What's Cooking in California...

Evidence of steady progress....

Reforming California Domestic Violence Policy
Health and Safety Code: 124250
(See draft of amendments after the following)

During 2006 a very broad coalition of experts had written letters and position papers, signed a petition and testified before legislative committees on AB 2051: Cohn; Domestic Violence, opposing the bill unless amended to include all victims of domestic violence regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Even though the bill was signed into law without the amendments we wanted; we were able to make substantial progress and gain much needed ground for reforms by educating policy makers, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his staff regarding the realities of domestic violence.

The Governor’s staff informed lobbyist & policy consultant Michael Robinson that the Governor signed AB 2051 because he believed it moved policy in a direction of becoming more inclusive. High level staff in the Governor’s office confirmed he firmly believes that we should strive to address the needs of all victims of domestic violence regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

More significantly his office indicated that they are interested in working with the Legislature, NFVLRC and other stakeholder groups to develop a policy that will better serve the entire population during the 2007/2008 legislative session.

Our reasons for the requested reforms are very simple and have strong merits:

Ø The current statutes do not reflect the overwhelming body of empirical data that shows men are domestic violence victims also. The Center for Disease Control data alone shows males represent at least 36 percent of all DV victims. (Fidel's Note: Other data shows that it is closer to 50%)

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm .

Ø Even California’s own Department of Justice DOJ data shows that women represent a high percentage of Domestic Violence related arrests. Females represented 19.7 percent of all DV related arrests during 2004. The data shows similar rates going back to the late 1990’s. (Fidel's Note: Okay, that's 20% - or 1 out of 5. But note that they are only talking about ARREST rates!)

Source: http://safestate.org/index.cfm?navid=753 .

Ø Children of male victims are being denied the same range of services that are offered to female victims simply because their victimized parent is a male.(Fidel's Note: This alone is a smoking gun indicator of what kind of people are found on the other side!)

Ø The current statute language suggests that only lesbian, bisexual and transgendered women are violent in their intimate partner relationships. There is no data to support this and sexual orientation or gender has nothing to do with intimate partner violence. Heterosexual women are also perpetrators of intimate partner violence.(Fidel's Note: That is certainly good of them to admit that LBT women are domestically violent! But I'm bound to wonder what odd manner of mental blockage hinders their extension of this insight to all women...?)

Ø Federal law under the Violence Against Women Act was amended in 2005 to include male victims with a requirement that grants and funding for services be gender neutral.(Fidel's Note: I'm not impressed! If they are sincere, they will start by changing the TITLE of the law to, perhaps, "Violence in Intimate Relations Act".)

Ø Current domestic violence policies for training and victim services are hindering the abilities of experts and treatments providers to reduce domestic violence in our state. (Fidel's Note: More than that, the massive chorus of feminist anti-male propaganda is backing it up from every direction of the cultural compass!)

Please contact lobbyist & policy consultant Michael Robinson at (916) 223-6143 info@nfvlrc.org for further information or questions regarding draft language.

The rest of this, showing the draft of proposed amendments, is well worth reading:

Full version here....