From: Stephen Baskerville [sbaskerville@cox.net]
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 8:09 PM
To: Stephen Baskerville
Subject:
Sen. Cools Stuns Washington in Historic Address
Canadian Senator Anne C. Cools addressed a Washington audience of 2,000 public policy and
community activists today, calling for shared parenting and criticizing family courts and
"radical feminist extremism" for destroying fatherhood.
In the keynote speech to the International Fatherhood Conference, Sen. Cools stressed the
importance of "both parents following divorce" in the lives of children and
criticized gender bias in custody decisions. The conference is organized by the National
Center for Strategic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership (NPCL), with sponsorship
from the governments of the District of Columbia and the states of Virginia and Maryland,
and other groups. Roger Gallaway, a popular Liberal Party member of the Canadian House of
Commons and leading critic of the Liberal government on custody issues, was also a guest
at the conference.
What is so stunning and historical about this speech is that this was not a fathers’
rights conference, and NPCL is not a fathers’ rights organization. Their stress is on
"responsible fatherhood," and they are more often associated with fatherhood
"promotion" groups like the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), formerly run
by Wade Horn and Don Eberly, and the National Center for Fathering (NCF), operated by Ken
Canfield. (NPCL tends to address the problems of younger, unwed, and minority fathers more
than do NFI and NCF.) These groups receive government and foundation funding, and so they
generally steer clear from any discussion of the corruption in the family courts or the
outrageously unjust treatment of parents generally and fathers particularly in courts.
Yet, Sen. Cools did not pull her punches today, and the leadership of NPCL and their
audience stood behind her.
Past NPCL conferences have been attended largely by community groups, both faith-based and
secular, and fatherhood activists. But there is also a significant contingent of
government officials, social workers, child-support enforcement officials, and even
feminists from groups like NOW . (For a list of panel workshops this year, go to
http://www.internationalfathers.org/workshops.htm.)
Yet if there was any dissent or disagreement from the audience, it was not visible or
audible. Sen. Cools received standing ovations when she was introduced and again when she
concluded her remarks.
The audience sat spellbound as the Senator recounted stories like that of Darrin White,
ordered by a British Columbia judge to pay more than twice his disability pay in child and
spousal support for a divorce for which he gave neither grounds nor consent and who hanged
himself from a tree. Sen. Cools told horror stories, not of allegedly evil fathers who
abandon their children – the standard staple of some "fatherhood"
conferences – but of appalling human rights violations against fathers by family
courts.
NPCL is to be commended for their courageous sponsorship of this dynamic and outspoken
leader, almost certainly the greatest leader on family issues of any nationally-elected
official in the English-speaking world. I urge readers to write NPCL by going to
http://www.internationalfathers.org/contact.htm.
Thank them for their courage, leadership, and foresight in inviting this important figure
to address their conference and to highlight these neglected issues.
You may also which to write to NFI (http://www.fatherhood.org/feedback.asp)
and NCF (dads@fathers.com) and urge that they too
begin to show leadership and stop averting their eyes from this, the true cause of the
fatherhood crisis.
I have requested a transcript of Sen. Cools remarks and will post it.
The conference continues Tuesday and Wednesday, May 28 and 29. On Wednesday, May 29, at
3:45, I will host a panel workshop on "Fathers, the Legal System, and the
Constitution." The description: "How do non-custodial fathers interact with the
legal system? What is the larger nature of fathers' interaction with the state? What is
the role of particular government institutions - courts,
child support enforcement, child
protection, etc.- with respect to fathers' relationships with their children? What issues
of due process of law, constitutional protections, the separation of powers, federalism,
and so forth arise in government fatherhood programs? These questions and others will be
discussed by legal experts and constitutional scholars knowledgeable in family
issues."
Panelists include:
- Don Bieniewicz, Policy Analyst, Children’s Rights Council
- Ronald Henry, President, Men’s Health Network
- Richard Crouch, Crouch & Crouch, Arlington Virginia.
The Fourth Annual
INTERNATIONAL FATHERHOOD CONFERENCE
May 27-29, 2002
Capital Hilton Hotel 10001
16th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20036
Hotel: 202 393 1000 Fax: 202 942 1371
NPCL
2000 L Street, N.W.
Suite #815
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 202-822-6725
Fax: 202-822-5699
Email: info@npcl.org
Stephen Baskerville, PhD
Department of Political Science
Howard University
Washington, DC 20059
202-806-7267
703-560-5138
(Please note new e-mail address:
sbaskerville@cox.net.)
Index to
more
of Stephen Baskerville's articles
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The planned destruction of the family was part of the communist agenda from its
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