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J. Steven Svoboda is founder and Executive
Director of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child.
He graduated summa cum laude from the University of
California at Los Angeles in 1983, received a
Master's Degree in physics from the University of
California at Berkeley in 1985, and then graduated
cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991. He
practices human rights law in Berkeley, California.
His recent publications include "Prophylactic
Interventions on Children: Balancing Human Rights
with Public Health" in the February 2002 issue of
the Journal of Medical Ethics (co-authored with F.
Hodges and R. Van Howe) and "The Limits of the Law:
Comparative Analysis of Legal and Extralegal
Methods to Control Child Body Mutilation
Practices," in Understanding Circumcision, edited
by G. C. Denniston et al. and published by
Plenum/Kluwer in 2001. He was invited by the United
Nations to participate in the Human Rights
Sub-Commission’s meeting in Geneva in August
2001, where he gave an oral presentation before the
committee of experts whose written version became
the UN’s first official document entirely
devoted to the subject of male circumcision as a
human rights violation. He was married in 2001 and
has a son born in 2002. Check out www.arclaw.org
May
April
May
Having arrived back in Berkeley after four years on
a small Pacific island, I almost instantly found
myself observing a drama that has also proven a
volatile cultural war—the battle over gay
marriage. As nearly everyone knows by now, the
mayor of near-by San Francisco elected to authorize
same-sex matrimony despite the California ballot
proposition which the people of my very politically
mixed state passed a few years ago specifically
banning such unions. As other scattered towns in
the US such as the village of New Paltz, New York
followed suit, traditionalists armed themselves to
the teeth for what promises to be an extended,
pitched battle between forces of the future and the
past, conservatives and liberals, lovers and
opponents of same-sex unions. With Canada having
instituted immigration benefits for partners in
same-sex marriage back in 2002, the US is behind
the times, but at least the Massachusetts Supreme
Court ruling (on my son Eli’s second birthday,
February 4, 2004!) clears the way for gay weddings
there through at minimum November 2006, the
earliest date by which a constitutional amendment
can possibly be instituted to stop the
ceremonies.
To my mind, what we are seeing is a lot of
people acting in their own interests while
purporting to be acting from principles. San
Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, exceeded in his
profound affinity with downtown interests only by
his immediate predecessor--the notoriously
developer-addicted Willie Brown, can be relied on
always to test the wind before tossing his kite up
in the air. I can only applaud the San Jose City
Council’s somewhat surprising decision to
offer identical benefits to all married city
employees, whether gay or straight, though again,
so close to San Francisco, one can assume they also
realize that they have a large gay and lesbian
taxpayer base. Meanwhile, religious leaders and
conservative do what they consider correspondingly
necessary to pander to their own constituents, and
Republican politicians adopt “San
Francisco” as a euphemism for non-conformists
of all stripes. To paraphrase, P.T. Barnum, no one
ever went broke underestimating Americans’
tolerance for fellow citizens who dare to step
outside the norm. Maybe I’m just an overly
cynical middle-aged ex-hippie.
One of the issues I had with becoming a father
is it turns out to be so demanding simply to do the
musts that I find myself running out of time to
meditate on where my life is going and certainly to
keep up with issues in others’ lives. There is
always the next thing that must be done—buy
groceries, keep gas in the car, hold onto a job or
in my case search for one, keep your children
entertained and healthy, occasionally toss a word
or two to your partner as you frantically rush by
each other on your way to the next tasks. Of
course, especially living as I do in one of the
most hectic of areas, it’s not all that
different before you have a child, but the addition
to one’s family does tend to further crimp
your time and further sap your energy. So in
principle I feel outraged about the resistance to
gay marriage. And in practice I just have a hard
time sustaining the same level of focused,
vociferous adrenalin I used to run with ease when I
was younger.
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love
being a father and there is nothing on earth that
could induce me to trade it for my previous life.
