Many Americans will be surprised to discover that a piece of legislation being considered by Congress appears to be based on, and to contain in its text, numerous errors of fact, with serious consequences, if passed, for men and children.

We refer to HCR 182, a resolution introduced by the Hon. Constance Morella of Maryland. This bill appears to be little more than a re-write of a position paper which appears on the internet web site of the National Organization for Women.

While that organization is certainly free to make whatever claims it desires in its promotional materials, one might expect that a higher standard of truth would obtain in legislation submitted to the Congress of the United States, than would ordinarily be found in the marketing brochures of an advocacy group.

The core of this bill appears to be an attempt to slow the adoption by States of family court reforms involving a presumption of joint custody. Seven States have already adopted such a policy, and similar revisions are under consideration in many others.

This bill takes the questionable, and insulting, tack of attempting to label those fathers who wish to maintain contact with their children following a divorce as "abusers" and "batterers". It implies that any man who seeks custody of his children should be presumed violent. As proposed by Ms. Morella, HCR 182 states that "fathers who abuse their children's mothers are more likely to dispute custody and visitation than are fathers who are not violent."

There is only one way to take that statement, and it is that the majority of fathers seeking even joint custody are violent and abusive. Is that something the Congress should be telling the States? It is a preposterous claim; if anything, Ms. Morella should be censured for proposing that such a thing be enacted as the Sense of Congress.

Should anyone be interested in the truth, this exact subject was researched by Liss and Stahly in "Domestic Violence and Child Custody" (Hansen and Harway, "Battering and Family Therapy, A Feminist Perspective", Sage 1993) The study found that only "7% of batterers sought any form of custody".

Ms. Morella's errors of fact continue throughout this poorly designed piece of proposed legislation.

She claims that, "courts still hold women to higher standards of conduct than they do men", when the Justice Department tells us that women receive lighter sentences than men do for identical crimes, in EVERY category of offense.

She makes the ridiculous claim that fathers win 40 to 70 per cent of custody battles; in fact fewer than 13% of fathers have custody of their children, and some of those are widowers.

To add credence to her claims of widespread violence and abuse, Ms. Morella would have the Congress state that "false accusations by women are in fact rare, occurring no more often than do other false reports of crimes, such as bank robbery". This is unfortunately not so. Numerous studies have demonstrated that up to half of all rape allegations are false, where 'false' means the woman ultimately recants and admits she made up the charge for some reason like spite or revenge. A recent documentary by ABC News stated that of three million allegations of child abuse, two million have been found to be false accusations. Is Ms. Morella seriously suggesting that two out of three men accused of such abuse, even though innocent, should be prosecuted?

The bill contains many other myths and stereotypes of the sort that one would expect in a document based on a NOW position paper. The bill's sole purpose appears to be to pave the way for attempts by the National Organization for Women to delay or derail the family court reforms now underway in many states, and to replace a rebuttable presumption of joint custody with a system that rewards mothers for objecting to joint custody by granting them sole custody.

The bill is bad policy, encased in falsehoods, wrapped in an insult to every father in the United States. That such a thing should even be under consideration by the Congress is appalling.

HCR 182 is sponsored by the following:

Rep. Constance Morella (R-Maryland)
Rep. Charles Schumer (D-New York)
Rep. Tom Davis (R-Virginia)
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Connecticut)

The Men's Media Network encourages everyone, especially fathers, to campaign and raise money for the opponents of these sponsors and their supporters, and to vote against the sponsors and all supporters of this bill.

==============================================================

FOOTNOTE:

While almost everything about this bill is either questionable or downright false, several claims are outstandingly so, and we wish to draw particular attention to these misrepresentations of fact:

WITH RESPECT TO THE CLAIM that fathers fighting for custody win sole custody or joint custody in 40 to 70 percent of these disputes:

According to the 17th Report of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, in 1994, 89.2% of custodial parents were women; only 10.1% were men. In 1996, the figures were 87.3% women and 12.7% men. (19th report to the OCSE)

Maccoby and Mnookin, "Dividing the Child", Harvard University Press, 1995, found that custody is disputed in 50% of divorce cases overall. If fathers won 70% of such cases, they would have custody in 35% of single parent homes. This is not so. The national figures for 1995 show that less than 13% of fathers had custody.

The 1978 study which found that 70% of men who sought custody won it was flawed for several reasons. Even the author admits this. First, the 70% figure refers to men who already had custody who actually fought in court to get it. That is, if 50 men had custody, 35 won custody in court. Second, this was not a scientific study. The "researcher" looked only at cases where dads had custody. She did not research those cases where the MOTHER had custody. Finally, the "researcher" never used court documents to validate her conclusions. This is not research; and the results are not a "study."

One other point: A University of Indiana study found that of divorce cases where both parents agreed the father should have custody, 14% of the time courts awarded custody to the mother anyway. That same study found that when both parents agreed the mother should get custody, the courts agreed every time. Anti-father bias is NOT a myth.

---

WITH RESPECT TO THE CLAIM that women are discriminated against within the mental health system:

According to the American Psychiatric Association's 1995 report on Mental Health in America; 78% of all residents in mental health facilities were women, but 81% of all homeless people are men, more than 66% of whom have mental health problems. Who is being discriminated against here?

---

WITH RESPECT TO THE CLAIM that false accusations by women are rare:

We cite the following scientific studies on False Rape Allegations:

1) Eugene J Kanin "False Rape Allegations." Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Vol 23, No 1, 1994.

2) Charles P McDowell et al. "False Allegations" Practical Rape Investigation, Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA 1985.

3) Stephen Buckley, "Unfounded Reports of Rape Confound Area Police Investigators" Washington Post, 6/27/92, p B-1.

4) ABC-TV "False Accusations of Child Abuse", 20/20 Program, Dec 11, 1997. This report is available on line at http:www.abcnews.com/onair/2020/html_files/transcripts/nmg.121a.html

These studies; and many others, find that as much as half of all rape and abuse allegations by women are false.

---

WITH RESPECT TO THE CLAIM that fathers who abuse their children's mothers are more likely to dispute custody and visitation than are fathers who are not violent:

Liss and Stahly,"Domestic Violence and Child Custody" Hansen and Harway, "Battering and Family Therapy, A Feminist Perspective"(Sage 1993) found that only "7% of batterers sought any form of custody" in a divorce situation.

With respect to the claim that "Congress never intended that the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act be used... to encourage forcing shared parenting arrangements when it is not in the child's best interest:

All recent studies show that except in extremely rare instances - between 7% and 11% of the time - the best interest of the child is to be involved jointly with his/her parents.

---

FINALLY, if Ms. Morella's primary concern really is the "best interest of the child", she could make a start by reading the literature. It's out there. As far back as 1980, Strauss, Gelles & Steinmetz pointed out "The truth is that 62% of child abusers are mothers." (Straus, M.A., Gelles, R.J. & Steinmetz, Suzanne I. Behind Closed Doors: Violence in American Families. Doubleday NY 1980.) Seventeen years later, and even this fundamental fact hasn't yet made it to the front page, never mind the House of Congress. No prizes for guessing why.