I wrote this blog a few days ago but haven't had the heart to post it. I feel like a broken record some days and this day is no different.
Back to bad news.
My friend Gina, who shares my city and has shared her thoughts here on a few occasions, has been fighting for the right to see her daughter since February. The day of my ruling, her ex-partner cut off visitation between she and her daughter. The ruling gave her the ammo to take such action and unfortunately, the courts just gave her permission to use it.
She lost this round but she's a fighter. Her attorney is amazing and together they will do everything they can to get her back to her daughter. But for now, we wait longer than we had hoped. And more wounds are made that will have to be healed.
When will it stop? When will we stop hurting each other like this? When will we stop punishing our children to prove a point? Fine! You're the biological parent! So what? Explain that to a four year old. And I've said it thousand times and will obviously continue but please, do what you can While you can. Talk about what will happen should your relationship dissolve. And maybe it won't help anyway. It didn't help my daughter. But some day it will help some one's daughter. It has to.
I know I'm preaching to the choir. I think you've all heard this a thousand times but a new day comes and I meet another mom who wants to challenge the law with nothing other than emotions. I'm meeting with a woman today whose ex-partner just took their daughter to live in another state. She left and she has no way of finding her. And no defense. No contracts. No legal guardianship. No will. Nothing. What do I say to her?
...
The biggest loser in this situation is always the child. This little girl of Gina's woke up on Friday, February 16th, not knowing that my ruling would affect the rest of her life. While Gina fights to maintain that relationship, the other mother finds it perfectly appropriate to still frequent the gay bars every weekend, participate in Pride Day with a new girlfriend, new friends - her life goes on like she's done nothing. Her new friends don't even know what she's done. They think she's just making a decision on behalf of her child. But she's making a decision on behalf of all of our children and we just let her do it. If we can treat each other this way, how on earth can we expect the world to treat us fairly? But what can we do? Picket the bars? Chase her out of Washington Square? How do we put a face to this? How do we convince ourselves that this behavior is not acceptable?
I wonder if the mother of her knew the kind of ripple effect she'd be causing by her actions. I wonder... if she knew it now, would she change her mind? Tell me what to do. Tell me where to start.
We have to do something. Isn't there a quote that says something like "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"?
Let's do something.
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