Another Completely One-Sided Article on Domestic Violence

Another completely one-sided article on domestic violence in the August issue of Charisma Magazine entitled "The Sin We Hide From View by Marcia Davis

This is a portion of Pastor Kenneth Deemer's reply to Charisma:

As the director of Shattered Men . . I applaud any effort to end abuse, (but) we need to look at both sides in order to do this . .

Proverbs 21:9 "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house."

Proverbs 21:19 "It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman" (see Proverbs 25:24 also)

. . There are a number of reasons we do not know the real statistics on domestic violence and the link below explores a few of them:

http://www.shatterd men.com/pagetwo.htm

Truth can only be obtained when we listen to all sides of an issue. Most often when a man is charged with domestic violence, he is not even allowed to defend himself in court. Many have back door 'convictions' by attending an anger management class, which in reality, results in a 'conviction' of domestic violence, which will haunt him the rest of his life.

As the director of Shattered Men, I am fearful that by listening to only one side, we are causing more harm to women as well as men but most of all, we are causing great harm to our children.

In reality, the Violence Against Women Act does very little to help anyone and it has been destroying a great many homes resulting in many more fatherless homes with the resulting damage it does to our children.

Family violence has actually dropped but when a system needs victims to survive, to feed the cash cow, they have to come up with them somehow.

R.A.D.A.R. has several special reports on VAWA on their website and I do urge you to read them.

There is another reason to be concerned. I firmly believe that many women are harmed in domestic situations because we do not look at both sides. I am a mental health nurse as well as a pastor. I have seldom seen any conflict between two adults where both did not add to it. To place all the blame on one person is very unrealistic and it is counterproductive.

It is also a concern when someone is awarded for being a victim. VAWA does just this.

Another concern is that for a law with this much impact, I have to question why only one side of this issue was invited to the table to discuss it. No one from any men's rights, Father's rights or even children's rights was invited to the table. Would not this be like Congress preparing a major act on racial relations and only inviting the KKK?

From many of the sermons I and many of the members of Shattered Men have heard on Fathers day verses Mothers day, one would think that all the evils of society were only the man's fault while women had wings and halos and could walk on water. Neither is true although it appears these sites have the same view.

To the best of my knowledge, Shattered Men is the only faith-based organization to address abused men. We however, do not ignore abused women, as about half of our memberships are women. Many of our men and women were abused by the opposite gender but we see them reaching out to each other to help heal the scars of abuse.

2006 DOJ stats on domestic violence
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/intimate/injury.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/intimate/report.htm

Martin S. Fiebert - Department of Psychology - CSU
Assaults by Women on their Spouses / Male Partners: An Annotated Bibliography
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

Pastor Kenneth Deemer

Director Shattered Men
P.O. BOX 166
MARION INDIANA 46952-0166

e-mail: shatteredmen@earthlink.net
Web site: http://www.shatterdmen.com
Interactive Group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shatteredmen/

P.S. JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month