Father's Blog = child abuse?

[MandaJo]

@Acid_Lamp

Fair enough, but generally speaking the bill of rights trumps all legally.

Do you agree with “alienation of affection” as a factor in custody decisions when things are said directly to the child? I mean, it seems completely sane to me that a judge can tell a parent “You have the right to tell your child that the other parent is a lying cheating scumbag, but I will remove custody if you do”, and that’s the same type of limit on free speech. The principle there is pretty well established: do you disagree with that principle, or just it’s application here?

Personally, unless you want to argue about the principle, I agree with miss elizabeth that there just isn’t enough information to say if the principle applies here. I mean, the kids did find out, regardless of his efforts, and if what they found out was that Daddy was saying stuff like “I swear she wasn’t such a crazy hosebeast when I was fucking her up the ass once a week”, then it seems like a fair call to me. If it was “I cannot believe the nerve of that woman. Do these sound like the actions of a woman dedicated to the best interests of her children?”, I don’t.

[Eonwe]

@Acid_Lamp

Fair enough, but generally speaking the bill of rights trumps all legally.

If custody decisions were based solely on whether or not a parent had broken the law, you’d have a point.

Whether or not the father has a right to say what he wants (which, baring slander, he does) is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

[Tom_Scud]

@Acid_Lamp

It should not be a factor in their case unless he is directly poisoning the children, which by all accounts he took great pains NOT to do.

From a reading of the newspaper story, the only indication that he was hiding the site from his children (apart from not using names) is the man’s own claim; the article doesn’t mention whether he, for instance, edited the blog on the computer in the family room while reading the good comments aloud to his girlfriend (to take one extreme) or did all the editing on a laptop that the kids never had access to during times when they were out of the house (at the other).

[Acid_Lamp]

I went and found the court transcripts. And read some excerpts, highlights, and cached posts from the original site.

Mom’s a drunk, and not the brightest bulb in the barrel. Dad is a self- absorbed whiner and petty.

I couldn’t find any truly nasty name calling or foul language rougher than “dumb-ass”; and that was in reference to the mother’s father. Basically the court transcript reads that the judge was sick of the mother hauling them into court over every tiny thing so she issued a far ranging gag order on dad that reads:

Father shall take down that website, and shall never on any public media, make any reference to mother at all, nor any reference to the relationship between mother and children, nor shall he make any reference to his children other than “happy birthday” or other significant school events. The father’s girlfriend shall not in nay way be referred to as mother and father shall not in any way interfere with mother’s relationship with her children. Mother will not consume any alcohol and will continue in alcohol treatment.

Decide for yourself. if he DID use any really filthy language, terms or stories I can’t find them. It seems like all he did was blog about the divorce proceedings, fights, and other petty crap and analyze it. If the children were aware of the site it was at the hands of mom, who eventually discovered it on her own.

[Omar_Little]

We can speculate all day long about the blog, it’s tone, what it said, or didn’t say. The judge’s order for it to be taken down violated the dad’s constitutional right to free speech, and would be likely overturned if appealed.

However, if the dad kept the blog up, and the judge terminated his custody and visitation based upon alienating the other parent, an appeal judge would be hard pressed to overturn that ruling. To overturn that ruling is not a matter of opinion with regards to what is alienating or not, but a matter of application of law. The judge is well within her authority to remove custody for alienation.

If I’m the dad, I’d take the blog down. Not worth losing my kids over.

[MandaJo]

@Acid_Lamp

Basically the court transcript reads that the judge was sick of the mother hauling them into court over every tiny thing so she issued a far ranging gag order on dad that reads:

That just sounds fucked up all around then. It seems like the problem may have been the system: the system gives her the right to haul him into court for any little thing he says (which is presumably very hard on the kids) but doesn’t really give the judge any way to stop her. The father could just quit saying things that give her an excuse, but doesn’t want to give in despite the fact that it is hard on the kids. So a court order to the father is the only way to stop the merry-go-round. That just sucks for the kids, doesn’t it? I do agree it seems draconian, but I am not filled with sympathy for either parent.

