I need to briefly interrupt Vincent's case to report what happened in another courtroom today.
I watched an excellent parent have a breakdown on the witness stand, while the other parent sat cool and collected. I have seen this happen too often in other cases and courtrooms.
I went because I know their daughter. I know her former school and her violin teachers. She has made no secret of her intense longing to be with the parent who was having the breakdown.
I once asked the girl if she could talk to her court-appointed guardian ad litem, a psychologist. She said despondently: No. She never listens.
Tonight, Phil and I watched a superb movie on DVD. The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on a true story reported by the French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam.
The Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in 1979 and established the Islamic Republic of Iran, bringing a resurgence of Sharia law.
In 1986, an abusive husband plotted to have his wife falsely accused of adultery, so she would be stoned. This would leave their four children without a mother, but it would free their father to marry the 14-year-old girl he lusted for.
The husband persuaded the village mayor and mullah to go along with his false charges, to help set up the rumor mill, and to coerce a frightened man to testify against his wife.
The lies, the legal games, the venomous force behind those jagged stones reminded me of what I had witnessed in court. But these were not a band of men screaming Allah Akbar! as they relished killing an innocent woman.
The scene I witnessed today is being waged by women against a woman with false rumors and legal stratagems as deadly as rocks--intended to destroy the reputation of a vulnerable parent, falsely accused, who was crumbling before our eyes.
No matter how often I witness this kind of legal assault, I find it chilling. Family Court clarifies nothing: It is no safer for children and the parents they love than Sharia law is for women.
