When you are fighting to gain or keep custody of your children, it seems like a bad idea to publicly insult and criticize your children’s other parent, especially in a very public forum that is open and available to anyone, including the family court judge that is deciding your case. Most parents would likely agree with that statement, right? Not Anthony Morelli, the creator of a blog titled “The Psycho Ex-Wife,” on which he publicly belittles and disparages his ex-wife and the mother of his two children, criticizing everything from her appearance to her parenting skills.
Recently, the judge in Morelli’s ongoing child custody case ordered him to take the blog down, stating that to keep it active would cause lasting psychological harm to the couple’s children. Morelli disagreed, stating that the ruling violates his First Amendment right to free speech. He has vowed to fight the judge’s ruling.
Morelli created his blog, which he describes as “the true account of a marriage, divorce, and subsequent child custody fight between a loving man, his terroristic ex-wife….and the husband’s new partner,” in 2007 following his messy divorce. Before being shut down by the family court judge, the blog had some 200,000 followers a month, and was actually making money through ad sales.
That came to an end when a family court judge ordered Morelli to take the blog down in the interest of the couple’s two sons, ages 10 and 12. “Your children are being hurt because you are badmouthing the woman they love in public,” she said. “Should I put them with the man who is publicly browbeating their mother?”
What do you think? Should Morelli be allowed to keep his blog?
Source: New York Daily News, “Judge orders ‘Psycho Ex Wife’ website creator Anthony Morelli to take down blog; Morelli fires back,” Joyce Chen, August 9, 2011