Robin Steele Opposes IMBRA Legislation

Robin Steele is fervently and unequivocably opposed to the ill-advised and discriminatory legislative farce called IMBRA, or the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act.

Beware the motives of anyone who tells you otherwise. In fact, beware of anyone who really cares what I think of IMBRA.

In fact, even I don't care what I think about IMBRA. Other than the fact I'm opposed to it. Fiercely and unequivocably.

The MRIs are at it again!
Since Men's Rights Inactivists (MRIs) are not burdened by things like, say, planning, lobbying, writing and publishing articles, demonstrating, promoting legislation, campaigning, and other things real activists do, they have lots of time on their hands. Many of them lately have spent their free time attacking the Femzilla Feminazi Robin Steele that they have fabricated out of straw, fear and hate. As they are unwilling or unable to address Robin Steele's actual views, they concoct Rube-Goldberg-Meets-Oliver-Stone-like exposes that reveal my REAL views, which meet the Femzilla model and allows them to use their boilerplate vitriol and prepackaged hatespeech.

Thanks to the MRI campaign to communicate what I really believe, I have learned that I am a strong and impassioned supporter of something called IMBRA, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act. IMBRA, which has to do with disclosure requirements made by Americans using "marriage brokers" and matchmaking services to meet foreign women, has not seemed to me to be the priority issue of Men's Rights Movement. Why? It seems to me that an issue that affects a few thousand single men is not in the same league as issues related to parental rights, child custody and other issues that affect millions of divorced and divorcing men and their families.

According to www.IMBRA.org:

The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) makes it illegal for Americans to meet foreigners via social websites that specialize in such introductions, without first submitting to criminal background checks and having the foreigner sign an approval that contact is allowed. This outrageous law was secretly added as part of Violence Against Women's Act (VAWA) and presumes that all American men are abusers and foreign women need to be protected from them. Few Congresspeople remember voting for IMBRA or now know what it is all about.

imbra.org contains the usual exaggerated nonsense and hyperbole that so many of these men's sites insist on using to ensure they are not taken seriously ("IMBRA traps foreign women into marriages to foreign abusers and traps American men into marriages to American feminists." IMBRA will bring pestilence, drought, and a plague of locusts will darken the sky for 100 years, weakening the economy for the Feminist oppressors and Al Qaida to take over...)

And of course, what Men's Activist site could resist the mandatory 7th grade wordplay, changing the name of Senator Cantwell to Senator Cuntwell. Clever? You bet it's clever.

IMBRA does seem to be a flawed, one-sided and questionable piece of legislation being snuch through the back door without proper scrutiny. A number of questions occurred to me reading through it, including, "If this is gender neutral legislation, why is it part of the VAWA Violence Against Women Act? Are the same background checks required of the foreign women, in order to protect American men from con-artists? Is it fair to poison potential relationships by disclosing PFAs, which foreign women might not understand are dispensed like fountain drinks in the U.S. family courts?

IMBRA.org also includes a dated but decent article by Wendy McElroy which spells out the excessive restrictions IMBRA adds in order to protect others FROM US? Here's an excerpt:

The disclosure requirement is detailed under the provision entitled "Obligations of International Marriage Broker With Respect to Mandatory Collection of Information."
An international broker cannot provide contact or general information on a foreign woman to an American man unless that broker first collects and discloses to the woman the following information about the man:
— Every state of residence since the age of 18;
— Current or previous marriages as well as how and when they terminated;
— Information on children under 18;
— Any arrest or conviction related to controlled substances, alcohol or prostitution, making no distinction on arrests not leading to conviction;
— Any court orders, including temporary restraining orders, which are notoriously easy to procure;
— Any arrest or conviction for crimes ranging from "homicide" to "child neglect";
— Any arrest or conviction for "similar activity in violation of Federal, State or local criminal law" without specifying what "similar" means.

U.S. law will provide foreign women with extensive government information on American suitors that is not similarly offered to American women — which it shouldn't it be either.