Mail-order bride bill spurs plenty of angry mail

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Mail-order bride bill spurs plenty of angry mail

Monday, February 11, 2002

By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

I thought a columnist's mail was a measure of what tends to tick off the public.

But that was before I read what's been coming at Washington women legislators since they proposed a bill requiring customers of international matchmaking services to disclose their marital and criminal histories to the foreign mates they hope to meet.

It seemed a fairly modest proposal to me. It's not aimed at preventing love, lust or the pursuit of companionship. The bill simply calls for sharing the kind of basic information that would turn up in the barest of background checks.

After all, let us not forget that more than one unwitting "mail-order bride" of a Washington man has wound up among us dead.

Remember pregnant Susana Blackwell, shot in the King County Courthouse in 1995 by the customer of such a service?

And Anastasia King, who was murdered a year ago September and whose mail-order husband (a repeat customer of matchmaking services) is now on trial.

But, modest though their proposal might be, this is the kind of stuff state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and her female cohorts have been receiving ever since:

"What a bunch of narrow-minded women installed in power positions, stepping on the rights of all American men!" one Air Force reservist wrote. "It's the liberal women that is the fault of the Sept. 11 bombing of New York! If you hate American men so much you should be exported to Afghanistan and take Jane Fonda, Madam Albright and Janet Reno ... and all the MADD (Mothers Against Drunken Driving) along too. Fifty years ago when American men drank beer and run over kids playing in the streets this country was far better off then(sic) now with liberal women running things. One foreign woman went down and now all American men must pay the price?"

A constituent named Kelly wrote Kohl-Welles asking her to hold off at least until he replaces the wife who ran off and left him with six kids. And, meanwhile, if Welles has so much spare time to meddle in people's lives, could she please come over and help him change diapers?

Besides, Kelly said, any foreign "bride" who might take him up on his offer would only be improving her standard of living anyhow.

Ross was only one of a hundred or more who blasted the bill as an onerous, Orwellian effort to trample on hard-won American freedoms.

"The purpose appears to restrict access to foreign wives sought by those who have soured on American women," he wrote. "And (it's) promoted by those very women who have driven American men to the conclusion that they would be better off without an American wife."

Hans, who signed his letter "Semper Fi," called the bill a "communist" and typically female plot.

Steve objected to the idea that a guy's criminal record ought to be an obstacle to love. "Once a person's served their time in jail it's over!" he said. (Actually, the bill would not prevent anyone from dating, mating or marrying an ex-con, it would only require that prospective sweethearts be told about prison time served.)

And James wrote that the hidden agenda here is clearly to further undermine a destruction of the American family that started with the passage of abortion rights. It was Roe vs. Wade, he says, that helped "convince American women that they no longer need men."

Scores of e-mailers claimed that requiring background disclosures would put the entire Internet out of business, although exactly how that would work is unclear.

And then there were those like the PTA president and mother of two daughters and who thought that the legislature ought to spend its tax-paid time working on the "REAL ISSUES" of concern to the people who elected them to office.

During a break between votes on those REAL issues last week, Kohl-Welles told me that she's not trying to interfere with commerce or companionship. She's just trying to arm the potentially vulnerable with information that anyone ought to have.

And to protect the local taxpayer who, after all, must pick up the human services pieces when unwitting "mail-order brides" are hurt, killed, or even just abandoned for new models.

Still, Kohl-Welles' mail hasn't been entirely without support for her bill.

Even a few satisfied customers and owner-operators of legitimate matchmaking services have sent kudos for the disclosure bill, saying that no one who is above board would have any reason to object.

And the letters weren't without a few laughs, as well.

"Dear Sen. Jeanne. I love u," wrote one early Valentine.

"Plzz send me your pic, OK?" Your friend Faisal.

And a writer named Samuel offered this advice:

"If women would not play games with men's feelings then us good old-fashion men would not have to go over seas. This is sab (sic)," he lamented.

And I have to agree. The whole thing is "sab" indeed.

Susan Paynter's column appears Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. Call her at 206-448-8392 or send e-mail to susanpaynter@seattlepi.com.

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