SAFE BlogArchive

A second judge in Cleveland has agreed that the state's new constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage also weakens the state's domestic violence statute.

On Thursday, Cleveland Municipal Judge Lauren C. Moore ruled that a man accused of physically abusing his live-in girlfriend could not be charged with domestic violence, because of Issue 1, which voters approved last fall. That amendment to Ohio's constitution says the state cannot give legal status to unmarried couples.

"People have a very rigid and gendered idea of what domestic violence looks like: Male power over women," explains Philadelphia attorney Lee Carpenter, "whether it comes from posters that say, "He doesn't have to hurt you,' or [phrases like] "battered women's syndrome.'" She credits the women's movement of the '70s and '80s with bringing partner abuse to the national consciousness, but explains the unforeseen downside: A lot of people in the LGBT community, experiencing what Joyce did, "don't even know that what's happening to them can be identified as domestic violence."

As noted in past articles on husband abuse, this silent crime of domestic violence and domestic abuse perpetrated by women against their intimate partners is more pervasive in our society than currently recognized or publicly acknowledged.

The reason why it is so hard to find out how many gay men are battered by their mates is that we'd rather not know about it.

While most people think of domestic violence as being a problem between a male perpetrator and a female victim, there are other, less-noticed victims of abuse, according to those who counsel victims of abuse in San Joaquin County.

http://www.safe4all.org/resource-list/view/35409

Following a successful conviction in Salford, a gay man has recently been convicted of common assault on his partner, Barry Mould the first conviction at Crown Court in Manchester.

Greater Manchester Police are now urging other people in gay and lesbian relationships who are victims of domestic violence to contact them and make use of the support services available.

“They’ve created life-sized red wooden figures with each of them having a plaque telling the story of each woman. These women whose life ended because of family violence,” Luger said.

That sounds like a powerful testiment to the loss of these women's lives. Except later in the article:

Statistics show there were 31 victims of domestic homicide in Alberta between the years 2000 and 2004, with 23 female victims and eight male victims. Males were the perpetrators in 29 of those cases, while women were the cause of two.

We should be acknowledging the seriousness of all of these victims of domestic violence. Why are these eight male victims being left out?

I hope in future years, they acknowledge all victims of domestic violence. Other groups are.

You can write to the newspaper here:

http://www.hintonparklander.com/contact.php

Stop Abuse For Everyone has no hidden agenda with extending domestic violence towards abused men. We're not trying to divert money from women to men, to regain control of women, or any such nonsense.

And the studies we mention frequently are numerous, and convincing. What they show is that men and women are equally violent in their intimate relationships, but that men are less likely to report it, and on average, women are injured more often.

The problem is that if you read articles such as the one we link to, you'll come to the conclusion that he has handily dispatched the argument that men and women are equally violent, or that men are also deserving of services.

The aim of Stop Abuse For Everyone is to have services available to ALL victims, and to have those victims be treated as human beings, rather than categories such as man or woman, gay or straight. If men are injured less often, then they may be less deserving of services, but it should be done on a case by case basis, depending on the severity of their needs rather than who they are.