“What’s Love Got to do with it?”

A film about the singer Tina Turner and how she rose to stardom with her abusive husband Ike Turner and how she gained the courage to break free.

[Yeah — how is beating a woman up related to loving her?  And what’s using her got to, either?]

I recommend seeing this (if you somehow haven’t, yet).  If not, at least hear the song:

This is a review of the movie.  If somehow, you are unfamiliar with the story/film, you might as well read it, to get a grip on how AFCC — a group renowned for minimizing and reframing exactly what this woman endured as a “high-conflict” and prescribing their coaches to coach victims of this type of brutality to learn now to get along with perpetrators of it [Or, we will take your children and give them to the other parent — or the state]– parodied the title  in a twisted perversion of the original reference — which is of a woman escaping brutal poverty and violence, a role model of success possible after confronting it.

This is hardly the first time AFCC did this, as I blogged earlier in “Clear and Present Danger — fuzzy usage by AFCC“, when a conference indicating that the “Clear and Present Danger” was not (as the California Penal Code stated it was) batterers, but lack of funding for their services.

Actually, that wasn’t fuzzy usage, but targeted usage — directly targeting legal language that addressed domestic violence, and switching usage.   Totally in accord with the organization’s stated purpose, which is the transformation of language — including the language of the criminal codes from state to state.  If, in the process, this also totally transforms the legal process, the courts (from judging law to dispensing therapy and counseling services, “Problem-solving courts” etc.) certainly (as defined by these helpful professionals), it was a worthy end to justify the means, right?

So o o o . . .. they next ask:

“What’s Gender Got To Do With It?”

( a search of the phrase without “AFCC” shows how Tina Turna’s story has permeated the language…)

Many of the conference handouts I’ve been mocking and “outing”recently  (for the marketing schemes they truly are) are from this upcoming (like, next week) AFCC conference in Orlando, Florida.  I mean, what’s not to mock? including that it seems they take themselves seriously.

For example:  ”

This session examines the complex mental health challenges in some child custody litigants and the dilemmas they present for attorneys and mental health professionals working with flawed parents.

Yeah, for the superior professions, it’s sure hard to deal with flawed parents.  It’s ever so irksome dealing with inferior human beings and their flaws.  Perhaps they can commiserate with God in this matter… or seek counsel with Him (oh I forgot — it appears they already did..which is why we have to be subjected to the trainings…these conferences intend to fix us flawed parents (“been there, done that — I confess!  I’m not flawless!”). At our own expense, when it hits the courtroom.

Perhaps flawed parents, on the next go-round, should be sterilized and make life easier for judges, mental health professionals, and attorneys to ply their trades.

Plus, besides the troubles of dealing with flawed parents, the professionals have some of their own friction to work out (these family law professionals at least know not to display their conflicts  in front of the “kids” — i.e., mean, the troublesome parents that need to be educated on how to parent, and divorce, etc.):

 Implications of various professional roles will be explored as will the inherent friction between the roles of attorneys and mental health professionals.    …  Ethical implications of this work will be reviewed….

Wow — in private, among themselves, they actually admit there is an “inherent friction” in mental health professionals & the representatives of law?   And that ethical implications exist? — amazing.   I caught no hint of this in any court proceedings I was in for the past (xx years), most of them lasting 20 minutes and set to review a mediator’s report we’d just received in the courtroom minutes prior to the hearing.  This is called “due process” in action.  (or “inaction,” should I say).

This workshop was run — typical AFCC combo — by a Judge, two Attorneys, and a Ph.D.:

Mary Ferriter, J.D., Esdaile, Barrett & Esdaile, Boston,

MA David Medoff, Ph.D., Suffolk University, Boston, MA

Hon. Edward Donnelly, Middlesex Probate and Family Court, Cambridge, MA

Kelly Leighton, J.D., Barens & Leighton, Salem, MA

OK, so apparently Gender has something to do with it.  So let’s talk about Gender.  Or, eavesdrop on our Legislators trying to talk about it.

What’s Pacific Justice Institute Got to do it?

(with the Gender Debate?)

Who??? — Well,

Pacific Justice Institute for one has lots of love.  They provide services for free to “those” they serve according the the blurb at the bottom of my email alerts:

About The Pacific Justice Institute:  Pacific Justice Institute is a non-profit 501(c)(3) legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties. Pacific Justice Institute works diligently, without charge, to provide their clients with all the legal support they need.  Pacific Justice Institute’s strategy is to coordinate and oversee large numbers of concurrent court actions through a network of over 1,000 affiliate attorneys nationwide. And, according to former US Attorney General Edwin Meese, “The Institute fills a critical need for those whose civil liberties are threatened.” “Through our dedicated attorneys and supporters, we defend the rights of countless* individuals, families and churches… without charge.”

