 anti-father film Breaking the Silence and are among the principle opponents of greater recognition of Parental Alienation. I discussed them in some detail in my co-authored column Shockome Syndrome.
To learn more about the Baldwin case, see my new co-authored column, Baldwin Not the Only Culprit in Custody Battle with Basinger (San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/27/07) and click here.
The Newsweek piece is Baldwin Speaks Up by Joshua Alston. In it Rodriguez says:
“I’ve had so many fathers call and say they’re going through the same thing. People who know about this syndrome and what it does to fathers completely understand that voice-mail message.”
Hogan says:
“I don’t know if he [Baldwin] is a good spokesperson. I think he’s certainly intent in making this issue more well known, and I hope it helps, but he didn’t help us or help himself with what he did.”
The article closes with this:
“It’s not clear how active Baldwin will actually beâ€â€Âor for how long. He wants to be released from his contract on NBC’s ‘30 Rock’ to pursue the cause, but NBC issued a statement indicating that it doesn’t plan to honor that request. Still, his ongoing battle with ex-wife Kim Basinger is likely to keep himâ€â€Âand the issueâ€â€Âin the spotlight. ‘I think in the long run this will do more good than harm,’ says Glenn Sacks, a men’s rights columnist. ‘I think it’ll give a lot of men in the same position the courage to fight back.’”
In sorting out who it is possible to defend and who it isn’t, I generally ask myself if the wrong that this individual committed was violent or premeditated. If it was violent or endangered people’s safety, one cannot defend that person. If the wrong they did was premeditated and planned, once cannot defend that person. What Baldwin did was certainly bad, but an angry phone message left from 3,000 miles away isn’t violent, and not even Basinger would claim that Baldwin’s tirade was premeditated. Given this, I believe Baldwin can be defended–not his conduct in this specific incident–but in general.
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