Women Cancel Marriage - Follow-up To Previous Post

“Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it” -- Peggy Joyce

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In a follow-up to the article and within hours of an op-ed piece appearing in the Boston Globe that condemns Massachusetts' out-of-date and lopsided alimony laws ("The Chilling Effect of the State's Divorce Laws," June 13, 2008), we can see the growing influence that alimony has on parties decisions whether or not to get married. In turn, it is the primary cause that is responsible for the current Marriage Strike that is changing the landscape and structure of the family and institution of marriage in our society.

Undisclosed in these reports is the fact that The Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. www.alimonyreform.org, which is the national organization for alimony reform in the U.S., has been supporting the efforts of the Reform Massachusetts Alimony which is the Massachusetts chapter branch of the Alliance. The Alliance's legal team has been responsible for assisting them in their legal efforts from its inception though to the appeals court.

Women Cancel Weddings Within Hours of Boston Globe Op-ed Regarding State's Alimony Laws

BOSTON, June 18, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Within hours of an op-ed piece appearing in the Boston Globe that condemns Massachusetts' out-of-date and lopsided alimony laws ("The Chilling Effect of the State's Divorce Laws," June 13, 2008), Mass Alimony Reform received a phone call from a woman who had planned to marry a divorced man in September, but after reading the article, decided to cancel her wedding.

Link to Boston Globe op-ed:
http://tinyurl.com/4vut59

The op-ed mentions the story of Cathy Ortiz, who works as a secretary in Fairhaven, MA. In 2007 she was ordered to write a weekly check to her husband's ex-wife, because her husband is out of work, even though the ex-wife works full-time and receives benefits. Under the state's current laws, she is entitled to lifetime alimony even though she works full-time and received an equitable share of marital assets in the divorce.

By Monday evening, three days after the op-ed appeared, Steve Hitner, founder Mass Alimony Reform, and Deb Scanlan, founder of The 2nd Wives Club, who support reforms in the state law, had received numerous emails from women saying that they are canceling weddings rather than become subject to divorce laws that could involve their paying alimony to their new husbands' ex-wives once they married.

"We have been astonished by the reaction to the op-ed," said Hitner, whose organization is backing a comprehensive bill, HR 1567, in the Massachusetts legislature. "People are calling from all over the country who are suffering under Massachusetts alimony laws because they got divorced here decades ago."

The op-ed has provoked radio and television media attention, on major stations, including WBZ AM talk radio and WRKO AM.

The author of the op-ed, writer Elizabeth Benedict, has also received queries from strangers concerning their marriage plans. In the op-ed, Benedict describes herself as one of a growing number of people in Massachusetts who refuse to marry because of the state's harsh divorce laws, and particularly those that affect men with lifetime alimony obligations.

"There is no other state in the country that has alimony laws that remotely resemble those of Massachusetts," said attorney Tim Taylor, Lincoln, MA, who drafted HR 1567 and modeled it on California's law, which is considered the state that is most protective of women's interests. HR 1567 was introduced earlier this year but sent for "further study" by the Judiciary Committee. "These laws desperately need to be updated," Taylor said.

Massachusetts alimony practices are not based on statutes passed by the legislature, but on case law, the details of which are unknown to most legislators. Alimony law is gender neutral, but 96 percent of alimony in Massachusetts is paid by men to women.

Currently these are common practices:

-- Alimony is awarded after marriages as short as five years.
-- Couples who sign prenups that waive their right to alimony can and do have their prenups overruled by judges.
-- Alimony is almost always awarded with no time limit. Current law does not permit putting an end date on alimony.
-- Alimony payments do not automatically end or decline when a man retires. A man may be ordered to pay his ex-wife alimony from the pension he lives on and from which she has already received an equitable share at the time of divorce.
-- Alimony is commonly awarded at 30 to 40 percent of total household income, including second spouse.
-- Alimony without end is awarded to women with full-time jobs with benefits and to women with advanced degrees, technical skills, and/or licenses, such as nurses, realtors, and financial analysts.