What gender individuals.  Does this include the right gender individuals involved in the destructive jaws of the family law system, and spat out by it when there is neither wealth, nor children under 18, to suck the life out of?

(No.  While PJI tangles repeatedly with the Public Educational system (public), they’re not so foolish as to consistently engage in the family law system, or those entangled in such “family matters.”  Doing so on the behalf of women like me might jeopardize some of the financial support, I suspect….)

**Well, being a nonprofit, they’d better keep some books, like something resembling a headcount at least of their own clients….

AS TO CHURCHES NEEDING TO HAVE THEIR CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTED, BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE CARES:

Churches and church-affiliated charities / organizations have received governmental support a decade by Executive Order.  This means that even tax-paying atheists may be supporting them, unawares, and are, because then-President Bush thought it was a great idea and ordered it.  “Let there be an office of faith-based and community initiatives.”  Lightbulbs went off in religious institutions across the land about access to grants…..  [see intro to google book “Godly Republic:  A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-based Future”

or a (positive, probably) Georgetown 2004 Master’s Thesis submission(search “Eberly”) ?  Don Eberly, a founder of the National Fatherhood Institute, whose agenda was obviously to protect the civil rights of fathers — all fathers — nationwide, who had been attacked by welfare Moms and anti-domestic-violence feminists and the child support system. “

Don Eberly, deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives noted that he believes that the efforts are “’The Ultimate Third Way’” in the renegotiating of ways to approach social philosophy.25 The recent enthusiasm for the new method of social analysis is shared by President Bush as a result of his personal experiences.  The faith-based initiatives stems from his belief that prayer has a transformative power to combat social ills.

“About Don Eberly” (Positive).  Note the sections “Influence Domestically” and “Movement Founder and Scholar”:

• His career includes a decade serving in senior policy positions in the Congress and in the White House under two Presidents, and another decade advocating for and creating non-profit organizations to strengthen community and civic life.
• Don spent much of the 1990s as a social entrepreneur, founding several nationally recognized non-profit organizations, including the Civil Society Project, which promotes innovation in community development and offers technical assistance for new non-profit start ups. In 1994, he founded the National Fatherhood Initiative, a national non-partisan civic organization whose mission is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the number of children raised by committed, engaged fathers.

GWB had faith in him, for sure:

• 

• Remarks to the Fourth National Summit on Fatherhood
  June 7, 2001  (GWB created the OFBCI office by Executive Order in 2001….)

“Thank you all very much for that warm welcome. It’s an honor to be introduced by Tommy Thompson, who not only was an outstanding Governor but, I can assure you, is going to be an outstanding Secretary of Health and Human Services. He is bright, capable, smart, and does everything the President tells him. [Laughter] 

(We are less than amused….)

He’s my buddy. But thank you, Tommy, very much.

I am so honored Members of the United States Congress are here. I appreciate you all being here, Senator Carper, Senator Bayh, Congressman J.C. Watts. If there are other Members of the Congress here, thank you all for coming, as well. Roland Warren, it’s good to meet you, sir. I appreciate your focus and effort. I’ve got something to say about the other two characters up here in a minute. [Laughter]

For 7 years, the National Fatherhood Initiative has been a powerful voice for responsible fatherhood [programs.& funding…] [as defined by the NFI…] . And for those of you involved, on behalf of our Nation, I say thanks from the bottom of our collective hearts.

• [Ha, ha, ha….How many restraining orders were in effect that year? ….How many femicides of women who tried to leave abuse?  Was this detail somewhere, in a dark corner of the conglomerate heart?]

Most States now have initiatives that promote responsible fatherhood, and more than 50 mayors are involved in the National Fatherhood Initiative’s bipartisan Mayors Task Force on Fatherhood Promotion. The fatherhood movement is diverse, but it is united by one belief: Fathers have a unique and irreplaceable role in the lives of children.

Two people who have been a central part of the National Fatherhood Initiative are now a valuable part of my administration, . . . . 

the Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Don Eberly, and the Acting Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services—and, we hope, a man confirmed soon—Wade Horn. [Applause] I was pleased to see Senator Carper leading the applause. [Laughter] Thank you guys for your service, and thank you for your willingness to work on behalf of the American people.

