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- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!darwin.sura.net!lhc!adm!smoke!matt
- From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
- Newsgroups: misc.legal
- Subject: Re: Back Again To Father Notification...
- Summary: No cop-out for studs.
- Keywords: FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST
- Message-ID: <19384@smoke.brl.mil>
- Date: 20 Nov 92 18:06:25 GMT
- References: <1992Nov14.191552.18734@rotag.mi.org> <1992Nov15.034819.3106@panix.com> <1992Nov16.002858.22934@rotag.mi.org>
- Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.
- Lines: 74
-
- In article <1992Nov16.002858.22934@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org
- (Kevin Darcy) writes:
-
- >Similarly and connectedly, paternity child support statutes were enacted, on
- >the whole, before RvW, (the last major revision of Michigan's statutes, for
- >instance, was enacted in 1956) when conception was, by law, functionally
- >equivalent to parenthood in many jurisdictions, with scattered exceptions.
- >[Kevin Darcy]
-
- The idea was that when a man engages in the activity -- sexual intercourse
- -- that may bring a child into being, he is taking the risk that he will
- bring about the birth of a child, and so he ought to be liable to support
- that child.
-
- >Blind paternity child support made sense then, but not once RvW
- >was handed down, and abortion became a legal option for virtually
- >all women. [Kevin Darcy]
-
- When RvW was handed down, it meant that a woman may engage in the
- child-producing activity without having to take the risk of having
- to support any child she may conceive. Keeping the old law that
- Mr. Darcy calls "blind paternity support" imposes a liability on
- men that it no longer imposes on women. But to say that is not
- the same thing as to say that it no longer makes sense.
-
- >For almost
- >20 years, our _lex_ has had insufficient _ratio_. [Kevin Darcy]
-
- No, there's plenty of _ratio_: It is better that the one who took
- part in bringing the child into the world, rather than the rest of
- us taxpayers who took no such part, should support that child. It's
- not _ratio_ that the current law lacks. Rather, the current law
- lacks respect both for unbridled sexual freedom and for "attempted
- gender equality."
-
- There is *nothing* in our legal tradition that says that laws that
- treat men and women differently are _ipso facto_ "unreasonable"
- (= "without reason"). As recently as this month, the voters of
- Iowa rejected a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution that
- would have ruled out unequal gender-based treatment by law. And
- this makes eminent sense: Men and women are different, and any
- sensible society is going to enact laws that treat them differently.
-
- The old society attempted to provide, in an easy-to-understand way,
- for young children, who cannot be expected to provide for themselves,
- and for their mothers, who for some period of time while their
- children are young cannot fairly be expected to provide for themselves.
- The easy-to-understand way, as explained in George Gilder's _Men and
- Marriage_, is that a woman would not consent to sex with a man until
- they were married, and a woman would not marry a man until he could
- be counted on to support her and their children. The law bolstered
- her confidence by *requiring* him to do so.
-
- The ancients realized that a "Studs'n'Sluts" culture cannot subsist
- without outside support, so they structured their laws to rule out
- any "Studs'n'Sluts" culture. The "socio-political climate" has
- changed, but the fact that "Studs'n'Sluts" activity imposes a great
- cost on society has not changed.
-
- Now we are being asked to relieve men of the duty to support their
- children. And why? It is in order that they should be free to enjoy
- sex outside marriage without having to worry about the consequences.
- We've already made women free to do this -- a mistake. No doubt,
- the principle of "attempted gender equality" would demand that we
- follow up this mistake by making the corresponding mistake with
- respect to men. That's just one more example of why the principle
- of "attempted gender equality" is a pernicious threat to children,
- good men, and good women. FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST.
-
- -- Matt Rosenblatt
- (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus"
-