@Omar_Little

We can speculate all day long about the blog, it’s tone, what it said, or didn’t say. The judge’s order for it to be taken down violated the dad’s constitutional right to free speech, and would be likely overturned if appealed.

However, if the dad kept the blog up, and the judge terminated his custody and visitation based upon alienating the other parent, an appeal judge would be hard pressed to overturn that ruling. To overturn that ruling is not a matter of opinion with regards to what is alienating or not, but a matter of application of law. The judge is well within her authority to remove custody for alienation.

If I’m the dad, I’d take the blog down. Not worth losing my kids over.

I am confused. Are you saying it’s ok to take the kids away from the father because of the blog, but not ok to say to the father “if you don’t take the blog down, I will have you stripped of custody?”

[Omar_Little]

@MandaJo

I am confused. Are you saying it’s ok to take the kids away from the father because of the blog, but not ok to say to the father “if you don’t take the blog down, I will have you stripped of custody?”

No, I’m saying that the judge is within her authority to take the kids away if he keeps the blog up. It’s not okay for the judge to order the dad to remove the blog.

This way it’s the dad’s choice.

Exercise his freedom of speech or lose his kids.

[MandaJo]

@Omar_Little

No, I’m saying that the judge is within her authority to take the kids away if he keeps the blog up. It’s not okay for the judge to order the dad to remove the blog.

This way it’s the dad’s choice.

Exercise his freedom of speech or lose his kids.

I think that’s what is going on: as I read it, the consequence of keeping the blog up is losing his kids, not contempt charges. If it is contempt charges, I agree, that’s all kinds of fucked up.

[straight_man]

Is it just me, or is the idea of making child custody dependent on complying with a court order really skeezy? I mean, if the judge argued, “These acts show the father to be bad for his children, therefore I’m removing custody,” there wouldn’t be any basis for complaint beyond perhaps poor judgment. The fact that taking away children was effectively used as a threat makes the First Amendment violation shine through, on top of (in my opinion) reducing the children to pawns, rather than elevating them to the first consideration.

[Acid_Lamp]

@Omar_Little

No, I’m saying that the judge is within her authority to take the kids away if he keeps the blog up. It’s not okay for the judge to order the dad to remove the blog.

This way it’s the dad’s choice.

Exercise his freedom of speech or lose his kids.

I’m surprised you don’t connect the dots. This is about as egregious a violation of the freedom of speech as there is other than the state prosecuting someone for dissent. The state is basically blackmailing the father into silence or IT will punish him by removing his custody. Worse, it seems to be doing it out of exasperation rather than the welfare of the children. You don’t really choose to exercise your rights. They are inherent in all things except where we have made law against certain types of false expression.

[Omar_Little]

@Acid_Lamp

I’m surprised you don’t connect the dots. This is about as egregious a violation of the freedom of speech as there is other than the state prosecuting someone for dissent. The state is basically blackmailing the father into silence or IT will punish him by removing his custody. Worse, it seems to be doing it out of exasperation rather than the welfare of the children. You don’t really choose to exercise your rights. They are inherent in all things except where we have made law against certain types of false expression.

You must have missed my earlier post.

@Omar_Little

The judge’s order for it to be taken down violated the dad’s constitutional right to free speech, and would be likely overturned if appealed.

Sitting around and drinking all day is also an individuals right, it’s not against the law…but it’s probably not the best environment to raise kids.

While the content of the dad’s blog may be subject to interpretation, the judge declared it to be alienating of the mother. That’s within the judges authority to do so. It sucks for the dad that that’s the judge he drew, but it is within her powers as a judge to make that determination. An appeal would not look to reapply some sort of interpretation of what was in the blog, but whether the judge applied the law properly.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Acid_Lamp

Italics and underline mine.