“About Don Eberly” (skeptical) (By: Bill Berkowitz / Published: Feb 7, 2005 at 06:38)

• An advocate of shrinking government, Don Eberly, the head of the Civil Society Project promotes faith-based organizations, private philanthropic initiatives, traditional families, volunteerism and the building of a ‘values’ society. Whose ‘values’ is the question.You won’t find him on many of television’s talking head programs, you wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up, and his essays aren’t sexed-up or buzz-worthy, but for more than 15 years, Don Eberly has been one of the leading advocates of a strain of conservative advocacy known as “civil society.”Although vague and often ambiguous, “civil society” advocates intend to shrink government by handing over responsibility for maintaining and administering what’s left of the social safety net to faith-based organizations, corporate and community groups, families and philanthropic initiatives. As neoconservative cultural critic Gertrude Himmelfarb has written, “When we speak of the restoration of civil society it is a moral restoration we should seek.”

The Teacher in me (forgetting Tina Turner for a few minutes here) believes that we should have a nice link to ath Executive Order of January 29, 2001).  (George W. Bush of Texas having been President 2001-2009, this appears to be one of the first things he did in Office):

For Immediate Release January 29, 2001

EXECUTIVE ORDER

– – – – – – –

ESTABLISHMENT OF WHITE HOUSE OFFICE

OF FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

By the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet social needs in America’s communities, it is hereby ordered as follows: ….   (Recommended reading!  For example, ”

d) All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall cooperate with the White House OFBCI and provide such information, support, and assistance to the White House OFBCI as it may request, to the extent permitted by law.”)

BARACK OBAMA 2010 UPDATE, incl.  “(e)  Administration of the Initiative.  The Department of Health and Human Services shall provide funding and administrative support for the Working Group (which we can see (click on URL) includes the panorama of departments & agencies) to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.”

As we know, from Whitehouse.gov, there’s the:

• • The Executive Branch

  • The Legislative Branch

  • The Judicial Branch

  • The Constitution

And then, to get the jobs done, to execute the policies of the other two branches which the Constitution supports, there are for the Executive Branch

• Federal Agencies & Commissions, too many to list on this site…

  “There are hundreds of federal agencies and commissions charged with handling such responsibilities as managing America’s space program, protecting its forests, and gathering intelligence. For a full listing of Federal Agencies, Departments, and Commissions, visit USA.gov.

(complete with Czars, etc.)  The first one of hundreds — alphabetically — is the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) where Fatherhood.gov, and Child Support Enforcement, Child Protective Services, Head Start, and many of the issues that this blog deals with, resides.  Not to mention The President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, 

I’m not sure if I come under this category or not, yet.  Academically, no.  As to work history, no, or health — probably not.  But if the highest levels of the US government itself cannot figure out whether gender does, or does not, matter how can I be expected to?

Again, how can “PJI” possibly supplement all this  Faith & Fatherhood-laced Federal Endorsements of NFI and OFBCI?   What ongoing attacks on fatherhood and faith is it addressing?  (actually, I do know — I keep my eye on their email alerts..)

Well, for once, it earned its keep, in my eyes:

The conservative legal advocacy group (not that they ever helped me, a female with family law issues) for once earned its free place in my inbox by alerting me to another move by my state legislature to help deconfuse us about how to respond to people who are confused about gender, or at least express it differently.

They write :

CA Legislators to Consider “Refining” Definition of Gender

Sacramento, CA – Lawmakers in the golden state are considering changes to thirty-four statutes “by redefining the definition of gender to also include a person’s… gender expression.” The Legislative Counsel’s Digest explains that under the proposed amendments “gender expression would be defined as meaning a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.” The bill, AB 988, amends the Civil, Education, Government, Labor, and Penal Codes

Well, who’s complying with most of those codes anyhow?  If they are violated, what prison cell is anyone going to go to?  Last I heard the recommendation from our “head of state” was to go build prisons in Mexico.

Consider what’s been poured into the “California Healthy Marriages Coalition” from HHS, enaabled years earlier by GWB as President, this sounds as though California forgot where it’s money comes from — haven’t they been listening?  Or does California(‘s legislature) have some confusion about states rights, still?

Mission & Purpose

The California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC) is a pioneering non-profit organization that works throughout California to improve the well-being of children by strengthening the relationship of parents through Marriage Education and Relationship Skills classes.

In 2006, CHMC received a five-year, $2.4 million per year grant from Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (HHS/ACF), the largest grant ever awarded by HHS/ACF in support of Healthy Marriages.

Correct me if I”m wrong, but the main thing they were pioneers in was size of federal funding and scope of potential clientele (i.e., the entire married, or divorced, or separating but parents, or marriageable, potentially fertile population of California from age 15 up. male & female..).  How courageous, to surge forth on behalf of “Family” with only $2.4 million/year backing….)

