VAWA victory in the House....gender neutral

[joni]

SUCCESS IN THE HOUSE!

After months of hard work, our VAWA campaign has
registered a major success. On Wednesday the House
Judiciary Committee did its mark-up of the Violence
Against Women Act and added this language to make the
House bill male-inclusive:

SEC. 402. DEFINITIONS AND REQUIREMENTS FOR PROGRAMS
RELATING TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. Part T of the
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 is
amended by inserting before section 2001 (42 U.S.C.
3796gg) the following new sections:

'SEC. 2000A. CLARIFICATION THAT PROGRAMS RELATING TO
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ARE GENDER-NEUTRAL. "In this
part, and in any other Act of Congress, unless the
context unequivocally requires otherwise, a provision
authorizing or requiring the Department of Justice to
make grants, or to carry out other activities, for
assistance to victims of domestic violence, dating
violence, stalking, sexual assault, or trafficking in
persons, shall be construed to cover grants that
provide assistance to female victims, male victims, or
both."'


You can see it for yourself by going to
http://thomas.loc.gov and entering HR 3402 (which is
the new number for the House bill).

There is one slight problem with the wording: "unless
the context unequivocally requires otherwise." That
means someone who wants to defy Congressional intent
might come up with some ridiculous argument why male
victims cannot be helped. But we'll deal with that
problem later.

To every person who has written a letter, sent a fax
or e-mail, or made a phone call for RADAR's Shock and
Awe campaign, we say, "Thank you!"

But this is just the beginning. The Senate version of
the bill still ignores male victims, so now we need to
take advantage of the moment.

Consider a following up message as such:


RE: S. 1197, Violence Against Women Act

Dear Senator _____________:

The House of Representatives has just changed the
wording of the Violence Against Women Act to make it
male inclusive (see H.R. 3402). It is only fair that
VAWA help the 835,000 men who are victims of domestic
violence each year.

I am asking you to make sure that the following
language is added to S. 1197:

'CLARIFICATION THAT PROGRAMS RELATING TO VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN ARE GENDER-NEUTRAL. "In this part, and
in any other Act of Congress, a provision authorizing
or requiring the Department of Justice to make grants,
or to carry out other activities, for assistance to
victims of domestic violence, dating violence,
stalking, sexual assault, or trafficking in persons,
shall be construed to cover grants that provide
assistance to female victims, male victims, or both."'



Thank you for making VAWA a law that helps all victims
of domestic violence.

[MYSONSDAD]

I hope I do not come off as being a non believer. I know you personally have made considerable contributions to get this thru, along with many others. And we did make some progress, but have a longer road ahead. We can not settle for this and have to keep up the pressure. They are about to go home for August and we need to hit their home offices.

I will be happy when they rewrite the entire wording, not just a paragraph to pacify the public. They also need to change the VAWA to VAFA.

Might have to wait and see, just how good their word is. My thoughts only, disappointment. Was hoping for more. But, I will continue to write, call and fax. Maybe someone will listen.

How about hitting them with some personal stories? How DV has been used against us with false allegations?

At least this is a start....