I am also a disposable dad [“Disposable Dad,” April 25, City Weekly]. Women are enabled by our court system to do whatever they have to do during divorce proceedings. False charges are commonplace and investigated repeatedly without a shred of evidence. Protective orders can be filed without giving a valid address for the father. Before he even knows there is a hearing, a judgment is put in place. Therapists and counselors are easily manipulated into providing testimony against fathers. God forbid a guardian ad litem gets appointed—that’s just another attorney working for the mother.

If things aren’t going well enough in court, custodial mothers invent all kinds of excuses for denying visitations. Autism, illness (real and imagined) or even phobias can give a mother reason to deny visitation. Fathers are routinely sentenced to parenting classes because they allegedly don’t know how to deal with pretend afflictions. Mothers can delay visitation for months, ask for supervised visits without cause and disparage the father so badly that by the time he actually gets to see the child again, there is fear and estrangement to overcome in an unfamiliar surrounding.

There are enough Josh Powells out there to ruin it for all fathers. Many women are abused and deserve these court services to punish offenders, but the system is easily abused.

Divorce is never good, but children should not be weaponized. Justice would be best served by the children enjoying time with both parents. Custodial parents have a duty to refrain from alienating the noncustodial parent.

CHRIS CARLSON
Salt Lake City