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Orlando Sentinel
Sunday October 31, 1999

Imagine a world without men
For NOW, it's easy
By Kathleen Parker

You no longer have to read between the lines to divine
the National Organization for Women's agenda.  
In a way it seems refreshingly simple:  No Men.

That's the only conclusion one can draw upon reviewing 
NOW's objections to proposed federal legislation, 
popularly known as the "Fathers Count" bill (HR 3073).

The bill isn't exactly a mainstream father's dream.  
Mostly, the bill creates programs to help unemployed 
fathers find jobs so they can produce child 
support for their welfare progeny.  In fact, 
men's-rights activists aren't wild about the bill, 
saying that it addresses only the financial 
responsibilities of fathers while ignoring pressing 
(child access) concerns of fathers disenfranchised by 
courts that favor mothers.

Still on Planet Deadbeat, it's better than nothing.

But NOW "really" doesn't like the bill because, well, 
it seems helpful to men.  The fact that helping men 
might result ultimately in helping women and children 
is irrelevant.  Anything that purports to help men 
is suspect.  In the case of the Fathers Count bill, 
NOW claims that it's unconstitutional.

Martha F. Davis, legal director for NOW's Legal Defense 
and Education Fund, recently wrote the rollowing to 
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, chair of the subcommittee on 
Human Resources:

"Because they (the bill's authors) tie the federal 
benefits available under the Act to gender (ie 
"fathershood) these provisions violate the equal 
protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment...."

At NOW's insistence, language has been added to the 
"Fathers Count" bill so that mothers, expectant mothers 
and married mothers are eligible for benefits and 
services on the same basis as fathers, expectant fathers
and married fathers.  Even so, NOW is callenging the 
bill on its gender-constitutionality.

One could cast NOW's protest in a favorable light.  They
just want to advance equality, right?  But one would be 
wrong.  When it comes to legislation aimed only at 
helping women, NOW forgets everything it knows about 
the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment 
to the Constitution.

For example, NOW issued no such protest to the grant 
application kit for victim services under the Violence 
Against Women Act Fund which specifically states:

"A VAWA-funded project may not use VAWA funds or 
matching funds for projects that focus on children or 
men."  Selective constitutionality at its shameless 
best.

Then, in an astonishing show of its true colors, NOW 
began protesting Vice President Gore's support the 
"Fathers Count" bill pointing out that the bill 
will funnel $150 million to "local and national 
organizations, many of them likely to be fathers' 
rights groups and right-wing (as opposed to left-wing) 
religious organizations."

In an e-mail alert, NOW urged its members to lobby Gore 
to oppse the bill because, get this, the act would give 
money to organizations that:  "promote marriage; enhance
relationship skills; reach how to control aggressive 
behavior;p promote successsful parejnting; train  
parents in money management; encourage regular 
visitaiton between fathers and children; help 
fathers and their families avoid or leave welfare; 
improve fathers'[ economic status" by providing work 
services and education.

Well, hell's bells.  Who'd want such a thing as that? 
Successful marriage, responsible parenting, financial 
independence?  What we clearly need in this country are 
more bad marriages, more bad parenting, more welfare 
families.

You have to wonder why anyone would find fault with a 
government program that promotes the concept of people 
looking after their own families, tryhing to get along. 
You have to wonder, and then you remember:  Follow the 
money.

NOW's livelihood depends on the perception of women as 
victims.  

Strengthening families and reinstating fatherhood 
threatens that status and organizations that thrive on 
it.

Tribune Media Services 
Kathleen Parker, an Orlando Sentinel columnist, 
welcomes comments via e-mail at kparker@kparker.com