So you are talking out your ass here. :rolleyes: Is that you Nancy Grace?

.

Rebut the post, not the poster. Moreover, rolling your eyes at someone in this forum is inappropriate in this forum. Cut it out.

[Mister-M]

For the record…

The kids became aware of the website because their mother told them about it.

They have, according to them, never read the website, have no desire to read the website, and right now - the only thing that upsets them is having to endure the stories that their mother tells them about the website. This situation is no different than prior to the website and will not change if/when the website is altered/vanishes.

NO ONE who has listened to the children’s detailed accounts of many many situations going back years has done anything about it, including mandatory reporters such as:

School counselors.

Custody evaluators.

Family therapist.

THE JUDGE.

The children are well-adjusted and I do NOT speak ill of their mother to them, around them, near them. We have a normal household (whatever that means).

The children are being ignored and that is the travesty here.

My style of writing is designed to appeal to those who have lived through such tremendously stressful high conflict divorce and custody situations. Unless you have, you have no idea the frequency and intensity of the abuse that can be levied your way. None.

Contrary to the judge’s opinion that the written word is “abuse” (even though the children have never read the blog and are only aware of its existence due to mom’s disclosure)… a written account with honest thoughts and feelings about those experiences isn’t abuse - however, the circumstances about which I write IS abuse and that makes the perpetrator an abuser. How would reading about something they have actually lived through be considered abusive and not the actual “living through it?”

An entire support group is threatened by the judge’s order. Not only have my civil rights been seriously violated, my partner’s, the children’s, and everyone’s civil rights who comes to our site seeking support have been violated as well.

The civil rights issue is absolutely NOT about preserving my right to “bash my ex-wife on the internet.” It is about protecting everyone who seeks support everywhere from being told to shut up, shut down the support group - or face incarceration and loss of custody of one’s children.

All the judge needed to do on June 6th, 2010 is speak to the children. Instead, she chose to place them back with their mother who gave them the boot and agreed to my having full custody pending litigation - because she doesn’t like my writing style or content.

The blog has always been completely anonymous (as anonymous as one can be on the internet) and remained undiscovered for years until a google search landed my ex-wife on the site due to the topic searched and she recognized her many “hostile, vulgar, cruel, abusive” (to use some of the judge’s characterizations) correspondence to me.

The only reason it is in the public eye is because she tried to leverage its existence to gain custody of the children (making it public record) and divert attention away from the abusive circumstances that the children have had to endure for some time.

If we crucified every author based on their style of writing, there would be a whole lot of highly regarded people who would be in the same boat as we are right now.

I’ll leave you with this final thought:

If the genders were reversed and nothing else about the content on the blog were different… does anyone legitimately believe that a mother who was fighting to protect her children from an ongoing emotionally and verbally abusive situation at the hands of their alcoholic, hostile father (and his family) and were stonewalled at every turn for 7+ years through “proper channels” and every available resource that they ever had… does anyone believe that such a woman would gain anything other than support, praise, and be lauded from East Coast to West Coast for exposing the Family Court’s abuses and the monster, abusive ex-husband?

I was threatened with incarceration and loss of custody of the children. I was asked to choose between my civil rights and our children. No one should ever be told that they have to choose between their civil rights and their children. I’m not choosing the civil right rights OVER the fight over my children. I’m choosing BOTH - which is the appropriate way to go here.

[Mister-M]

@Ibn_Warraq

Are you really sure there was a time when the mom was so drunk the kids couldn’t wake her up or are you taking the dad’s word that’s what happened.

In my experience it’s not wise to accept anything people going through a divorce say about their ex at face value.

These are the CHILDREN’S accounts which have been repeated over and over to school counselors, the custody evaluator, and family therapist at various times over the course of the last year.

It isn’t MY word, it is THEIR word.

