Lesbian Domestic Violence

Hobbes In The House
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Pardons for Incarcerated Victims of Abuse I don’t know where to look for the list of the 171 inmates George Bush pardoned, but am willing to bet not many were women and that none had been locked up for defending themselves against abusive men. I’ll go out on a limb and wager that when Barack Obama becomes president and gets around to pardoning people, he won’t be doing much about unfairly incarcerated women, either. For some reason, the female population languishing in penitentiaries behind assault and convictions who in reality were acting to safeguard their children or save their own lives just doesn’t seem to register as a public issue. Never has. What’s doubly disturbing, downright frightening is that it probably never will. Look at a few facts. As of 2005, this country has the world’s largest prison population and highest rate of incarceration, more than 2 million people in prison or jail. Of that number, since around 1985, incarcerated female population increased by 400 percent. The report, “Women, Prisons and Change notes that the majority of those put away for violent crimes were convicted for defending themselves or their children from abuse. It also notes that the average prison term is twice as long for killing husbands as it is for killing wives, but the point is, if she was simply fighting off an abuser, a woman doesn’t belong behind bars, period.
A more recent finding, cited in a New York Times editorial, attests that fully “90 percent of women imprisoned for killing men were battered by those men.” They literally are twice victimized.
This injustice is not merely an issue of statistics. These are flesh and blood, human beings who went through pure hell at someone’s hands and then were sentenced to endure the incredible day in, day out torture being confined behind concrete and steel no good reason. It’s a miracle if they don’t lose all grip on their sanity, especially mothers who don’t know how safe the children they acted to protect are. You don’t need a degree in psychology to realize that once these women finish serving their wrongful sentences, there’s a strong chance they will return to society as basket cases. What can the chances be that they’ll ever be capable of sustaining a healthy romantic relationship? How much of a surprise would be if they got involved with someone and, maybe to even their surprise, found themselves ready to snap if the man so much as looked at them in the wrong tone of voice? How many, in fact, wind up saying to hell with men and, if they don’t confine themselves to celibacy, decide — whether they’re actually lesbian or not — to take up with female lovers (not that it’s any guarantee they won’t end up defending themselves again). Further, girls who see their mothers branded criminals and put away for fighting back against abuse run a great risk of becoming the next victim. They see the futility of defending themselves and are ready-made targets for heavy-handed men. If they wind up hanging themselves, jumping off a building or blowing their brains out, who on earth can be the least bit surprised? That Times editorial purports “to address the needs of these women — the victims of domestic violence [by supporting] three legislative initiatives to prevent women who have committed crimes against their abusers from suffering at the hands of their abuser and the state.” Those initiatives are about granting early release, making inmates eligible for work release and creating alternatives to incarceration. Well intentioned as these ideas are, they miss the mark. These women don’t deserve to be released early. They desperately need to be released now. They don’t deserve work release. They need to have their unconditional freedom. They sure don’t deserve an alternative to incarceration. They never should’ve been locked up and need to walk out of court free women in the first place. If we are to see the much ballyhooed change that was Barack Obama’s rallying cry, one sign unquestionably has to be the rectifying of how horribly women’s civil rights have been violated by punishing them for doing what anyone in their right mind would do — defending themselves and their children. Accordingly, Obama needs to get busy developing writer’s cramp from signing pardons.

Originally published here.