Right now we are in particular crunch time as we
are buying a house in Berkeley (the prices are
unbelievable), I am frustrated and feeling a bit
vulnerable about my problem landing employment, we
are trying to produce a companion for Eli, and many
other things too mundane to bore all of you
with.
I have served as a warrior in a variety of ways
in my life, devoting substantial amounts of life
energy to the struggles to advance men’s
rights and to protect boys’ and men’s
bodily integrity by stopping circumcision. I spent
half a year doing human rights work in rural
Guatemala with the peasants, visiting morgues,
confronting Army officers in their bases over
murders they had helped orchestrate, and the like.
Could have easily lost my life somewhere in there,
but I lucked out. Also worked as an immigration
lawyer for several years, struggling to earn
political asylum for immigrants, which amounts to
roughly the supply end of the work I was doing in
Central America. Slept on the steps of the
administration building at UC Berkeley for a month
to help stop apartheid. And so on.
One of my biggest struggles was the one I found
myself embroiled in to avoid a literal
battle—draft registration. I was born in 1960
and so was required to register for the draft and
yet was unwilling to do so. I was also receiving
financial aid on which I depended since my parents
were unable or unwilling to fund my college
education. So what did I do? I pulled off a tricky
little end-around with the certifications you were
required to file stating that you had registered or
were exempt from registering. I hand-wrote an
explanation regarding my failure to register into
the card I received ever year, and never once did
the university notice my unusual notation on the
card and ask for further information. My financial
aid continued to faithfully arrive until I left
Harvard Law School in 1991.
Kudos again go out to what is currently perhaps
our strongest and greatest fighting team, Fathers 4
Justice (F4J) of the United Kingdom. In December
2003, five F4J activists dressed up as Santa Claus
and held a three-hour protest on a walkway above
The Strand in Liverpool. Some 300 protesters
participated in a similar event in central London,
marching to the High Courts and the Houses of
Parliament while 21-year-old drama student Darryl
Westell—also dressed as Santa--spent his third
day on a crane 140 feet above the offices of
Children’s Minister Margaret Hodge. Ms. Hodge
was later presented with a giant turkey and branded
“Turkey of the Year” for refusing to
change old child access laws which favor
mothers.
In late January, registered childcare worker
Jolly Stanesby braved cold weather for a full week
sitting 20 feet above the ground on the Tamar
Bridge that connects Devon to Cornwall. Mr.
Stanesby carried with him only seven army surplus
ration packs (how appropriate for this issue’s
theme!), a flask of soup, some brandy and a
sleeping bag. He then successfully clambered down
and escaped without drawing police attention to
himself. Then in the early hours of February 2,
2004, four F4J members took over the Clifton
Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England. Dressed up
as Batman, Robin, Superman, and Spiderman, these
fine folks held up a banner that read,
“Superhero Fathers 4 Justice—Fighting for
Your Right to See Your Kids.” This act of
civil disobedience eventually led to denial of
public access to the bridge for part of the day
and, combined with simultaneous actions by five
members in London and four on Newcastle’s Tyne
Bridge, drew national attention to F4J’s
important and impressively successful campaign for
fathers’ rights to access to their children
and children’s rights to access to their
fathers. Then early the next day, F4J members waged
a successful graffiti attack on a Yorkshire law
firm notorious for its father-hostile legal
services to mothers, scrawling such messages as
“F4J here to stay,” “child
thieves,” and “parasites” in large
purple letters on the building. Police have
responded to some of these events with raids at
addresses in London and other parts of England.
Sounds like war to me!
Possibly inspired by F4J’s stunning string
of successes, protests have been breaking out all
over the place. A group of 15 to 20 angry Dutch
fathers involved in custody battles for their
children peacefully occupied an office of the Dutch
child protection agency on November 20, 2003, the
International Day of the Child. Refusing to allow
anyone into or out of the building, they hung
banners from the office windows demanding fair
treatment and justice and also a meeting with the
Justice Minister and the child protection agency
director. On December 22, 2003, a group of fathers
calling for changes in Nebraska’s custody laws
set up a picket line to call attention to their
grievances, protesting outside the Douglas County
Hall of Justice. On Christmas Day, a group of
fourteen Vancouver dads erected a Christmas tree
and pickets outside the Supreme Court of British
Columbia to remind people that Christmas is a
lonely time when you can’t see your children.
