Something that most people seem to be glossing over is that the author openly admits that this wasn't her first choice-- that she preferred to be partnered, that she sought out having a known donor. But neither one of those worked out. So at the age of 40 she decided to go it alone with the help of a anonymous donor. So all the hysterical folks can rest their fears that fathers are being replaced by the state or that women don't think men matter or are necessary in the lives of children. It is clearly stated that the book she wrote is for women in similar situations, women whose "ideal" didn't happen for whatever reason.

The fact is that not everyone gets their first choice in life. The real dilhemma here is that if you don't get the exact parenting scenario you want if that is enough to turn your back on the desire to have a child. For some women it isn't. Without parnters they decide to have a kid anyways-- mr. or mrs. right didn't come along, they didn't find a known donor, etc. So they make the very best of it and are quite capable of having a child and building a happy, stable family life for that child.

Does that mean their kids will be miserable based on their mother's choices? As others on the board have pointed out, heterosexual unions and couples do not guarentee a happy, stable family.

I think the larger point is that different families are NOT inferior-- and it is a waste of time for strangers to get themselves all in a dither about them. They're not saying what you are all so busy projecting on them.

Perhaps you're not familiar with the concept-- look it up. It's a movement that was born as a rejection of everything MacKinnon/Dworkin stood for, nearly everything about it rejects their essentialist, white, anti-sex, upper-middle-class priviledged perspective. Unfortunately the very radical MacKinnon and Dworkin became the face of feminism and a lot of feminists-- such as myself and every feminist I know-- believe that they don't represent what we think or believe. Need some names of some authors/activists? Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists#Third-wave_feminists It's a nice list that does a good job of representing just how diverse and non-monolithic feminism has become. (Notice how MacKinnon and Dworkin are under "radical feminists"?)

The thing about feminism, or really any ongoing social/civil rights movement, is that it's not a fixed thing, it's a dialogue. Today's feminism is different than yesterday's feminism. Thankfully MacKinnon and Dworkinists are fading fast into feminism's past and haven't written anything in YEARS that has been even vaguely popular.

Regardless of whether or not there is any kind of bias against fathers getting custody of children in the judicial system it is *not* helped by the woman-bashing attitudes held by the vast majority of the men/fathers from Men's Rights groups. Instead they choose to demonize all women/feminists instead of seeking alliances with 3rd wave/equality feminists who would actually sympathize with some of their issues.

Again, show me the feminist writers, the feminist organizations that support men's rights in family courts. I don't see them. In fact, they do everything they can to keep fathers and children apart.

You're getting highly specific here about a pretty narrow issue that few people are engaged in whatsoever. I do not pretend to be an expert by any means. That being said, the only people that generally work on these issues are the father's rights groups with their well-known anti-feminist/women attitudes. So it's not at all surprising that you're not going to find much written that isn't in response to the women-bashing attitudes of father's rights groups. If they aggressively target women they can hardly expect help from women's right's groups, can they? Nice little catch-22, eh? Not exactly the fault of feminists so much as the men themselves.

Not to mention that what we're really talking about here are bitter custody and divorce battles are exactly that-- bitter. It's difficult for outsiders, totally removed parties to take a position for either side, especially when they escalate to doing things such as using kids as pawns against the other and so on. Mostly these types of battles are just sad, the true losers are the kids whose parents can't work things out civilly. So I think most people see judges for these cases as the informed people who decide what is best for the child(ren).

That doesn't make much sense.

The real question is whether or not he's ever attended a same-sex wedding or how he feels about the nice gay couple he stayed with after his wife kicked him out of Gracie Mansion for openly sleeping around while he was mayor.

Seriously. Out of all the candidates the GOP has to offer he's the one that is the most dangerous because he is the most electable. Why? He's really pretty affable, religious but rather gentle about it, he's smart yet folksy, and he has actual governing experience behind him. Basically he's a hard-core conservative that doesn't speak like one. If you've been watching the GOP debates he's the clear stand-out because he's not an ignorant, arrogant jerk. He's kind, grandfatherly and soft-spoken and not a demagogue. He could attract independents.

Huckabee's one stance that makes his popularity among conservatives a little shaky is that he's very comopassionate when it comes to immigration-- he's to the left of Bush. It's one of the reasons that the right didn't get behind him in the beginning, he's not a windbag preacher moralizer. (Ironically, he's a Baptist preacher!) But they could easily overlook this if he became a contender.

This is the Dems to lose and they could if Huckabee is the nominee.