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Twin Cities Daily Planet articles archived at www.tcdailyplanet.net/profiles/dwight-hobbes. Dwight Hobbes has written for ESSENCE, Reader’s Digest, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul, MN Law & Politics, Pulse of the Twin Cities, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Women & Word, San Diego Union-Tribune and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (where he contributes the commentary column Something I Said). He’s spoken his mind over National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Blog Talk Radio’s UNOBSTRUCTED and KMOJ in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Was regularly featured as guest commentator on NewsNight Minnesota (KTCA-Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Spectator (Minneapolis Television Network). His monthly column “Hobbes In The House” in MN Spokesman Recorder speaks to domestic abuse and rape. His plays are Shelter – produced at Mixed Blood Theatre by Pangea World Theater, Dues – produced by Mixed Blood Theatre, University of Southern Illinois in Point of Revue, selected for Bedlam Theatre’s 10-Minute Play Festival and published by Playscripts, Inc. You Can’t Always Sometimes Never Tell – produced by Theater Center Philadelphia, Long Island University, reading at The Kennedy Center and published in the anthology CENTER STAGE, In the Midst – produced by Long Island University, starring Samuel E. Wright. Hobbes spoke on the panel “Farewell To August Wilson” at the Guthrie Theater, broadcast on Conversations With Al McFarlane (KFAI, KMOJ). Singer-songwriter Dwight Hobbes recorded the single “Atlanta Children” (BeatBad Records) and gigged 10 years in the Long Island/NYC area, including The Other End, Kenny’s Castaways and My Fathers Place. He fronted the Boston blues band Midlight. In Minneapolis, Hobbes opened for David Daniels at First Street Entry, James Curry at Terminal Bar, sat in with Yohannes Tona, Alicia Wiley at Sol Testimony’s Soul Jam, The New Congress at Babalu, Willie Murphy at the Viking Bar and Wain McFarlane & Jahz at Lucille’s Kitchen. Dwight Hobbes still drops in at the occasional open mic around town. www.myspace.com/dwighthobbesmusic

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Equal rights for same-sex couples is still an uphill battle

　

In an en banc decision last month, the Superior Court reversed 25 years of a legal presumption against homosexual parents.

In M.A.T. v. G.S.T., a unanimous court, in a decision by Judge Christine Donohue, overruled its 1985 decision in Constant A. v. Paul C.A., thereby reversing the application of an evidentiary presumption against a homosexual parent.

In Constant A., Judge Patrick R. Tamilia, writing for a two-judge majority, stated:

“[T]here are sufficient social, moral and legal distinctions between the traditional heterosexual family relationship and illicit homosexual relationship to raise the presumption of regularity in favor of the licit, when established, shifting to the illicit, the burden of disproving detriment to the children.”

But Donohue, writing for the M.A.T. Court, examined the cases that followed Constant A. including the Superior Court’s decisions in Pascarella v. Pascarella in 1986, Barron v. Barron in 1991 and Blew v. Verta, in 1992 and held as follows:

“Resolving this conflict in prior panel decisions of this Court, we overrule both the holdings and the reasoning in Constant and its progeny (including Pascarella and Barron), and conclude that a homosexual parent bears no special evidentiary presumption in a child custody case. Constant’s evidentiary presumption against the parent involved in a same sex relationship is fundamentally contrary to our Supreme Court’s admonition that presumptions should not be relied upon when deciding child custody cases between the parents.

“Moreover, Constant’s evidentiary presumption is based upon unsupported preconceptions and prejudices — including that the sexual orientation of a parent will have an adverse effect on the child, and that the traditional heterosexual household is superior to that of the household of a parent involved in a same sex relationship. Such preconceptions and prejudices have no proper place in child custody cases, where the decision should be based exclusively upon a determination of the best interests of the child given the evidence presented to the trial court.”