About Massachusetts Alimony Reform:
Mission of Massachusetts Alimony Reform: "To promote peace and the independence of the parties to divorce, we must amend the alimony laws to clarify guidelines, protect the truly needy and eliminate lifelong marital welfare" http://www.massalimonyreform.org/ .

Please contact Mass Alimony Reform 508 335-0069 for additional information, including a copy of HR 1567, a set of horror stories by people subject to the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court system, and to find out how you can help change the law.
SOURCE Massachusetts Alimony Reform

http://www.massalimonyreform.org
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved End of Story

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Participate in our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

Click Here for divorce and alimony reference books to help you in your efforts.

The Chilling Effect Of State's Divorce Laws In MA

In Genesis, it says that it is not good for a man to be alone; but sometimes it is a great relief. --John Barrymore

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The Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. have been supporting the efforts of the Massachusetts chapter branch of their organization called Reform Massachusetts Alimony. The chapter, led by Cathy Ortiz and her husband have taken the case all the way to the appellate court. This week, when oral arguments were presented to the appellate court, a local reporter from the Boston Globe wrote the following article with his observations, which pretty much gives you an idea of what happens in MA.

The Chilling Effect Of State's Divorce Laws

By Elizabeth Benedict June 13, 2008

FORGET KAFKA. Welcome to Massachusetts. In the 1980s, it was known as Taxachusetts. These days, it's known as the state whose divorce laws are so out of date that many people decide against marrying here - or marrying anyone anywhere whose alimony obligations originate here. I'm one of them. Two divorce lawyers tell me that the state's laws are so extreme they have "a chilling effect on marriage." Prenups offer no guarantees. Judges routinely ignore them.

Cathy Ortiz, a secretary in Fairhaven whose husband is out of work, was ordered in 2007 to make alimony payments from her own paycheck to his ex-wife - who has a full-time job with benefits. The husband, Ernest Ortiz, is suing the state, arguing that these laws are unconstitutional. Oral arguments were heard yesterday in Appeals Court.

Alimony law is largely case law, not statute. Many legislators are shocked to hear the feudal details, unique to Massachusetts. But not shocked enough to reform the law.

The laws are gender neutral, but the facts are not: 96 percent of alimony payers are men, who often must give 30 to 40 percent of gross earnings to educated and sometimes employed women. Alimony does not automatically end or decline at retirement, even after an ex-wife has gotten an equitable share of marital assets. This applies in no-fault divorces, to the middle-class, and to millionaires.

Alimony is usually ordered until the recipient dies or remarries, even for couples in their 30s and 40s. Judges who set time limits may be overruled on appeal. When children are involved, the court usually awards only child support, about 30 percent of a father's income, which ends when children turn 23. Then mothers frequently receive alimony at the same or higher levels, for life.

Many highly skilled workers who took time off to raise children - nurses, paralegals, financial analysts - are often not expected to work again, even if they divorce at 40. Some judges push them to work again; many don't.

Instead of remarrying, which would end their alimony, many women live with boyfriends and become the lifelong charges of their ex-husbands - and, only in Massachusetts, of their ex-husbands' new wives, whose resources are routinely and circuitously considered in determining alimony awards.

The case law is so murky, lawyers disagree on how it works. Some deny it happens. One says it's common, another "an anomaly." Bottom line: Women who marry men with alimony obligations may have even paltry earnings and assets considered when a husband loses a job or retires and tries to lower or end his payments. In 2003 a second wife put her disabled 8-week-old child into daycare to get a menial job to support her family and her husband's ex-wife - a nurse - when his business failed following 9/11. The court refused them any relief.

In 2007, a group of modestly paid second wives whose incomes were directly used to calculate payments were so incensed that they formed The 2nd Wives Club, a partner to Mass Alimony Reform. The groups support HR 1567, modeled on California's law, which was introduced earlier this year to update and codify the state's alimony rulings. A day of heartbreaking hearings turned up no opposition, but the bill was sent for further "study," a polite form of death.

The Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations have created a task force to study problems stemming from lifetime alimony, but it will be months before their recommendations, if any, will be made public. They may eventually support new guidelines for judges, not new legislation, which would clarify and simplify. They prefer ambiguity and case law, which produce more billable hours.

Beyond the injustice of divorce court without end, these laws create two classes of women: those considered too fragile to work and those whose labor is necessary to help support them. In the home of the country's preeminent women's colleges, and home to the most celebrated women in American history, these laws need to change.

Elizabeth Benedict is a novelist and journalist.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

MARRIAGE STRIKE:
* Where Nature Went Wrong
* Getting Married? It Could End in Divorce in Ten Years

EXAMPLES OF A JUDICIAL SYSTEM AND JUDGES GONE AWRY:
* More Judicial Misconduct
* Judicial Misconduct Charges Name Three New York State Judges
* JUDICIAL COMMISSION: Judges punished in private

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Participate in our forum discussion group: http://reform.alimonyvictims.com/

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

Click Here for divorce and alimony reference books to help you in your efforts.

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Misandry by Feminists and the Media

I've been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man. --Sylvester Stallone

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A Feminist View of Misandry

Take a look at the feminist view of men. Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol in 1968, has written a well-known example of misandry in her self-published SCUM Manifesto. In case you're wondering, SCUM is an acronym for 'Society for Cutting Up Men', practically a call for gendercide, the culling of men. Quite literally, Solanas expressed her desire to "institute complete automation and destroy the male sex."

Read the article Communism and the Family by Alexandra Kollontai written in 1920 and see the parallels to what is happening today in our society. It’s frighteningly accurate when you look around you today. Also, take a look at the teachings of the Communist Manifesto.

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Below is an excellent article written by Barbara Kay, a writer for the Canadian Post which typifies how men are portrayed in the media. What is interesting to note is that this a analysis from a woman’s viewpoint and shows that not all women share the feminists views that have even permeated from the U.S. into Canada as well as among other nations.

Misandry Is The Message

Barbara Kay, Canadian National Post, 15May08

The family on the sofa [picture is in article on site below] is divided, but not equally. On one side a sullen, rather menacing father stares defiantly at the camera; on the other, a waifish, stressed-looking mother is shielding anxious children. The message of the advertisement is one we have heard or seen innumerable times in the media: domestic violence is only perpetrated by men, who are by nature disposed to controlling behaviours, while women and children (an inseparable unit) are always innocent victims.

I call it misandry, discrimination against men, but although the Ontario Human Rights Code bars “discrimination via signs or symbols,” I doubt that any charges of discrimination will be laid against the Canadian Women’s Foundation, which has been carpet-bombing the media with this ad. Its appearance in newspapers, bank statements and on the sides of buses is aimed at promoting awareness of domestic violence.

The image represents a half-truth and therefore a lie. The truth, established by all credible, peer-reviewed research, including our official number cruncher StatsCan, is that unprovoked intimate-partner violence is about equally split between men and women. Imagine another picture based on a half-truth: a woman on one side of the sofa, a man protecting children or even his aged mother on the other -- because women abuse the elderly and their children more frequently than men do. You never will see such an ad. Media bias against men is as notable for what you don’t see and hear as for what you do. [READ MORE]

FEMINISM EXPOSED:

* Exposing Feminism Blog – lots of background information

* S.C.U.M. (Society For Cutting Up Men) Manifesto

* A FreeWheeling Philosopher Blog

MARRIAGE STRIKE:

* Ask Dr. Helen: Single Men in Never-Neverland

INTERESTING READING:

* Marc Lepine - The Montreal Massacre - The Crime library – mentioned in article above.

* A Misandry Sampler - Selected Feminist Quotes

* For Feminist Readers: An Introduction to the Men's Movement – MGTOW [Men Going Their Own Way] Blog article.

* Girl Accuses Construction Worker of Rape--an Unbelievable Outcome [January 14th, 2008 by Glenn Sacks]

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Participate in our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

Click Here for divorce and alimony reference books to help you in your efforts.

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