The group faulted outdated family laws and biased
judges for their problems with custody and access
to their children.
Perhaps F4J’s impact is extending even
further than we realize, as one safe house for
battered men has reportedly already opened at a
secret location in southwest England, with a second
slated to open soon in northwest England. At the
same time, I am very sorry to have to report that
in early December, the British Home Secretary
announced an extensive set of changes in domestic
violence laws, further extending the potential for
bad faith use of restraining orders by allowing
them to be imposed even on men who have been
acquitted of domestic violence accusations due to a
lack of evidence! The reason I say “men”
rather than “domestic violence
defendants” is because the British
government’s official announcement similarly
discriminates against men despite the wealth of
evidence of women’s at least equal involvement
in spouse-bashing. (Elsewhere in this issue, you
can read my review of lawyer Thomas James’ new
book on this subject.) Furthermore, the government
came right out and said, “Just because there
isn’t enough criminal evidence to secure a
conviction doesn’t mean the victim
doesn’t need protecting.” Come again?
What happened to the rule of law? Melanie Phillips
notes in the Daily Mail, “This measure will
destroy the very concept of innocence
itself.”
As if that weren’t enough, on January 28,
virtually on the eve of these major F4J events, the
UK Court of Appeal handed down a judgment in the
case of “Re: S” confirming that British
courts will allow a mother to maliciously destroy
the relationship between child and father and even
though the child would be better off having contact
with Dad, will bar the child from reuniting with
Dad. The reasoning? Where Mom is so opposed, it
will be even worse for the child if the court
forces her to let the Dad back into the kid’s
life.
Compliments to Pittsburgh police for arresting
and charging a 38-year-old woman with falsely
claiming rape by members of the St. John’s
University basketball team. Turns out the gal
willingly had sex with the athletes and then
threatened them with rape accusations when they
weren’t in the mood to meet her subsequent
demands for money! Similar recognition is due a
British Columbia Court of Appeal that upheld an
award of custody to a father after the mother
falsely accused the father of sexually abusing his
young sons.
Further raves are due the American Civil
Liberties Union, of which I was a member until
resigning several years ago due to their neglect of
men’s rights. I may have to reactivate my
membership given their recent involvement in
facilitating the release of 100 men in Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania whom, according to the
ACLU’s notice to the court, had been jailed
for alleged nonpayment of alimony/support without
being told they had a right to an attorney, thereby
violating due process. The court has since agreed
to provide adequate notice of impending proceedings
and also to ensure the presence of legal counsel to
assist all similarly situated people in the future.
This success comes a year after the ACLU sued state
court officials in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
for improperly jailing non-custodial parents.
Sometimes the news reads like satire. A Gender
Recognition Bill has been proposed in the UK which
will allow transsexuals to register for a new birth
certificate in their adopted sex, and to marry in
that sex. An eight-year-old boy was forced to
enroll in a sex offender program after he pinned at
least one female classmate and touched her breasts
and genital areas while they were both at school.
Equally absurdly, Staten Island has joined the
growing ranks of jurisdictions opening
“integrated domestic violence courts.”
These tribunals permit “ex parte”
testimony without being required to hear the
defendant’s side of the story. Such courts
will circumvent the protections of criminal law by
reducing or removing the burden of proof and
tossing out the previously sacrosanct presumption
of innocence until proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.
As I settle into middle age, I definitely still
have some fight in me. These sorts of battles still
attract me and in fact I am preparing to wage war
on a new frontier—working to form a Men’s
Law Center with Marc Angelucci of the Los Angeles
chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men
(N
April
It’s four in the morning, and I have been up
for more than an hour. As a father, and as someone
currently plumb in the midst of preparing a move
nearly halfway around the planet (from Guam to
California), I have been fully exploiting the
24-hour clock lately, from both directions.
