Scandal taints fathers' rights group — Debate
Previous Message (message #5)
From: David Shackleton
To: Louise
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 2:46 AM
Subject: Re: <no subject>(Message #6)
Reply
From: Louise [malenfant@powersurfr.com]
Sent: April 25, 2001 08:27
To: David Shackleton
Subject: Re: sexual controversies [1/2]You know, David, I made a promise to myself that I would extricate myself from this debate (not just with you, but in general), as it is debilitating and has prevented me from dedicating myself to the case work that really needs my attention. I am impressed with your courtesy and candor, though, so here goes.
I don't think it will be ever be wise or "fashionable" to consider childhood sex anything but a threat to the very existence of childhood, nor do I think that an aversion to the idea that some adults want to advocate for childhood is politically correct or unprincipled. In my view, these are fundamental and basic moral principles, and not subject to the whims of fashion. Based on research, extensive interviews, and my own parenting experience, I do not nor will I ever understand how any adult could believe that sex in childhood is ever a good thing, particularly when adults are the ones introducing it. Whether you are child or adult, what on earth is anyone thinking when they say that children should masturbate publically without interference. While pedophiles would no doubt love the view of this indiscriminate self touching, I respectfully say that neither child nor adult should be conducting themselves this way in public. Some things will always be done privately, and masturbation is one of them.
No movement can be all things to all people, and I am dumbfounded by the idea that several leaders in this movement see nothing wrong with associating our political agenda with controversial ideas about children and sex. We don't need more problems than we already have, and the argument that our very essence is politically incorrect ie gender equality is to some controversial, that is not a strong argument to invite every sexual controversy into our midst with open doors. There are so many complex moral and ethical questions that need to be addressed by incorporating childhood sex into a legitimate political strategy, that I fail to see what value it would bring to the strength of our message or to the service of our main objectives.
Similarly, I think it is unethical to offer help to an already desperate community falsely accused, without at least allowing the public to make an informed decision about whether they wish to be associated with such views. No amount of talk about free speech or free assembly is going to change the fact that these sexual controversies hurt the main cause of establishing gender equality in family law. Leaders do have choices to make, and they are not always easy, but an effective social movement will not succeed unless these choices are made. Certainly, for our movement, associating with sexual controversies will sink the ship faster than anything else will.
I'd like to share a little personal vignette that I encountered back in 1992, when I was still trying to grasp what I was dealing with and what I had to do to succeed at getting full and fair investigations for every accused. The first criticism that was made of me was that I only represented "child abusers in denial" - so my first agenda that took extensive research and years of experience was identifying the evidence which distinguished the true from the false allegation. Now, if I had just ignored this criticism, not only would I not have developed effective and respected investigative expertise, but I would not have succeeded in clearing the falsely accused if I adopted the position that, hey, everyone is falsely accused, or hey, there is no such thing as child sexual abuse. I think I can pretty well guarantee that my cause would have been over before it ever got started.
As to the problem of "free assembly" and democratic principles, I have a learning experience on that as well. When I first started out, no one knew me from Adam, so I did what most activists do and called for public rallies and marches and meetings. What scared me, though, is that the emotionally unbalanced, the angry, and the weird, were also the ones that searched for the TV cameras and co-opted the message I was trying to send to the community. So I made a decision and ended the rallies and the meetings, and from that time forward, people were members only if they were prepared to submit to a full file review, interviews, answer my questions, and if the evidence still did not reveal the picture, then I asked for a polygraph too. In other words, there were and still are very tough requirements to be considered a "member" of Parents Helping Parents, and there always will be. Because whether we like it or not, an advocate is only as credible as their last case, so when I represent someone, I make damn sure I believe in them in a fundamental fashion.
That doesn't mean I don't take controversial stances. I just published an article about the Hilton case which may prove quite controversial, as I believe the evidence suggests that, though Hilton was not telling the entire truth when he said he was never alone with the girls, I think the evidence of the accusers points to a false accusation. There are way too many incidents that the girls claim they were sexually violated when people were in the same bed or the same room, but those witnesses saw nothing. While I do not have the privilege of hearing all of the evidence, this absurd and uncredible feature of the main evidence is not something I am afraid to expose, or even attach my hard won credibility to.