Within a week of M.A.T. v. G.S.T., the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously decided that gay and lesbian employees of the Pennsylvania judiciary would receive medical benefits for same-sex domestic partners starting March 1. Also in January, a Florida court approved an adoption by gay parents. Florida’s statute specifically precludes adoption by a gay parent. As of the end of January, three different judges in Florida courts ignored the statute and approved the adoptions.
At its 2009 annual meeting, the American Bar Association approved Resolution 112 which reads as follows:
“RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association urges Congress to repeal 1 U.S.C. § 7, which denies federal marital benefits and protection to lawfully married same-sex spouses.”
It would appear then that in this 21st century, rights of gays and persons with alternate sexual identities are moving forward. However, there is still considerable homophobia and prejudice against this population.
The Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, eight years before same-sex couples had the right to marry anywhere in the United States. The stated intent of Congress in passing DOMA was to “defend the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage and protect the rights of States to formulate their own public policy regarding the legal recognition of same-sex unions, free from any constitutional implications.”
Since 1996, a federal law has existed which accomplished on a federal level what M.A.T v. G.S.T. sought to eradicate in Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding that DOMA is the law of the United States, there are five states which have approved marriage between same-sex couples, beginning with Massachusetts in 2004. Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont all followed. Maine and California passed same-sex marriage laws but those laws were reversed by voter referenda. New Jersey just defeated a law which would have approved same-sex marriage.
There are jurisdictions that offer recognition and protection for same-sex couples: California, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. New York and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriages that have been performed in other jurisdictions. The Williams Institute estimates that 35,000 same-sex couples have married in the United States.
The Pennsylvania Constitution has a “baby DOMA” defining marriage as between one man and one woman. How ironic that the same jurisdiction which has a baby DOMA is the one that decided M.A.T. v. G.S.T. A review of Pennsylvania’s laws, on their face, does not yield a very promising picture for same-sex couples.
On the books, same-sex couples have no rights in Pennsylvania with regard to statutory law. There is no marriage act for gay people and no divorce code. In New Jersey, for instance, the state’s marriage act covers all the rights and responsibilities with regard to civil unions in that state. New Jersey’s divorce code governs the termination of civil unions with the same terms as for married people seeking divorce.

Even though Pennsylvania, in this landmark opinion of M.A.T. V. G.S.T., has eradicated an evidentiary presumption against gay parents’ households with regard to custody matters, such far-reaching insight by the court does not cure the fact that there is a constitutional ban on gay marriage in Pennsylvania that prevents marriage between anyone except a male and a female. This is so despite same-sex members of the judiciary in Pennsylvania and their staffs being able to secure health benefits for their domestic partners and despite the fact that Gov. Edward G. Rendell provided benefits to same-sex domestic partners of employees of the executive branch one year ago.

I recently secured a pre-birth order regarding a child to be born to a same-sex male couple, carried by a surrogate, which declared the same-sex partners the legal parents of the child. (See “Baby Steps for the Justice System” 32 PLW 1250, Nov. 2, 2009). That order took the surrogate out of the loop and eliminated the need for the same-sex couple to have to go through the process of terminating the parental rights of the surrogate and for the life partner of the biological father to have to adopt the child. The pre-birth order states that the same-sex couple are the legal parents of the child and their names are on the birth certificate from the moment of the child’s birth.

The limited progress described in this article reminds me of the old slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes — “You’ve come a long way, baby.” However, this is not the time for advocates of equal rights for same-sex partners to rest on their laurels. With a stroke of the pen in 1996, Clinton signed DOMA, which essentially overrode any individual state’s determination that a certain class of marriages is valid. DOMA also nullified a class of marriages for federal purposes so that same-sex partners cannot receive federal benefits such as Social Security benefits, including SSI and ERISA benefits.

President Obama, in his recent State of the Union message, promised to eradicate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of the United States armed forces. Subsequently, there was a great deal of discussion among members of Congress and among the military chiefs of staff. In The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote a column Feb. 7 titled “Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet.” Rich applauded Admiral Mike Mullen, who called for gays to serve openly in the military. He concluded his article by stating:

“The more bigotry pushed out of the closet for all voters to see, the more likely it is that Americans will be moved to grant overdue full citizenship to gay Americans. It won’t happen overnight, any more than full civil rights for African-Americans immediately followed Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces. But there can be no doubt that Mike Mullen’s powerful act of conscience last week, just as we marked the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter sit-in, pushed history forward. The revealing silence that followed from so many of the usual suspects was pretty golden too.”

The granting of equal rights, benefits, and responsibilities to same-sex partners still has an uphill battle. However, with the foresight of the Superior Court in M.A.T. v. G.S.T., each baby step makes it easier to climb up the hill. •

Originally published here.

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For more information on this area of law, visit 

http://www.mydivorceattorney.com or contact Phillips at 215-568-7757.

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I rarely read novels more than once. There are some I have read several times, but the list might just run to double figures. I have read The Way To Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa twice, but not for the usual reasons. First time though I was so disappointed with the book that I thought I had to be mistaken. So I waited a few months and read it again. Second time through I enjoyed it much more but, on finishing it, I had many of the same reservations as I did first time round.

