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Sunday, Oct 12, 2008
Readers respond to recent articles on molestation allegations, acceptable sexual behavior and the Christian way to handle exotic dancers.
May 24, 2002 | Read "The Ultimate Weapon"
Chris Colin's article resonated with many points in my own life. After several years of marriage counseling and ultimately psychiatric treatment regarding my wife's abusive actions, we divorced. I was granted residential custody of our son as a single dad, and she had weekend visitation.
When I remarried, it seemed to enrage my ex. She visited the house at odd hours, sometimes verbally berating my wife at the front door, at other times just watching from the car. The intensity and frequency of these inappropriate visits escalated. The local police laughed it off: "If I had a buck for every situation like this, I could retire."
It came to a head when my ex tried to beat my wife black and blue for not answering the door quickly enough one afternoon. Our son was terrified, and only then confessed that "Mommy's still hitting me. I was afraid to tell you."
Putting the protection of my wife and son first, I resigned my job, and moved the family overseas near my wife's parents, having little faith in the police or courts to protect us. My ex forged documents showing that she'd had sole custody of our son, and attempted to have an international arrest warrant sworn out for my arrest. During a phone conversation she mocked us: "If I don't kill you in this life, I'll get you in the next."
The judge, although amused by what he thought was one of the more creative threats brought into his courtroom, quickly sorted out truth from forgeries, fact from fiction, and remanded my ex for three separate psychiatric exams and denied her petition for custody of our son.
Although relieved at the outcome, I observed to my attorney afterwards that if I -- as a man -- had assaulted my ex's new spouse, beaten my son and forged documents to have her falsely imprisoned, I'd have been sent to jail myself. My attorney laughed, and reassured me to be happy with the decision ... that given prevailing stereotypes it was better than most divorced dads got. And she must be right ... she deals with this on a daily basis, after all.
-- Rich Black
On a variety of Internet lists, Chris Colin's column "The Ultimate Weapon" has not garnered very favorable reviews. With much justification! In fact it seems to have no other purpose than to slam those who wish to alert others of perhaps the single largest continuing miscarriage of justice in our society, not only in the United States, but internationally.
While offering that society was wrong in repressed memory and the day-care scandals, Colin asks us to suspend our belief that there just might be the possibility that other incidents, such as the current Catholic Church discovery, may be equally as false. Unfortunately for Mr. Colin what international experience and statistics reveal is not a condemnation of those such as Dean Tong, but rather his vindication. In New Zealand 80 percent of repressed memory allegations were dismissed prior to trial. In Canada two separate investigations in the '90s found that about three-quarters of all child sexual assault cases in divorce to be false. Ceci and Bruck in their book "Jeopardy in the Courtroom" peg false allegations in the United States during a divorce to be five times higher.
What Mr. Colin and others of his beliefs seem to wish to refuse to look at is a host of other reasons for the phenomena. Many of those making false allegations suffer from mental illness either by reason of organic defect or substance abuse. Careerism, malfeasance or just plain laziness on the part of authorities. While we may not wish to believe it, there are those in authority who are quite willing to advance their prospects knowing that the cost of a good defense is prohibitive for many. We can even draw on Bill Shakespeare, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Spite is the single largest documented reason for false allegation of a sexual assault.
Mr. Colin also wishes to undermine a fundamental principle of law, innocent until proven guilty. By several times insisting "unsubstantiated" is not the same thing as "unfounded," the innuendo is that the accused are of course guilty. One wonders if Mr. Tong will seek litigation against Salon for such assertions towards him. For the purpose of argument, let us follow the assumption that all these individuals "got away with it." If such is the case such high rates of dismissal should indicate gross incompetence on the part of the legal authorities around the world.
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