A tool in the divorce regime

This wasn't supposed to happen here

[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 23, 2002]

In a Free Congress Foundation commentary, "No Restraint On Restraining Orders," Stephen Baskerville describes how these "protective" orders are now being abused, primarily to punish separated or divorced fathers. He claims that the real purpose for the growing use of restraining orders against men is not to prevent violence but to eliminate fathers during divorce proceedings.

Baskerville cites Elaine Epstein of the Massachusetts Women's Bar Association, who claims that restraining orders, "are now used for tactical advantage" in divorce courts. "Everyone knows that restraining orders . . . are granted to virtually all who apply . . . and the facts have become irrelevant." Baskerville explains:

Parents issued with restraining orders based on uncorroborated allegations must vacate their homes and may be arrested for contacting their children. "In one case, a father was arrested . . . when he put a note in his son's suitcase telling the mother the boy had been sick," according to the Boston Globe. In another, a father was arrested for sending his son a birthday card.

A New Jersey judge actually urged his colleagues "not to become concerned about the constitutional rights of the man that you're violating as you grant a restraining order." Restraining orders are a tool of the divorce regime, because they prevent forcibly divorced parents from running into their children in public places. Anyone can attend a child's first communion or soccer game, after all--anyone but their forcibly divorced father, who will be arrested if he shows up.

Restraining orders cannot prevent violence, because violent assault is already illegal. No true criminal is going to be stopped by a court order. The purpose is not to protect anyone from violent fathers but to protect the divorce industry from peaceful ones. Forcing fathers to stay away from their children can provoke precisely the violence it ostensibly intends to prevent. A Massachusetts judge writes, "Few lives, if any, have been saved, but much harm, and possibly loss of lives, has come from . . . restraining orders."

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