Valor, Virtue And Vital Signs
Martin Luther King wrote: “Nonviolent resistance … is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Consequently, the believer in nonviolence has deep faith in the future. This faith is another reason why the nonviolent resister can accept suffering without retaliation. For he knows that in his struggle for justice he has cosmic companionship.”
Inspired by Martin Luther King and Gandhi, John Murtari of Lyons, New York is practicing civil disobedience by personal sacrifice while incarcerated in the Wayne County jail. He has not eaten or had any water since he was arrested Monday night for driving without a license. On Friday Murtari was moved to the medical ward where they could monitor his health more closely.
Murtari claims he doesn’t owe thousands of dollars in child support the State says he owes, so his license should not have been suspended. He says the support was calculated with a salary he no longer had, and travel expenses to see his son Dominic exceed the amount ordered after the courts allowed his ex-wife to move their son across the country.
Murtari, a quiet, thoughtful man and ex Air Force Training Pilot, was at one time planning on being a priest. He was in pre-seminary training when he realized he couldn’t give up the experience of having a family. After his divorce Murtari saw how many families were adversely affected by bad family laws. He founded akidsright.org, a group that believes the right to parent our children urgently needs to be protected.
“One foundation of morality is the supremacy of individual conscience – what many know as “let your conscience be your guide.” What more natural obligation does any parent have than to care for their own kids? To be present in their lives in the many roles that only a parent can fill,” wrote Murtari in an essay about civil rights on his website
“I wasn’t expecting this,†he said in a weak voice by phone Friday, “They were waiting for me outside my home.â€Â Murtari cooperated with police, but went passive once at the jail. Officers had to undress Murtari and put him in a jumpsuit.
Murtari says they were about to drag him to his cell when a Sergeant said, “No, I’m not doing this. When I tell inmates to move and they don’t move, I spray them.â€Â Murtari says he was hit with a blast of pepper spray and went down.
The next thing he knew he was hit by another blast as he was being told to move. A different officer said, “Come on John, get up. Let’s get you to the shower to decontaminate you.â€Â “It took three hours to open my eyes,†Murtari said, “I’m hoping I won’t have scarring around my eye. It’s pretty badâ€
Murtari embarked on a similar protest July 31, 2006, the day he reported to serve a 6-month sentence for “willful failure to pay child support.â€Â For ten days Murtari had no food or water. Medical personnel tried to tempt him with candy, and threatened not to intervene. Murtari lost 27 pounds and suffered dehydration, low blood sugar, low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat before prison officials gave him a feeding tube.
Murtari went 123 days without solid food that time. He talks about it in the documentary Support? System Down, which highlights the devastating failings of our family law and child support system.  Murtari watched the film in Lyons recently with former President of NOW, author and attorney Karen DeCrow, who also appears in the documentary.
Murtari’s next court hearing is December 17. In a letter to Judge Forgione he asks, “How can ‘due process’ rights be preserved without recognition of my human right to be considered a fit & equal parent to my child?â€Â Speaking for all parents he said, “Before we take a person’s freedom, we have a strong presumption of innocence, a right to counsel, and the protection of a jury. The same should apply to interference with the parent/child bond. We need real proof and unbiased jurors to decide. We need a Federal Family Rights Act.â€
I'm a sun and nature loving, 50-something, laid back, forward thinking, liberal anti-feminist egalitarian, san francisco bay area native, single mom of 4 and yia yia to 2. I've been active in the equal parenting movement since 2002. Known as the purple Queen of Equality, I once blogged as the Feminist4Fathers. Find me now on sharedparentingworks.org and jugsforjustice.org. | More from Teri Stoddard
Stumble It!
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I just read the “Family Rights Act†and am a little confused by some of the language. On the one hand it’s saying that you have a right to be a parent free from government interference [2a] and then goes on to encourage government participation. [3ab]
I didn’t see a provision for unwed parents to give their child up for adoption. Many times that is by far the best option for unwed parents and would often be in the “child’s best interestsâ€. Too often, single mothers are encouraged to keep a child, knowing they can get welfare and enslave the father. This only serves the interests of the mother, and state/county officials, who benefit from the forced servitude of the father. I would never support any bill that did not address this issue. There are more children born out of wedlock every year than are subject to divorce.
To quote Karen DeCrow:
“Justice therefore dictates that if a woman
makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to
term, and the biological father does not, and
cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable
for 21 years of support. Or, put another way,
autonomous women making independent decisions
about their lives should not expect men to
finance their choice.”
“If women have the right to choose if they become
parents, men [should] have that right too. There is a
connection between legalizing abortion for women
and ending of paternity suits for men. Giving men their
own choices would not deny choices to women.
It would only eliminate their expectation
of having those choices financed by men.”
Also, I think the wording needs to be as simple as possible. Making it complicated will only make things worse. I think we need to move in the direction of standardized forms and procedures, which can be administered without lawyers and judges ever getting involved, unless there are criminal charges filed that require a trial by jury.
The Family Courts need to be abolished.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
John is an Heroic man. I am in awe of his strength of Character and Purpose. I don’t think I could aspire to his deeds. I am not that strong. But I can shed a tear in his honour and hope he triumphs.