 

The Way To Paradise juxtaposes two stories which, in essence, deal with how people pursue ideals. It identifies the inevitable selfishness associated with a person’s obsession to achieve, how pragmatism and compromise inevitably dictate daily routine, and how fate, unpredictable and unyielding, has the ultimate say on all of our endeavours.

 

The two stories of The Way To Paradise are related by family. One describes how the French painter, Paul Gaugin, left his job as a mildly successful stockbroker to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. A closet painter while he acted out the humdrum of nine to five to provide for his thoroughly and properly domesticated Danish wife and five children, Paul Gaugin drooled over canvases by impressionist painters such as Manet. The latter’s nude depiction of Olympia played a significant role in crystallising Gaugin’s ambitions. A provocative and highly erotic painting it is, for sure. What Gaugin did not know, it seems, was that the sitter shared the name of his grandmother’s lesbian lover. It would add poignancy to the story if the painting’s subject was actually the grandmother’s lover, but the decades don’t add up.

 

Flora Tristan, Paul Gaugin’s grandma, was born into potential wealth. But she was illegitimate, her wealthy Peruvian father having sired her via a poor French mother. So she grew up in poverty. She marries. She hates sex, abhorring everything to do with the act, so the marriage to an impatient husband does not last. There is a child, but there is also violence, threats, public scenes and estrangement. Flora takes up the struggle for women’s rights, workers’ rights and socialism. She dresses as a man to research the experience of prostitutes. She travels from town to town giving presentations and speeches to guilds, assemblies of the poor and groups of women.

 

Both Paul Gaugin and Flora Tristan travel. The artist, of course, as we all know, went to live on various Pacific islands, where he painted most of the works that now make him famous. But at the time, the experience was far from idyllic. Having wanted to escape the constricting conventions and conservatism of France, he found it reincarnated in the officialdom that dealt with him, his poverty, and his illness, syphilis, which rendered him smelly, pussy and unsightly. On can only imagine what his grandmother would have thought of his processing of local women, whom he painted, infected, made pregnant and then deserted, sometimes in that order. The grandson was doing what the grandmother would have despised, derided. But then the women on the receiving end weren’t Europeans, were they?

 

Flora travelled to Peru in an attempt to claim the inheritance of her birthright. In South America, with colonial heritage all around, she brushed shoulders with the rich, with a way of life she could only dream about in Europe. The experience galvanised her, created the resolution to seek change, a resolve that drove her through her remaining years, prompted her to write, to seek self-expression that might widen and convince her audience.

 

And so both grandmother and grandson pursue their own ideals, never consciously attaining them, of course, but the pursuit, like the life that bears it, is the point. The process is the end, the product merely existence.

 

In reviewing The Way To Paradise I find I have taken much more from the book than I thought. I had problems with the style in that its unidentified narrator constantly seemed to address Flora and Paul directly, referred to them as ‘you’, almost implying that they were acquaintances. On reflection, that might be part of the book’s point, in that celebrity renders those who possess it the friends of anyone. Both characters are thus part of our own common history. We already know them as Paul and Flora. In the case of Paul Gaugin, however, we meet a much lauded, selfish, self-obsessed, perhaps, painter whom everyone recognises. In Flora Tristan, Mario Vargas Llosa tells us, we have a member of the same family who ought to be known better than she is. In contrast with her grandson, however, her selflessness, her energy, her purity, paradoxically, identify her as a figure worthy of respect, worthy of history. The Way To Paradise was clearly worth its second read.

 

Originally published here.

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Philip Spires

Author of Mission, an African novel set in Kenya

http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Michael, a missionary priest, has just killed Munyasya. It was an accident, but Mulonzya, a politician, exploits the tragedy for his own ends. Boniface, a church worker, has just lost his child. He did not make it to the hospital in time, possibly because Michael went to the Mission to retrieve a letter from Janet, a teacher, and the priest?s neighbour. It is Munyasya who has the last laugh, however.

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