Despite being really, really not fond of MRAs Amanda Marcotte is actually pretty ardent about her support for men. Case in point: while she things divorced and separated men still support their children she also thinks it's evil to force indigent and imprisoned men to pay it.

There's a twist to the story, below, that I think makes the point that traditional, conservative anti-feminists are far more brutal to men than even the dead, white "radfems" of the decidedly radical 1970s. Emphasis mine.

But throwing men in jail for not paying child support is just stupid. Charging men who are in prison and literally cannot make the money to pay child support for child support is just stupid. These are policies that not only hurt men that might very well intend to pay child support but can’t, but it doesn’t actually do anything to get the child support paid.  Men who can’t make money can’t pay child support, and being behind bars pretty much means you can’t hold a job.

I realize [expletive deleted] blame feminists for this, but it’s worth pointing out these backwards, punitive laws tend to be in place in anti-feminist, conservative states.  The reason behind them isn’t “feminazis out to get paid”.  It’s actually because conservatives believe that mothers are on public assistance not because they’re poor, but because they’re not married.  They still subscribe to this ridiculous notion that Mom + Dad + Baby = No Problems Ever Again, and figure that if people are struggling financially, it’s because they’re sexual deviants.  And so their child support laws are geared not towards making sure men pay for their children so much as punishing people for not being married, and punishing people for being poor.  It’s no good for the mothers, either, because they’re often expected to go to great lengths to try to get the money from the fathers before they’re permitted to get public assistance to feed their children. This is all rooted in a highly punitive view of gender roles and responsibilities, and no one benefits from it.

Source: Pandagon

I think that's about right. It is evil to hold non-custodial parents (it's not just men) responsible for child support if they're simply and legitimately unable to pay. It's particularly evil to use child support as just another way for legislators and prosecutors to pile on punishment than either law, justice, or (more to the point) penal theory would otherwise allow. And finally, as Amanda makes clear, it's also evil for social service agencies to refuse to provide assistance for children and their custodial parents (usually but not always women) when the primary-earning parent (usually but not always men) are also indigent. Or in jail.

But do check remember that not only do such laws tend to be more draconian in jurisdictions where feminism has less influence, many or most of those laws predate feminism by decades!

So once again, who really hates men? And if you were genuinely interested in men's rights, against whom would you rationally expend most of your efforts to resist their influence? In fact, who might you most logically want to form alliances to combat such oppression?

Oh, and last point?  At least in progressive jurisdictions legislators and courts, legislators, and society in general are all at least sympathetic to two crucial-to-men's-rights issues.

1) That divorce law and child support aren't strictly gendered, such that it's not enshrined that mothers stay home with children and fathers are responsible for all financial support, with the result that if a mother abandons her children or if a mother has more financial resources than the father then child support can go the other way, and

2) That opportunities exist for women such that they are economically, socially, politically, and legally capable of earning a living wage and supporting themselves and their children... or even their children and their ex-husbands if the husbands instead provided most of the primary care.

Items #1 and 2 aren't fully distributed yet, even in progressive, feminist-friendly jurisdictions, but they're a lot further along than in conservative, feminist-antagonistic ones.  Thing is, though, that traditional anti-feminists don't want women to have equal rights (these days they don't seem to want women to have rights at all!)  Such jurisdictions actively don't want men providing anything but financial support for their children (ok, maybe laudably beating them with their belts "when your father gets home.")  But sure as shittin' you're not going to find many feminists who want that for themselves or men.

What the heck is up with these Republicans anyway?  There's just no end to those pricks!

Lindsay Beyerstein, passing on a story about testimony from Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee on the "Shackle Women To their Stoves Until Till They Go Into Labor Then Shackle Them to The Bed Act" "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (emphasis mine.)

if a woman got audited, IRS agents would have to figure out whether a woman used any tax benefit or credit pay for an abortion, Nick Baumann of Mother Jones reports. (Imagine if every angry boyfriend could call up the IRS tip line and get his girlfriend audited over an abortion.)

Barthold said that if a woman used any kind of tax credit, or benefit, to pay for an abortion, the onus would be on her to prove that she was the victim of rape or incest, or that the abortion was needed to save her life. Alternatively, she could prove that her insurance doesn't cover abortion.

Source: TAPPED

To paraphrase Rand Paul, Republicans want it to be safer to be a chizophrenic in an Iowa gun store an American women in an IRS office.

Jill says

Today's GOP outrage comes from New Hampshire, where a GOP state Congressman advocates the elimination of the mentally handicapped, drug addicts, and the physically disabled: "A 91-year-old state representative told a constituent that he believes in eugenics and that the world would be better off without 'defective people.'"

Source: Brilliant at Breakfast

But don't worry, rather than outright "eliminating" undesirables Margaret Sanger sometimes used eugenics arguments to justify providing birth control to impoverished women who couldn't afford doctors and therefore couldn't get it under the table the way middle-class and wealthy women could so we should all just abolish Planned Parenthood.  Or something.

Of course Sanger did it roughly 91 years ago. And later repudiated it

He's still saying it today. What's his excuse?

Not sure why we don't hear anyone saying we should abolish the New Hampshire GOP since one of their senior members believes the same things.  Mostly I think It's Just Not News When Conservatives Do It.

Update: Turns out even they couldn't stomach the guy (at least not in the still-relatively-liberal New Hampshire GOP.) He's outta there.

Photo by Flickr user Wallula Junction. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Dante Atkins says

Mike Huckabee thinks that Natalie Portman sets a bad example for people on account of her unwed pregnancy. Of course! Because as we all know, nobody in their right mind would want to emulate a Harvard-educated, world-famous actress who just won an Academy Award. Maybe if she had been married like that paragon of Christian virtue Britney Spears, things would be just fine.

Source: Daily Kos

Or that even more paragonically virtuous Christian Bristol Palin.  Oh wait!

Oddly, I believe Huckabee actually has a great deal of admiration for a Hollywood star who's firstborn, like Portman's, was conceived out of wedlock.  Enormous admiration.

Clue #1: "Nancy was three months pregnant at the time."

Remember: Why does Huckabee single out Natalie Portman while utterly fucking ignoring it when conservatives do it?  The question positively answers itself.

It's not that, as the usual construction goes "it's ok if you are a Republican" (sometimes abbreviated to IOKIYAR.) It's because, like alcoholism, wife beating, divorce, affairs, teen pregnancy, sexual assault, sex with minors, trolling men's restrooms, hiring escorts, hiring prostitutes, etc., it simply isn't news when a conservative does it because it's so routine.

(Note: Contrary to Huckabee's public position, having a baby out of wedlock when you're financially secure, healthy, not coerced, and have the support not only of your partner but of your community, as Portman is doing, is hardly problematic. Even if, unlike Portman, the prospective mother and father aren't engaged and don't intend to marry.