It is true that Parents Helping Parents has always been somewhat insular, in that I only had an internet capable computer since March of 2000. Because of that isolation, I developed a policy which basically states that I will change the system by rescuing families, one case at a time. Each case exemplifies a particular problem which I frequently seek and obtain media coverage for, which in turn changes the system by changing public opinion. It has been a very effective strategy that has brought nearly 200 children back home to their paternal families, and literally revolutionized the family court system of Winnipeg. To demonstrate, in the next few days, a media story will highlight the fact that this advocate obtained a cheque for $20,000.00 for a falsely accused man from the child welfare system of Winnipeg, without even filing even a preliminary statement of claim. In all my years of legal research, I have never heard of any Canadian obtaining 20 grand for being falsely accused by the child welfare authorities. They didn't do this because they had to, they did it because it was the right thing to do, and they were convinced of that, not because of political or legal pressure, but because of the pressure of the accumulated credibility of Parents Helping Parents. I know that I would never have achieved this for this good man and his family if I had minimized or legitimized childhood sex while I acted as his advocate. In fact, I am quite certain that he would have had nothing to do with me if I had even tried, not that I ever would.
As for what ecmas or other groups should do when they are faced with these controversies, there are no easy answers, that is true. But right now, this movement has an open door policy that fails to provide even a rudimentary investigation to the cases that claim to be falsely accused, and as a result, credibility for these groups is sorely lacking. I was nearly dumbstruck with horror at the kind of bizarre cases that were floating around the Edmonton movement when I first got here, but I chalked it up to the fact that they had never had a real investigator in their midst. Little did I know at the time, that the leaders here saw no distinction between the falsely accused and the oppressed "sexual minorities" demonstrated by these cases.
I can tell you that since 1992, I have refused to represent anyone who I believe has harmed a child, and further, if I locate evidence of a crime, then I have reported it to the proper authorities, which is what every good citizen is mandated to do. Luckily, my little speech to new clients seems to work effectively at reducing if not eliminating the real child abusers. I always tell people, if you are innocent, I will clear your name no matter how long it takes, but if you are guilty, you better run like the wind because I will prove that too. As an advocate, I have never tried to distort or hide evidence, the opposite is true. I shine a big intense light on that evidence, and when I do, it shows the false from the true, and anyone who has child abuse to hide would be very wise to stay away from Parents Helping Parents. I know that in light of emails I have received of late, many in the movement will find that shocking, but I, on the other hand, am very proud of the standards of investigation I have established for my organization. When I accept the duty of representing a client, you can be sure that all of the credibility I have amassed as a result of these stringent investigative standards will be brought to the service of the new client. That is why I succeed in clearing people, and no other reason.
And it is also precisely for that reason that I will never relax these requirements in order to accomodate controversial sexual agendas. I would never be able to clear even one falsely accused if I did not know the difference between a person who has not sexually interfered with a child versus the individual who rationalizes the early introduction of sex to children.
One final word is needed here. It is no secret that Ferrel invited me to Edmonton, paid me as an investigator and report writer, and that union was a disasterous and mercifully brief association. From my perspective, I found him to be unbalanced, abusive with his temper, and strange in the extreme. All my efforts to seek mediation for our differences were refused, and indeed, I learned the hard way that expressing any view contrary to Ferrel's own was tantamount to declaring yourself his enemy for life. I personally despised him as a direct result of the experience of working with him, and all of this occurred several months before his ugly, little book was brought to my attention.
It is therefore legitimate to ask whether my actions following discovery of the book were motivated by noble intentions or revenge seeking on my part. There is very little, other than his hard work and time spent, that I respected about Ferrel or his manner of decision making in the movement or on a personal level. Just reading one of his emails can still make me cringe, due to the horrendous onslaught of abusive crap he sent me until I finally blocked him out of my email. Keep in mind that I made many efforts to resolve our personal differences, kissed up even, tried to put our dispute behind us, begged for talks, for mediation or for anything that would allow us to get past this dispute with dignity, all to no avail. For these reasons, I also went through a very personal self examination of my motives long before I made the decision to go public about his book. After this failure to resolve our differences, my behaviour up to the time I found his book was to stay away from him, and try to get him to leave me alone completely. I wanted him to leave me alone, to quit falsely disparaging my reputation, and to forget he existed so that I could continue with my work. I never wanted to hear his voice or see his face again for any reason. So when I later studied his book and became horrified at the idea that innocent people were naively seeking his help for false accusations, taking the steps to expose this book was no easy task for me. Every step, which included letting uninterested ecmas members know about my concerns, and meeting with their indifference, and experiencing the hatred many in ecmas felt towards me for even bringing up the issue, were in no way enjoyable for me on a personal level.