Through this funding, CHMC partners with a network of 23 faith- and community-based organizations (FBCOs) throughout California.  Each of CHMC’s funded partner organizations is a coalition consisting of many other FBCOs ** through which they deliver Marriage Education and Relationship Skills classes, enabling CHMC to reach California’s diverse population by traversing the key demographic dimensions of geography, ethnic/cultural differences, and agency-type FBCOs.

Just a little reminder, ‘FBCO’ means “Faith-Based Community Organization.”  Any faithless, secular, agnostic or atheist organizations that may have already been doing marriage counseling need not apply to join THIS marketing group…….  You can be faith-based and counsel the unbelieving (perchance, they’ll be converted by imitation and association) but your leadership cannot be godless….  $2.4 million per year –shared websites — technical and marketing support —  wanna reconsider the category of your org, wanna be transformed to a FBCO?

Well I suppose I better get to the point of this post, which began HERE, which at first blush looks to be a “what’s anatomy got to do with gender?  And what’s my gender expression preference got to do with my employability?”

California Assembly Bill (“AB”) 887,

In bill text the following has special meaning
underline denotes added text
struck out text denotes deleted text

BILL NUMBER: AB 887 INTRODUCED

BILL TEXT

INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Atkins

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

An act to amend Section 51 of the Civil Code, to amend Sections 200, 210.2, 210.7, 220, 32228, 47605.6, 51007, 66260.6, 66260.7, and 66270 of the Education Code, to amend Sections 12920, 12921, 12926, 12930, 12931, 12935, 12940, 12944, 12949, 12955, 12955.8, 12956.1, and 12956.2 of the Government Code, to amend Sections 676.10, 10140, 10140.2, and 12693.28 of the Insurance Code, to amend Section 3600 of the Labor Code, and to amend Sections 186.21, 422.56, 422.85, 3053.4, and 11410 of the Penal Code, relating to gender.

I don’t know Assembly Member Atkins, but it turns out that through redistricting, San Diego voters were able to (and did) elect an “openly Queer Councilmember,” some of which is detailed (when I simply searched on the Assembly person’s name) here.  Lo and behold, Assemblyperson Atkins was the former staff chair of a similarly “out” lesbian, [current Senator] Christine Kehoe –– whose name I know from her attempt to sneak a thinly disguised attempt at legislating Kids’ Turn as THE state-approved parent education plan by having the Judicial Council conduct effectiveness studies.  (Yeah, that’s a mouthful– but see post  on Kicking salemanship up a notch.”).  Amazing what you can do with some great redistricting….

While Atkins was addressing the San Diego Democrats about the horrible budget cuts, it appears a little GLBT (“L” to be specific) nepotism — caught by the San Diego Reader — was going on between her wife’s contract on tehcnical assistance to help San Diego’s homeless by counting them  — yes, counting them — to the tune of $464,750  (Details at “Is Assembly Leader Toni Atkins Cashing in on Homelessness?“

By historymatters | Posted March 8, 2011, 9:07 p.m.

There is an enormous amount of money to be made solving the problem: so more homeless equals more money for State Assembly Leader Toni Atkins and her wife’s private business contracted to do a study.

The article boasts a photo of State Assembly Leader Toni Atkins leading the charge of more than 550 volunteers searching for homeless people with her flashlight.

I have actually heard (in a different county) certain homeless people at a soup kitchen joking about, could they get a county job counting themselves?  After all, who would better know where to look?   

To understand why certain politicians get all excited at the prospects of helping vulnerable populations (kids of divorcing parents, homeless, battered women, etc. . . . ) one must first understand what’s in it for them, or their associates  = contracts.  This sounds like a fairly typical situation.  Do the math.  I’m sure Assemblyperson Atkins’ wife Jennifer did.  $225 per hour, hire an $175/hr expert, a $90/hr former reporter, and some volunteers.  Lots of them.

(Welcome to My State….)  Here are legislators supporting mandatory positive portrayals of LGBT as role models for children in public schools.  Ah well…..

California wants lesbians as mandatory ‘role’ models ~ Family advocates call plan ‘worst school sexual indoctrination ever’

by The Rebel~PWCM~JLAPostedFebruary 12, 2011

{actually not just lesbians, interesting choice of lables to highlight)

“Equality California, an organization that advocates for homosexuality, said others sponsoring the plan include Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego; Assembly member Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco; Assembly member Toni Atkins, D-San Diego; Assembly member Rich Gordon, D-San Mateo; and Assembly member Ricardo Lara, D-East Los Angeles.

