Do Americans Understand the Complexities of Family Law? Probably Not Suggests Poll

In order for family law reform efforts to work, activists will have to convince the broad American public that reform is needed to rectify a system of abuse and discrimination.

But first Americans will have to understand the complexities of the family law system. So the big question is: do they?

Probably not according to a recent Pew poll, whose results were featured on Raw Story at http://rawstory.com/2010/01/poll-americans-pretty-clueless-politics-world/. If the numbers are correct, most Americans are pretty clueless about their political system in general.

Sixty precent of respondents to the poll could not correctly identify Nevada Democrat Harry Reid as Senate majority speaker. Sixty-eight percent did not know that Michael Steele if the chairman of the Republican party. And fifty-nine percent did not know that Stephen Colbert is a comedian and not a real journalist.

This poll should be the subject of consideration for family law reform activists, because if the general public isn't even aware of the basic political playing field, we can also not expect them to understand why we are in dire need of change in the family law system.

Combine this with the hate that is disseminated to the general public, through our government and our mass media, and what you have is a toxic environment that family law activists must wade into every time they set out work.

The key to our battle, it seems, is cleaning up the environment through educational efforts which teach Americans about the daily operations of family courts and government agencies, which are repugnant to basic American ideals. And maybe, along the way, we can also let people know that Stephen Colbert is just a comedian.