Although I have changed my residence more than
20 times in my life, this is likely to prove my
most significant move yet. Having come
(metaphorically speaking) to the
“wilderness” and “gotten the
girl” (not to mention the boy, my son Eli), we
are all coming back to “civilization.” I
will be transitioning toward paid work while my
wife Paula will be focusing more on caring for Eli
while still keeping her physician skills sharp by
seeing patients part-time.
Of course, this change is at least equally
significant for Paula. Having grown up on this
small, friendly, primarily Catholic,
family-oriented island, she is preparing to say
goodbye to many dear friends, not to mention her
mother. Paula was working as the Medical Director
of Guam’s Public Health Department so had a
highly visible role here in her career, frequently
appearing in the media to discuss medical
developments such as SARS or immunization programs.
This will be a big step for both of us.
Getting to a place where we were ready to make
the change took a lot of patience, careful thinking
and feeling, and hard work from both of us. One
critical key to this process has been our weekly
couples’ meetings, which have nominally now
become family meetings (and once he starts talking
his participation won’t be so nominal).
Suggested by a number of insightful folks including
Warren Farrell, such meetings give space and time
to vent, get caught up on what is going on with
each other, make practical plans, as well as say
the things that somehow there is never the
opportunity to mention in the hubbub of daily
life.
Here are the issues I am struggling with (and by
the way this month’s theme of pornography
feels very far from the surfacing issues in my life
at the moment so I’m going to for once give
the theme a total pass in this column): How do I
find employment as a lawyer that will satisfy all
three of my minimum requirements: decent pay,
decent hours, and work in which I believe? And how
sad it is that work as a lawyer that satisfies
these three seemingly simple requirements is so
rare.
I honestly am a bit unsure exactly where my work
is going. Although I have been a lawyer for
thirteen years now, I have spent the last seven
years as the Executive Director of the
anti-circumcision non-profit Attorneys for the
Rights of the Child. I have been extremely
gratified at the financial support individuals have
given us, which have covered our expenses but
haven’t allowed for me to receive any pay at
all for this work. I am certainly not complaining
as following this path was entirely voluntary and
made it possible for me to come to this island and
join with Paula to create a family. While ARC will
certainly continue, it also feels like time for me
to expand that effort into other areas.
A good friend of mine in Los Angeles—Marc
Angelucci--and I have been seriously discussing
starting a “Men’s Law Center” to
provide legal services to males. One idea is to
take some relatively well-heeled clients and apply
part of the fees from their representation to
enable us to accept cases from low-income men who
are otherwise incapable of affording a lawyer.
Whether we can make this fly I don’t know;
certainly it’s never been done before to my
knowledge. A number of barriers
exist--institutional, political, public perception,
practical. And yet Marc and I are both very
committed to transforming the concept of a law
center for men (in some form) into a reality.
The work has already started to some extent, as
Marc has been involved in initating a number of
men’s rights lawsuits, some of which I have
previously discussed in these pages. Back in June,
Marc was instrumental in filing a sex
discrimination case against ten taxpayer-funded
domestic violence shelters in Los Angeles County.
In October, the district court judge granted a
“demurrer” (motion to dismiss based
strictly on the law) by the shelters and repeatedly
refused to explain on the record his response to
the constitutional challenge to California
Government Code section 11139, which carves out an
exception to discrimination laws for “women
and minorities.” He could not answer, and
refused to do so. The case is currently under
appeal.
Across the pond, Fathers 4 Justice continues to
show us the UK style of activism. In September,
three protesters in Suffolk (including one woman)
layered purple paint on the door of the Children
and Family Courts Advisory Support Service
(CAFCASS) office in Ipswich. Then work on one of
Exeter’s biggest building sites abruptly
halted when a father tied himself to the top of a
massive crane. Later the same month, a group of
twenty F4J protesters visited the offices of a
leading family law firm in reading, dressed in
chemical decontamination suits. After announcing
their intention to “clean up family law,”
the visitors occupied the firm’s offices and
put hazard tape across the door while supporters
outside gave out “warning notices” to
passersby.