I do not have a belief that the Universe will come to his aid. What goes around doesn’t come around, thank goodness, as what goes around is more evil than good as far as I can see. His is a spiritual battle and he is clearly winning his personal battle over the forces of evil on that plane. But evil resides here on Earth too and is truculent and blunt. I hope his son Dominic gets to fully understand his Father’s love and devotion.
Merck takes us to a different issue: The interests of the child and the bizarre and inconsistent attitudes of ‘Authority’. He calls for a simple wording in the Family Rights Act.
Karen DeCrow makes a very cogent arguement. She expresses it well in grown-up language. But I am not at all sure how it adds to Mercks point. It complicates where Merck calls for simplicity. It is a schoolyard arguement dressed up in adult shoes. It takes us into a realm of tit for tat.
“If women have the right to choose if they become
parents, men [should] have that right too”.
This only sounds simple, but is in fact simplistic. It is not a reasonable form of arguement. It is is an avoidance of a much clearer and simpler position.
Both parents ought to be totally, wholly, jointly and severally, responsible and accountable for the totality of their offspring’s health and wellbeing.
It is as simple as that.
Avoidance of that responsibility has been handed to women at their demand. They have a ‘right’ to choose, not by naturally endowed right, ’self-evident’, but artificially. They have demanded it in order to avoid the natural consequences of their actions.
That a legal Court has given that ‘right’ is neither here nor there. Nazi Courts gave ‘rights’ to Arayans over Jews. Our Courts give ‘rights’ to mothers over children and fathers. Our Courts are in the Inequality business for the sake of generating Court business.
To give men equally artificial avoidances of responsibility for life, just to achieve an ‘equality’ of avoidance, is not reasonable. But it is an arguement one hears often. And some accept it. It is capitulating to mendacity. It is John Murtari’s enemies, and ours, the forces of evil, winning here on Earth.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:17 am
“Both parents ought to be totally, wholly, jointly and severally, responsible and accountable for the totality of their offspring’s health and wellbeing.â€
______________________________________________________
I expect in a perfect world this would be true. This isn’t a perfect world, and we here in the States are going to have to tolerate Nazi (women) being given “artificial power†over men and children (Jews) by our Nazi run courts for an indefinite period. That isn’t exactly the way I would say it, but that is pretty much the way you’ve described it.
I hesitated using the quote by DeCrow because, in a way, I agree with you. Women have no right to abort an unborn child, and giving men the right to give a child up for adoption, should not hinge on that premise.
Abortion is wrong – period.
However, if women are to retain the right to give a child up for adoption, then men must be afforded that equal protection under the law.
If both men and women are forced to be parents to a child, sharing equally in that child’s upbringing, then I’m all for it.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
People being treated equally under the law are not, “John Murtari’s enemies, and ours, the forces of evil, winning here on Earthâ€.
But of course this is America, and you are entitled to your own opinion, and most importantly of all, you are free to express that opinion no matter how ludicrous it is.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:21 am
Two things Merck. Yes, it is not a perfect world but it is part of our task to get closer to that perfection, even incrementaly, rather than move further away.
And an imperfect Law, in fact a BAD Law, does not improve the human condition by being extended to everyone. It does not protect equally at present, as you say, but more than it just disadvantaging men, it is to the direct detriment of unborn babies. It denies them anyone else’s voice in their favour. If there were to be a law that provided equal protection for all, then it would be a law that outlaws abortion altogether rather than have ‘many voices’ advocating it, and allow only a small margin for the direst of circumstances.
I do not waant a law that allows me to do evil, simply because another law allows someone else to do it. Going down that arguement path not only makes us complicit but opens the door for other bad laws.
MRAs are the balwark against creeping mind-viral rot and corruption. We have no choice but to take an uncompromising position.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:32 am
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
People being treated equally under the law are not, “John Murtari’s enemies, and ours, the forces of evil, winning here on Earthâ€.
But of course this is America, and you are entitled to your own opinion, and most importantly of all, you are free to express that opinion no matter how ludicrous it is.”
Please don’t think that what I say is ludicrous and then state some half-arsed adage nonsense from a mittel-european peasant woman. When what the goose has is posionous, the gander better friggin’ avoid it.
I did not say that treating people equally was as you quoted me regarding John’s spritual challeges issue. It is a matter of equal access to BAD law. If you want that bad law then so be it, but do not complain as the gooseflesh gets even more rancid. I am not expressing an opinion, but analysing an arguement by its form and content. And agreeing with you to boot. !
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:23 am
Let me clarify.
My position on abortion is that it should be illegal under “all circumstancesâ€. No exception for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
Abortion is murder.
The Supreme Court tried to give mothers the benefit of a few exceptions, and it didn’t work. Roe v. Wade was “by far†the worst Supreme Court decision ever made.
I’ll say it again, and it’s worth repeating, that if a mother is to retain the right to give a child up for adoption, then the father *must be afforded equal protection*. That’s the law of the land in America according to the Constitution.
Equal protection, regardless of race, religion or gender is the law.
I never said men should have the right to abort a child.
That’s strictly your imagination.