Day after day as the controversy smoldered out of sight of the public eye, were each in their own way more difficult then the next. But everytime I thought that it would be easier to walk away and just do my own thing, everytime I wanted to quit and just move on, which happened many, many times, I kept coming back to this one problem that prevented me from doing so. Years ago, I made a commitment to something greater than myself, which was to establish gender equality and fairness in family law, and bring children home after false accusations. And my duty to that ideal, greater than the duty to my personal happiness and wellbeing, is what ultimately pushed me to keep going. I felt then and feel now that the movement cannot afford to harbour controversial ideas about children and sex, and also felt that it was a public safety issue, in that the falsely accused should at least be aware of these views before associating their own family court cases with those views. There came a time, for me, when I had to choose what I believed was essential for the benefit of the movement, over my own personal happiness.
This tension and trauma has continued, not just in Edmonton, but in the email groups of this movement. I note, for example, that your missives and that of EPOC moderator Eric Tarkington are being widely distributed through various movement email lists, but my responses are not, as though only one voice is entitled to speak to these troubling issues. If anyone in the movement supports my position, they are being pretty quiet about it. Groups like MESA and Ecmas, FFK, EPOC, PCAC and others, have either ejected or refused entry to people like me who are concerned about the credibility problems inherent in accepting these controversies. I know the intent is to insult me, but frankly, all I feel is relief that I have only known most of these groups a short time, and that somehow, I did not become so enmeshed that I lost sight of the one and only goal I set out to achieve nearly a decade ago.
I find it the height of stupidity that all the good work and good publicity I have always brought to the movement is discounted by these groups, when they have had little success in sustaining consistent media and public interest in their activities. Surely, whatever else you may think of me or my views, even my worst enemy would have to recognize my public relations ability and media savvy. This movement has quite loudly chosen to reject those talents, in favour of maintaining the illusion that all political groups are entitled to free association and free speech. Sacrificing credibility for the sake of these ideals does not work in the real world.
These actions are nothing, though, in comparison to the insults that have been hurled at the most serious and effective journalist who has ever taken an interest in this movement, that being Donna Laframboise. Frankly, the smart strategy when you disagree with a reporter is to keep your mouth shut and work harder to get better coverage the next time, but I suspect it will be a cold day in hell before Ms. Laframboise will forget this experience of dealing with the collective leaders of the father's rights movement. None of this was easy, and I would certainly have preferred to avoid it, even though when I started out, I thought these sexual controversies were strictly an Edmonton ecmas problem. I can live without all of this, as it distracts me from the important work of advancing cases through the family courts, and this activity will always be the most important thing I do for this movement. So in conclusion, while I make no secret of my hatred for Ferrel on a personal level, it would have been much easier to simply ignore him and move on with my work then it was to deal with this controversy over the past six weeks. Frankly, I don't want to be part of a movement that condones the early introduction of sex to children, but I felt strongly at the time that it was important for me to do whatever it takes to at least inform the public of what they are getting into before I allow these innocent and naive people to step into these waters. Let me assure you that I have no intention of continuing with this effort.
I don't know to what extent you know about my history, my cases or my methods, but it would have been easy to walk away and do what I do, for to be honest, I don't need anyone's support or anything else to be an effective family advocate. It was much harder to meet this challenge head on, and expose what I thought and still think is a very serious credibility problem. I had no idea that there were so many others in the movement who felt the same way as Ferrel about sex in childhood and the merits of pornography. I really and truly had no idea. Am I as sure as I would like to be that I did the right thing? The eye opening experience has made me doubt all but one thing - Parents Helping Parents will continue so long as there is a need for this service, of that there is absolutely no doubt.
Thanks again for your courtesy; I wish we could find a way to compromise on this, but I would never knowingly undermine my hard won credibility with these sexual controversies. Good luck to you.
Louise Malenfant
Family Advocate
Parents Helping ParentsDavid Shackleton's response (message #7) to the letter shown above
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Parents Helping Parents Louise Malenfant
Family Advocate, Parents Helping Parents Calgary, Alberta, Canada Louise Malenfant passed away in 2006. She is being missed.
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