6.30.16 PART 3 OF 3 - Protect Moms from FLORIDA Politicians and Family Law "Reform" Legislation Written By and FOR Hate Groups: National Organized MRA Hate "Female Front-Groups" -- Lobby the FL Capitol with Their National NON-FLORIDA Network.
FOR MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON FLR/FAR PAC SEE:
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/part-2-fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto.html
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto-family.html
This national 'feminized' group is called "Leading Women for Shared Parenting" (LW4SP). Its Trustee is the likewise controversial "Father" of the U.S. and international "Men's Rights" movement, Dr. Warren Farrell (See more below).
One of LW4SP's key purported founding leaders along with Farrell is controversial advocate Phyllis Shlafly. Images of the official LW4SP organization letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott are below. Please note also that the letter is replete with SB668 and 50/50 time sharing mis-information and mis-representations which are likewise refuted herein. The LW4SP based in Washington DC, is one of many controversial NON-Floridian "men's/father's" rights organizations claiming hundreds of thousands of global followers, who have been heavily lobbying both Florida's legislature and governor with national and international phone call and email campaigns, including 'official letters' in support of SB 668.
Additional and even more controversial NON-FLORIDIAN groups that are heavily funding print media and national/international social media campaigns intent on influencing Florida Family Laws include: the Alaska-based "The Father's Rights Movement"; the Massachusetts-based National Parenting Organization (more recently known as "Fathers and Families"); the litigious National Coalition for Men MRA activist group and the highly contentious "A Voice for Men" (official recognized and tracked as an open hate group). Many of these groups have direct ties to and funding from Dr. Warren Farrell and his MRA movement (see more below on Farrell).
Below is evidence regarding this movement, its direct ties to the SB668 Florida Family Law/Alimony "Reform" Inc. PAC, and its controversial MRA leaders who are Trustees of this National legislative lobbying LW4SP organization.
Starting with the National Public Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/LeadingWomenForSharedParenting
The LW4SP's National Facebook page above clearly shows this active national movement has been openly urging its network of NON-Floridians to email and call Florida Gov. Scott in support of SB668.
This is an organization with a Nationwide MRA/"Father's Rights" founder and agenda to spread a dangerous and ill-conceived 50/50 child time-sharing presumption into State Family Law statutes nationwide. Readers will note that this organization also continues to promote junk theories designed to penalize mothers from speaking out against abuse in Family Courts, such as the now debunked and courtroom prohibited Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). PAS is a false "syndrome" that has now been officially rejected by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and by researchers for the U.S. Department of Justice. See why the official rejection of PAS by the APA matters here: http://nomas.org/official-rejection-pas-matters/
(NOTE: PLEASE REFER TO Part 2 of this series for more on the SB668 FLR/FAR PAC, their First Husband's Advocacy Group and Actual Hate Messaging. Please also see Part 1 of this series for apparent close Florida Politician Alignment with this controversial Florida PAC.)
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/part-2-fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto.html
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto-family.html
PLEASE Scroll below to for more details that are even more disturbing regarding FLR/FARs links with LW4SP, its founders and the national MRA network....
The Family Law Reform/Florida Alimony Reform (FHG) Leadership Team March 10, 2016 posted of their personal meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott's legislative team/aides. Middle is FLR/FAR leader Terry Powers (see Part 1 and Part 2). Far Right is the FLR/FAR team member and attorney Lori Barkus of Barkus Law.
See the bottom of page 2 in the URL below evidencing that FLR/FAR's Ms. Barkus is also a leader in Farrell and Schlafly's LW4SP organization. A national organization which was founded in 2013 (months after Gov. Rick Scott VETO'd similar dangerous Alimony/Family Law Reform Legislation in Florida.)
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5154a075e4b08f050dc20996/t/556f7b6fe4b0bb277306e089/1433369455463/LW4SP+Leading+Women+06032015.pdf
More can be learned about LW4SP's leader Schlafly, her social policies and ideology here. Ms. Schlafly believes that motherhood is the best job option for women seeking career fulfillment, and that “it is ludicrous to suggest that [other jobs] are more self-fulfilling than the daily duties of a wife and mother in the home”. A tragic irony exists however in that SB668's Alimony/Child Support "reforms" intentionally undermine and economically endanger traditional Stay-At-Home Mothers and Homeschooling Mothers more than any other demographic -- which is a key marital role that Ms. Schlafly purports to promote and defend. Likewise the SB668 legislation financially and socially incentives the primary breadwinner in a home to more readily walk away or abandon their marriages by intentionally reducing the long term financial/social consequences and support obligations they may experience under current protective Florida Family Laws:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_policies_of_Phyllis_Schlafly
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=134981902
Exponentially more disturbing is that the core Trustee for LW4SP is the long-recognized "Father" of the "Men's (Father's) Rights Activist" Movement (MRA), Dr. Warren Farrell.
http://lw4sp.org/trustees/http://lw4sp.org/trustees/
The Following Links Profile LW4SP Trustee Warren Farrell's Pioneering of The Men's (Father's) Rights Activist (MRA) Movement and Its Spread of Misogyny, Hate Messaging Against Women and Mothers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement
This detailed overview of the Men's (Father's) Rights Movement with extensive citations, likewise notes: "Most men's rights activists in the United States are white, middle-class, heterosexual men.[34][44][45][46] Prominent activists include Warren Farrell,[14] Herb Goldberg,[14] The Rape of the Male author Richard Doyle,[47] A Voice for Men's Paul Elam,[35] and Asa Baber.[48][49]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-mens-rights-movement-feminism-misogyny-trolls
LW4SP Trustee, Farrell and His MRA Movement Promotes "Rape as Myth", "Domestic Violence Conspiracy Theories", "Positive Aspects of Incest" and More:
The following researcher and blogger has done ongoing investigation into this and the MRA movement. A note of caution: some of this material is raw in content.
