Germany and Children’s Right to Have a Father

I have said many times that our struggle is not a speed race that will be won in a sudden blow, but a marathon that will be won with endurance and patience.  I have said also that our struggle has to be counted as the sum of many battles that have been won before and that are being won right now.  I have to add now that there are no small battles, that there are no negligible victories.

A man in Germany had a son out of wedlock.  When he requested custody of his son, it was denied because the mother refused.  He challenged the decision and went to the Constitutional Court.  This, the country's highest court, just have ruled that mothers should not be allowed to veto an unmarried father's request for custody, stating that such a veto is unconstitutional and discriminates against his parental rights (“Children Need Both a Mother and a Father”).

Until this ruling, in the cases of separated couples that have never been married, a father could only apply for custody if the mother agreed to.  The court ruled that, while the mother can continue to be initially granted custody, the father should be allowed to request it.

This ruling followed another by the European Court of Human Rights in 2009, which stated that German laws violated anti-discrimination laws and contradicted the European directive on the right to sustain and respect family life.

The German press greeted this judgement as a step forward of German family law.  The article in Der Spiegel that I am quoting quotes several of these enthusiastic responses:

Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"The constitutional court's decision on custody rights has put an end to an older, insensitive period of family law.  More than 60 years after the German constitution came into effect, it has finally fulfilled its duty to put illegitimate children on an equal footing with other children.  The judgement is a good example of the court's power to make the law adapt to changed family structures.  Almost every third child (in Germany) is now born out of wedlock.  The country's highest court is now trying, with much juristic finesse, to give these children the right to a father as well as a mother."

Financial Times Deutschland:

"First of all, a change in the law is required…  Unmarried and married fathers should be automatically given custody rights to their children when they are born, rather than having to apply for it."

"The reality is that the mother has long ceased to be the only important attachment figure in a child's life."

Die Welt:

"The judgement is a step in the right direction.  Unmarried fathers will in future have a better chance of securing custody rights.  However, to get this chance they have to still drag their ex-partner to court.  This is not only an unnecessary burden on the courts, it is also a burden on the relationship between the parents, which provides the framework for any joint custody of a child."

"It would make sense to give both parents automatic custody rights when a child is born -- including if they are unmarried."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

"It cannot be the case that the mother can block a father's custody of his child, and in doing so interfere with their relationship.  The law cannot abet these kinds of power games that happen when relationships break down.  This is about the welfare of the child.  And family law is still infused with the spirit of the past, a different family reality.  The new ruling is only reflecting the deep changes in society."

"Children need both a mother and a father.  (…)  Those who bring a child into the world together should share responsibility for it."

Bild:

"Fathers are not per se the worst parent and mothers are not automatically the best.  Uncaring fathers and caring mothers -- these are clichés that since yesterday can be put where they belong: in the garbage can of prejudices."

"Of course the best thing is when a child lives with the father AND mother.  As a proper family.  But this ideal case is (unfortunately) not always reality."

"And if the parents split up, then there should be only one criteria for deciding who has custody: the wellbeing of the child."

For those who still had doubts about the power a lone man could have against the system: watch what just happened in Germany.

Catalonia’s New Civil Code and Joint Custody

Things are changing. 

The Parliament of Catalonia approved on Wednesday the draft law for the Second Book of the Civil Code on the person and the family, which establishes joint custody of the children in cases of separation.

As a promising sign of times, it was a woman, the Councilor of Justice Montserrat Tura, who presented the project that, along with the other codes approved by this legislature, constitute an unprecedented body of civil law in Catalonia.  Tura was enthusiastic to highlight that the law is committed to establish shared custody of children as the default option in case of separation; however, in some cases, in the interests of the child, custody can be attributed to one of them.  "We deliberately removed the term “visits”, we do not want winners and losers, we want children served by both parents," she pointed out.

Things are changing, and changing for the better.  Maybe not at the speed that we would like them to change, but they are certainly changing.  The Fathers Rights Movement is wining important battles worldwide.  We cannot allow ourselves to be discouraged by the fact that there is so much to be done.  We all knew that this was going to be a long journey.  The real important fact is that we are gaining terrain inch by inch, foot by foot. 

Let’s add Catalonia to our growing list of battles won.

Support in Unexpected Places: Gloria Steinem in The Colbert Report

I must confess that I am huge fan of Comedy Central, the cable channel dedicated exclusively to comedy shows. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, with my neighbor from Montclair Stephen Colbert, are my “must see TV.”

Last June 22nd, Stephen interviewed Gloria Steinem (March 25, 1934), the icon of American feminism. Steinem, journalist, social and political activist, was a leader and spokeswoman for the Women's Liberation Movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and still is a prominent figure and an important referent of the movement.

During the brief although interesting interview, Stephen asked her to comment on her statement that it was unfair to women to ask them to have careers and to raise children too. In her comments, and to my pleasant surprise, Steinem argued in favor of shared parenting responsibilities, pointed out as a social advancement the fact that the men’s rights movement is fighting so that men have a more active role in the raising of children, and complained that the US laws make difficult to men participate as equal parents as women.

I have said before that regarding family law, some forms of feminism are not real feminism, but feminine supremacism, kind of an “inverted machismo” where women want to have over men the same control that men used to have over them. These false feminist want equality in everything but in family matters, and when they divorce, they want to deny men their right to be parents of their children. If these so-called feminist were so, they would have understood that putting on women all the responsibilities of raising children is just a way of preserving gender inequality, and they would be fighting for equal parenting rights for both genders. And if someone asks who said this, you can reply: Gloria Steinem did.