In October, David Chick, a 36-year-old father,
spent six days perched on top of a 120-foot crane
beside London’s Tower Bridge, leading to the
bridge’s closure and drawing tremendous
attention to the issue of gender equity in family
law in the UK. Later that month, two men from F4J
dressed as Batman and Robin climbed onto the roof
of the Royal Courts of Justice in London to protest
fathers’ treatment in family court. Wonderful
photographs of the masked crusader and his fearless
sidekick showed up in leading newspapers, both of
them raising their arms in front of a banner with
their organization’s name. Newspaper reporting
of F4J’s latest plans exemplifies the forces
that are being confronted. The Sun wrote that the
group is “planning to raid family law
courts,” raising the specter of masked
masculists stealing law books and perhaps grabbing
the judge’s wig and robe. Later in the article
the paper is forced to admit that this
“raid” is actually planned to consist of
“members dressed up as Santas singing carols
into courts across the North East to disrupt family
court proceedings.”
In November, a march of supporters drew
attention as it snaked its way through London from
Trafalgar Square to the Royal Courts of Justice, to
burn underpants in symbolic rejection of the biased
family court system. The march itself also drew
attention for its real armored tank at the front,
followed by eight men and a woman in white
protective clothing, using brooms to sweep away the
“family law gravy train.” Sir Bob Geldof,
of “I Don’t Like Mondays” fame with
the Boomtown Rats, has taken up fathers’
rights and written several excellent articles on
the topic lately, in the wake of his own horrendous
custody battle with his late ex-wife. Concrete
results are ensuing, as British ministers are
considering plans to grant fathers expanded access
to their children through “parenting
plans” which would be required of divorcing
couples.
Meanwhile, back on the home front, we have
Craig, a Seattle father of two who was sentenced to
three months in jail for returning his
ex-wife’s phone call. Jaw-droppingly, a judge
has granted Clara Harris, who is serving a 20-year
sentence in prison after murdering her husband with
her Mercedes-Benz, joint custody of their
5-year-old twin sons along with her former
neighbors, Pat and Ana Jones. The boys’
paternal grandparents, Gerald and Mildred Harris,
who would seem to be the only viable candidates for
custody, instead will have visitation rights. Kudos
to the Ohio judge who jailed a rape victim with a
criminal record to force her to testify, leading to
the discovery that her claim was fabricated and to
the exoneration of the accused man. Plaudits also
to the Washington state Supreme Court for upholding
a contempt citation against a divorced mother who
claimed she couldn’t force her 13-year-old
daughter to visit her father. In the unanimous (!)
opinion, the court noted that a custodial parent
“may be held in contempt… for failing to
make reasonable efforts to require a child to visit
the other parent as required by a parenting plan
and court order establishing visitation.”
To my astonishment, this is my thirtieth column
for Everyman. I am planning to continue this
quarterly adventure once we are back in California
though probably my book reviews will become less
frequent due to my continually shrinking time. So
many gender paradoxes and men’s issues are
cropping up in concrete ways right now in my own
life. I am going to be giving up some of my time
with the thing I absolutely love the
most—taking care of my son—in order to
plunge more deeply into the more typically
masculine pursuit of career. And yet my wife and I
both feel that this move is the right one. I feel
uncertainty about whether I can find a career that
will encompass my basic requirements, modest though
I think they are, and fear about whether I can cut
the mustard back in the workaday life. And when my
mood is right, I can flip that emotion into the
excitement that it genuinely represents as I ride
my own personal-roller coaster on toward the next
unforeseeable curve and loop-the-loop that life and
God have in store for me.
©2007, Steven Svoboda
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