Note that many of these same MRA themes are echoed by the Florida Family Law/Alimony Reform Inc. movement and its associated social media groups (FHAG/FLWAR) as evidenced in Part 2 of this Gov. Rick Scott Please VETO series:
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/05/01/the-myth-of-warren-farrell-farrell-on-rape-part-one/
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/05/03/putting-warren-farrells-notorious-comments-on-exciting-date-rape-in-context/
More Research, Evidence of What LW4SP Trustee, Farrell Actually States About the Allegedly "Positive Aspects of Incest":
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2012/11/21/what-mens-rights-guru-warren-farrell-actually-said-about-the-allegedly-positive-aspects-of-incest-note-its-even-more-repugnant-than-that-sounds/
Men's (Father's) Rights Activist groups such as the Family Law/Alimony Reform Inc. PAC and its Florida and national network (see Part 1 and 2); persistently echo the same anti-woman, anti-mother themes. In essence, themes and misrepresentations designed to economically and socially discount mothers, women and children by undermining protective statutory alimony, child support, child custody, child time sharing and domestic abuse laws. Themes to market and promote the passage of unsubstantiated laws like SB668 which economically benefit primarily male fathers and husbands seeking to reduce or terminate their child support and alimony obligations and/or retain control over their abuse victims.
http://nomas.org/lies-fathers-rights-groups/
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/men%E2%80%99s-rights-movement-spreads-false-claims-about-women
Menzies, Robert (2007). "Virtual Backlash: Representation of Men's "Rights" and Feminist "Wrongs" in Cyberspace".
Unfortunately, many Florida Legislators including repeated Family Law/Alimony "Reform" and 50/50 Equal Time-Sharing Bill Sponsors Rep. Ritch Workman, Sen. Tom Lee, Sen. Kelli Stargel and Rep. Colleen Burton; appear to have bought into and echo these same "themes". (See Part 1 and Part 2)
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto-family.html
http://protect-our-moms-and-children.blogspot.com/2016/03/part-2-fl-gov-rick-scott-please-veto.html
Before this article is concluded, it takes a moment to examine the LW4SP's controversial letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott and its claims about the "benefits", "need" and "majority public support" for SB668 and it's equal child time sharing presumptive "premise":
Leading National Marital Law Experts and Researchers have closely examined this LW4SP letter and its claims and have written the following to our Governor -- clearly discrediting LW4SP's claims. QUOTE:
"Claims by LWSP (Leading Women for Shared
Parenting) that studies on what is best for children support the equal
time-sharing language in SB 668. They do not. What the
studies show is that “shared parenting, including frequent
overnighting with both parents” is good for children. SHARED PARENTING
is not the same as EQUAL PARENTING. SB 668 goes way beyond shared
parenting, requiring courts to begin deliberations with the premise that
EQUAL time is good for children.
EQUAL
TIME is often NOT good for children—where there is a history of domestic
violence, where parents cannot communicate, where parents do not live close to
each other, etc. Please do not assume that “all credible research”
supports equal time. It does not.
Moreover,
Florida law ALREADY recognizes that frequent contact with both parents is
usually good for children. (“It is the public policy of this state
that each minor child has frequent and continuing contact with both
parents after the parents separate or the marriage of the parties is dissolved
and to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities, and
joys, of childrearing.” Fla. Stat. 61.13) Florida law is already
consistent with research on what is usually best for children."
"Please
VETO SB668 and appoint a task force to ensure that any change in Florida
law is truly in the best interest of Florida children."
As for the LW4SP public opinion "polling" results that they claim to be a valid reason to pass SB668 -- their polling methodologies, sampling and conclusions are highly controversial and questionable; thus negating the validity of their contentions. Even their own purported "peer reviewed" reports in support of their agenda point out the lack of substantiating, credible research and while endorsing a level of shared parenting, do not support a legislated presumption of 50/50 equal time sharing.
In Conclusion, the U.S. Department of Justice recently commissioned an extensive empirical study of Child Custody Evaluators Belief About Domestic Abuse Allegations in U.S. Family Courts. This empirical research study, clearly shows a predominant bias of Court Custody Evaluators against women and in favor of men (as shown in Figure 1 from the report below). The research study widely demonstrated the endemic prevalence of Court Custody Evaluators to hold invalid, untrained beliefs that produce biased recommendations against abused mothers and overprotect the "Father's Rights" of violent and abusive men. The study called for significant reforms in current U.S. Court evaluation practices and Evaluator Training to better identify, assess and protect Women and Children domestic abuse victims in Custody/Time-Sharing cases.
Please see pages 18-23 in this U.S. DOJ report linked below and reference page 26 on how the "Father's Rights" movement has pushed this harmful "belief" bias against abused mothers and women into our U.S. Family Court System and Custody Cases. The BELOW model contained within this U.S. DOJ report is what Family Law "Reform" bill SB668 will exponentially ignite to further endanger Florida and our Nation's Mothers and Children. This conceptual "belief" model is a goal and "theme" of the movement behind SB668 too:
Dear Gov. Scott: Do you really want to continue to embolden future legislation EXCLUSIVELY written for organized "Family Law Reform/Florida Alimony Reform Inc.", their non-Florida MIS-LEADING "Leading Women for Shared Parenting", and their NATIONWIDE NETWORK of controversial MRA Groups intent on harming women, mothers and children?