Lawmakers in the state of California are proposing a law that would require schools to portray lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals and those who have chosen other alternative sexual lifestyles as positive role models to children in all public schools there.

“SB 48: The worst school sexual indoctrination ever” is how officials with the Campaign for Children and Families describe the proposal, SB 48, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno.

Openly homosexual, Leno boasts on his website of founding a business with his “life partner, Douglas Jackson,” who later died of AIDS complications.

(Leno is known among some circles to be closely connected with a certain self-promoting judicial excellence nonprofit reporting on the “crisis in the courts” locally.  This group was for years (the few years it’s been involved) refusing to report in the fatherhood funding, and still doesn’t, when it comes to feeding information to local on-lines.  So, I do….)

To me, sounds like a very expensive Legislative WAR on Gender Definitions!  However, when I hear about any assemblyperson or senator (LGBT, not LGBT, or redneck) involved in corrupt financial practices while yakkin’ about our broke state, I’ll blog the practices.  Toni Atkins trained under Christine Kehoe and BOTH of them apparently were trying to pull a fast one on voters who can’t keep up with the ideologies (or are focusing on them, rather than on the payrolls)

BUT, MEANWHILE, if we are going to transform society, 

AFCC I think has a simpler, more honest way.  They force us all to pay them to force indoctrinations  on as many people as possible which help make the Civil & Penal Codes, and the language of them, a moot point, and for that matter, the laws.   They do this by getting paraprofessionals into private matters, causing chaos, then running off to hold conferences and trainings with themselves on how to best profit from the mess, and try to exclude non-AFCC-trained professionals (however qualified) from getting a piece of the action.

Jurisdiction was set decades ago, as the chink in the door — any couple having a custody conflict.

It’s clear when you read their conference materials and compare it to actions, that they are simply fulfilling the goal of transforming language — and with it government.  And when you read, you can understand that this is the scheme.     I think it’s a bit roundabout to undo our Bushwhacked Country by rounding up all damages done and starting a States/Federal fight here.

Why should I pay, in any form, for politicians’ gender wars?

I’m an adult without, to my awareness, gender confusion.

Is it OK if I get out from the middle of this ‘high-conflict” relationship?   I’ll even take a “Kids in the Middle“(r), Children in the Middle(r), KidsFirst (though mine have aged out) or even Kids Turn(r) course at my own expense and not ask which foundation also sponsored my participation, or which government grant ALSO sponsored my participation because someone, somehow, somewhere, actually got their paws on my kids’, my, and my ex-husband’s social security numbers and truly understood they were worth more than their (virtual, I guess) weight in gold.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 887, as introduced, Atkins. Gender.

(1) Existing law contains various provisions that define sex as including gender and define gender as including a person’s gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.

This bill would make technical changes to those provisions by refining the definition of gender to also mean a person’s gender identity and gender expression and would define gender expression as meaning a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth. The bill would also replace cross-references to definitions of gender with the referenced definitions refined in the same manner as specified above.

“THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Section 51 of the Civil Code is amended to read:

51. (a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Unruh Civil Rights Act…

….

(e) For purposes of this section: …

4) “Sex” has the same meaning as defined in subdivision (p) of Section 12926 of the Government Code includes, but is not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, or medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth. “Sex” also includes, but is not limited to, a person’s gender. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender expression. “Gender expression” means a person’s gender- related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth .

Copyright 2011 State Net. All Rights Reserved.

What about sex as the direct object of a verb, references to (or promises of) which activity fuels so much of our state’s economy?  And Bush’s intentions to have us abstain from has cost in “abstinence education programs,” as in “Having Sex,”  commonly known as (well, this is wordpress, so fill in the blank after a trip to the local school’s girls — or boys’ — rooms and reading the graffiti, in case your language hasn’t kept up.)

What about sex as a recreational — or procreational –activity, which occasionally and sometimes accidentally, results in human life which can and often is terminated in a variety of ways before or after childbirth, legally or illegally, throughout the lifespan?

Is it really possible to categorize and make legal (or, illegal) all the varieties of human behavior by VOTE?

Note:  Bill was posted at the Network of Care for Behavioral Health with the seal of the City and County of San Francisco up top.  I think their business will be booming shortly, if it isn’t already.  What expressions of healthy behavior are permissible, and who is going to pay if I violate them?

Or feel that my right to, say, indecent exposure might be civilly protected on the basis that I was just engaging in gender expression, and wanted a response as to what others thought mine was…

Well, you tell me — what’s up NEXT in the Legislature that’s likely to affect the bottom line of, for example:

?