Fathers' Rights California Gubernatorial Candidate
Warren Farrell Addresses Rally in Front of LA Court
August 29, 2003
MND NEWSWIRE
Men's and fathers' rights California gubernatorial candidate Warren
Farrell addressed a spirited protest rally against anti-father
family court bias Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles. The demonstration
was held in front of the huge Los Angeles Superior Court building, dubbed
"deadbeat dad court"
for the way it handles and manhandles tens of thousands of largely low
income and minority fathers. The pugnacious Farrell
, like David standing in the shadows of the monstrous Goliath, decried
the way the family court system allows decent fathers to be driven out
of the lives of the children who love them and need them.
Farrell
, a best-selling men's issues author who was once a leading member of
the National Organization for Women, explained that America has gone
from a "women's crisis to a men's crisis" and that now, three and a
half decades after the rise of the feminist movement, many of America's
worst gender inequities work against men and fathers.
One of 135 candidates on the ballot in the October 7 recall election,
Farrell
detailed his research on the importance of fathers and put forth his
long-term solution to relieving California's highly publicized budget
crisis--keeping fathers in children's lives. Farrell noted that the
way family courts allow divorced dads to be driven out of their children's
lives leads to high levels of violent crime and teenage pregnancy--social
pathologies which "cost California billions for prisons, courts and
social services." Farrell put forth a package of reforms to solve this
problem, including the rebuttable presumption of joint custody and placing
legal limits on post-divorce move-aways.
Farrell
also called for addressing the boy
crisis in education, forming a state commission on the status of
men and men’s
health, "female empowerment rather than victim power," legislation
to combat paternity
fraud , universal prenatal care, and "restraining the Government-as-Substitute-Husband."
Farrell believes his program will help women as well as men, and says
his candidacy represents an important step in building a men's and fathers'
rights vote which politicians will seek.
Other speakers included Warren Williams of the Coalition for Blacks'
Best Interest, who decried a family court system which separates fathers
from their children, and Daryl
Crismon , a paternity fraud victim who was trapped in a default
judgment several years ago and who is being compelled to pay for a child
whom DNA tests have shown is not his.
Crismon brought his 10
year-old daughter to the speaker's podium and showed the crowd her painful
dental ailment, a condition which he says he needs $5,000 to fix but
cannot get because of the judgment against him. He explained that the
state has put a lien on his house so he is unable to refinance or borrow
money, and that the state has revoked his driver's license and threatened
him with jail.
"Every day when my little girl goes to school the kids tease her about
her teeth so badly she's afraid to smile," he said.
Marc Angelucci, president of the National
Coalition of Free Men Los Angeles and the rally's princiapl organizer,
told the crowd "this rally is about unity," referring to the many men's
and fathers' groups which came together to voice their concerns.
Nationally-syndicated men's and fathers rights radio talk show host
Glenn Sacks praised Thompson as being
the "voice of the voiceless" and criticized the media for shutting out
men's and fathers' views. He noted:
"I receive thousands of letters from men who are victims of this system.
Men whose children have been moved hundreds or thousands of miles away
from them, against their will. Men whose exes violate their visitation
rights and poison their children against them. Men who the child support
system is bankrupting to pay for children they can't even see. Men who've
been falsely accused of domestic violence and who have lost all contact
with their children even though they've never been convicted or even
charged with any crime. If a father falls behind on his child support
the system comes down on him like a ton of bricks, but when his visitation
rights are violated the courts don't do a damn thing about it."
Farrell, whose books include
Father and Child Reunion, Women
Can't Hear What Men Don't Say, The
Myth of Male Power, Why
Men Are The Way They Are , and The
Liberated Man , has been published in more than 50 countries and
10 languages. The International Biographic Centre of London ranks him
as one of the world's top 2000 scholars in the 20th Century, and The
Financial Times selects him as one of a hundred top "Thought Leaders"
in the world. The Chicago Tribune described Farrell as "the Gloria
Steinem of Men's Liberation" and the Boston Globe calls him "the
sage of the men's movement."