[Mister-M]

@Omar_Little

While the content of the dad’s blog may be subject to interpretation, the judge declared it to be alienating of the mother. That’s within the judges authority to do so. It sucks for the dad that that’s the judge he drew, but it is within her powers as a judge to make that determination. An appeal would not look to reapply some sort of interpretation of what was in the blog, but whether the judge applied the law properly.

A judge is also REQUIRED to have a hearing, listen to and consider testimony, and review and consider evidence.

She did none of that. This judge did NONE of that and threatened me with jail, loss of custody of the children, and gave 50% custody of the children BACK to the mother who put them out of the house on Mother’s Day, agreeing to give me FULL CUSTODY pending an emergency hearing.

Go re-read the transcripts and tell me where you see that any of that took place.

The June 6th and June 14th “hearings” were sermons by the judge that considered NOTHING other than what she read on the internet.

Go re-read the 1st Amendment, the 9th Amendment, and the 14th Amendments of the Constitution. It wasn’t just Freedom of Speech that was violated in this case.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@Mister-M

These are the CHILDREN’S accounts which have been repeated over and over to school counselors, the custody evaluator, and family therapist at various times over the course of the last year.

It isn’t MY word, it is THEIR word.

Can you provide links for this, please.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Mister-M, are you claiming to be Anthony Morelli? If you were going to lose your kids for blogging about your ex-wife, it’s probably not a very good idea to post about her on a public message board either. You found us; she probably will too.

@straight_man

Is it just me, or is the idea of making child custody dependent on complying with a court order really skeezy? I mean, if the judge argued, “These acts show the father to be bad for his children, therefore I’m removing custody,” there wouldn’t be any basis for complaint beyond perhaps poor judgment. The fact that taking away children was effectively used as a threat makes the First Amendment violation shine through, on top of (in my opinion) reducing the children to pawns, rather than elevating them to the first consideration.

That’s kind of how courts work. Direct enforcement power of interlocutory orders is generally limited to threatening to strike claims or defenses.

So if the dad is the one seeking modification of a custody order, the judge’s ruling will read something like, “X shall take down his blog. The undersigned retains jurisdiction to dismiss X’s motion for modification upon appropriate motion of Y for failure to take down said blog in 14 days” or whatever.

[Indygrrl]

My husband’s ex wife has done nothing but badmouth him, and lie to his daughters about him, since they got divorced over 10 years ago. He’s worried and worried over it, scared that they’ll believe her (even though his relationship with the girls is great now, it was worrisome in the past.) And it hasn’t seemed to be a factor in the judge’s decision about their custody arrangement. So I can’t help thinking if this was the other way around, and the mama was the one with the website and talking shit, we wouldn’t even be reading about it here.

Custody arrangements are still overwhelmingly in favor of the mother, at least here in Indiana. It sucks, but there’s not much we can do about it, according to the last lawyer we contacted.

[Omar_Little]

@Mister-M

A judge is also REQUIRED to have a hearing, listen to and consider testimony, and review and consider evidence.

She did none of that. This judge did NONE of that and threatened me with jail, loss of custody of the children, and gave 50% custody of the children BACK to the mother who put them out of the house on Mother’s Day, agreeing to give me FULL CUSTODY pending an emergency hearing.

Dude, you should quit worrying about your sullied reputation on a public message board, and be working an appeal to your case, if your lawyer agrees with you.

The judge might construe your posting here as a violation of her orders and follow through with her threat of throwing you in jail and giving your ex full custody.

[Khristy]

@Indygrrl

So I can’t help thinking if this was the other way around, and the mama was the one with the website and talking shit, we wouldn’t even be reading about it here.

Custody arrangements are still overwhelmingly in favor of the mother, at least here in Indiana. It sucks, but there’s not much we can do about it, according to the last lawyer we contacted.

It’s absolutely true that a mother can be a total shit and do w/e she wants and still retain custody. All you need to keep your kids is to have a pussy.

Hell, where’s Jared L. when another judge needs to be removed from the bench?

Just saying…